Re: a thinking brain

From: David Longley (David_at_longley.demon.co.uk)
Date: 07/05/04 

Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 19:10:39 +0100

In article <363d693e.0407050909.3fb6c69a@posting.google.com>, ray
scanlon <rscanlon@nycap.rr.com> writes
>David Longley writes:
>
>> >> You make assertions which are false.
>> >
>> >I am entitled to examples. Please do give a few..
>>
>> I've given you plenty in a number of posts.
>
>That is not the answer sought. I wish to learn. Please list some
>examples so I can correct myself.
>
>ray

We don't yet understand how a 302 neurone nematode C. elegans works
(according to Wiesel), and we barely understand a relatively basic
defensive behaviour of Aplysia. We do, however, know how to go about
asking these questions - it's through the use of the science and
technology of behaviour analysis. Your remarks to the contrary are
false, and your remarks about "thinking" and the thalamic reticular
nucleus/cortex are unreliable folk psychological speculation.

If you seriously wish to correct yourself I would suggest you put all
thoughts of "thinking" in the mammalian central nervous system aside and
start looking at the simpler behaviours of animals above and see what
can be learned from what's being done there. The work on the neural
mediation of operant conditioning in Drosophila is another). If that
doesn't appeal, I suggest your interest in any of this is fundamentally
misguided. Much of what's said these days about brain and cognition, or
neural nets and learning is either speculative philosophy or euphemised
statistics respectively. 

-- 
David Longley