Re: death of the mind.
From: Sergio Navega (snavega_at_intelliwise.com)
Date: 08/28/04
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Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 13:16:03 -0300
"Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemore2@yahoo.com> escreveu na mensagem
news:413093fd_4@news.athenanews.com...
> SN: The model that I have in my mind about the spatial organization of my
> > home is an abstract representation of my previous perceptual experiences
> > of "seeing" my home.
> >
> > GS: The alternative view is that perception is behavior. It is the
manner
> by
> > which we probe the environment. The behavior of "seeing the inside of
your
> > house" sometimes occurs when it is light and your eye are open and you
are
> > in your house. But the behavior - or part of it - may come to occur at
> other
> > times. Since you are trained to observe your own perceptual behavior,
you
> > can navigate your house in the dark. Seeing does not require a thing
seen.
>
> SN: If asked, I can sketch a map of my house. The details of door
locations,
> positions of living, kitchen, etc., are all (one way or another)
> "represented"
> in my brain. Was I an artist and I would even be able to draw an artistic
> picture of it. I can discuss the nature of these representations, but I
> can't reject them. For me (and the large majority of all cognitive
> neuroscientists), that's evidence enough that our brain keeps some kind
> of representation of spatial environments.
>
> GS: Of course. It has always been assumed that there are copies in the
head
> and that assumption is used to interpret any finding.
One doesn't have to have that assumption. It is a hypothesis that comes
from mere observation: ask an artist to draw a picture of one house.
He/she will command his hands and draw a generic house. The drawing
has a front door, a roof, windows, etc. Where did he get that from?
Psychic powers? Aliens from outer space? A behaviorist gremlin
whispering in his ears? Spatial representations and abstract models
of previous perceptual experiences is in this case a hypothesis that
has been concocted to explain things. A hypothesis that, in case you
don't know, is continuously receiving support from neuroscience.
> > SN: This model doesn't need a homunculus to be "read",[]
> >
> > GS: Of course it does. That is because a mapping is not a
representation.
> It
> > implies an "interpretant." That would be Homey. Homey the Homunculus.
>
> SN: Of course it does not. Patterns of motor commands (sequences of neural
> spikes) need not be generated by a homunculus. Suffice it to be associated
> to a sequence of other patterns, which are also associated to other
> patterns all the way to our sensory inputs. This is the way neuroscience
> deals with behaviors elicited by perceptual experiences (and that has
> been exhaustively demonstrated in humans and other animals). Cognitive
> neuroscience is the systematic study of the nature of the processes
> that happen during this sequence of events. Computational neuroscience
> is the study of the information processing characteristics of such
> processes.
>
>
> GS: As usual, you have simply ignored my answer. The term "representation"
> implies behavior on the part of someone (or some animal) with respect to
the
> "representation." Or it isn't a representation. That is, representations
are
> not representations by virtue of some point-to-point correspondence
between
> the "representation" and that which is represented. They are
representations
> by virtue of their effects on whole people or animals - that's what the
word
> means. So if there are representations in the brain, there must be someone
> in there to make the physical thing into a "representation."
And you don't understood what I've said. I said that motor commands
were the result of specific patterns of activity of the neurons in
one brain as a result of the modeling that this brain has learned
to do. When one learns how to drive a car, one is building a
representation of the dynamics of the controls and their correlations
with perceptual material. This is not something I'm "popping out of
my head", this is the consensus in neuroscience and cognitive science.
> > SN: []this model may be seen as having causal powers. If I feel thirsty,
I
> > can
> > easily walk down the stairs, go to the kitchen, open the refrigerator,
> > pour water in a glass and drink it. I can do that even in the dark.
> > I use one model (such as a set of spatial representations) that I have
> > in my mind to guide the muscles of my body (or, in other words, to
> > *generate behavior*). This is the point: behavior is being generated
> > not as a direct result of external stimuli, but as a consequence of
> > internal organic needs and the guidance of spatial representations.
> > Each time I drink water I am demonstrating to myself how useful it
> > is to think about representations ;-)
> >
> > GS: What a coincidence! Each time you post you remind me of how poorly
> > trained and arrogant you are. But you have a lot of company.
>
> SN: And each time you post I'm reminded the ways behaviorists react when
> stuck in a corner: call your opponent arrogant or just say "it's
> simple operant conditioning".
>
> GS: The fact remains that you criticize a field for which you do not even
> have the understanding of a sophomore after an intro to behavior analysis
> course. Your strategy has been to simply ignore my comments and to
reiterate
> the same tired assertions that I have heard for twenty years.
I don't have to be an expert in astrology to criticize it. Suffice for
me to understand that it doesn't work.
Sergio Navega.
- Next message: Glen Foy: "Re: death of the mind."
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- In reply to: Glen M. Sizemore: "Re: death of the mind."
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