Re: The Hard Problem for Behaviorists

From: Albert (alwagner_at_tcac.net)
Date: 10/22/04 

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 19:26:26 -0500

Curt Welch wrote:
> Albert <alwagner@tcac.net> wrote:
>
>>Curt Welch wrote:
>><snip>
>>> We have sensors that tell us when
>>>neurons are firing, just like we have sensors that tell
>>>us when lightis coming into our eyes.
>>
>>This is pure BS and wild speculation. Neuroscience knows of no
>>such sensors.
>
> It is well known. It's not some "new" discovery. It's just a different
> way of describing the well known functions of neurons that you have never
> thought about.
>
> Think about what happens when any of our sensors are activated? When light
> falls on the eye, or pressure or heat is sensed on the skin? Neurons fire.
> They fire in response to sensing the external signal. This is what a
> "sensor" is. It converts one type of activity into electrical activity in
> our nerves.

You misunderstand me. There are no sensors in the brain that
"tell us when neurons are firing." If you are simply defining
all neurons as sensors then you have said nothing meaningful.

> Now, think about what happens to the neurons in the brain. When do they
> fire? They fire when they sense to correct patterns of electrical activity
> in other neurons. Most the neurons in the brain are acting as a sensor of
> electrical activity in other neurons.

See above.
>
> This is not "pure BS and wild speculation". It's just a different way of
> looking at something that is well known in neuroscience.

Not different at all. See above.
>
>
>> > We sense things, and we react to them. And
>> > that's all the signal processing going on in there.
>>
>>Very wrong.
>>
>>We also imagine things and react to them. We also remember
>>things, including things we previously imagined, and react to
>>them. We also receive things from the outside world through
>>sense organs, but then such things are examined and analyzed at a
>>subconscious level by blending with imagined and remembered
>>things. Therefore, what you 'see' or 'hear' is not just a
>>mechanical process like a camera, but more like what an
>>impressionist artist 'sees'. Ditto for the other senses.

>
> So, you are saying we are able to "sense" things in the data which is not
> just the raw data coming from the eye for example?

I wouldn't use the word 'sense' to describe the application of
expectations and prejudice to sensory data.

>
> But I thought you said we didn't have any sensors like that?

We don't 'have any sensors like that'. Those were your words put
in my mouth.

> If we are
> able to sense these abstractions, how does it happen without sensors?

Your use of the word 'sensor' is much too broad to be useful for
discussion. When everybody stinks, then nobody stinks.

> What would be the advantage to talking
> as if it were happening without sensors?

Clarity.

>
> It happens beacuse the neurons in the brain are acting as pattern sensors.
> They sense patterns of activity in other neurons. And we are aware at the
> conscious level of what they sense as much as we are aware of what the
> sensors in our eye are picking up about light.

You are not aware of neuron activity at all. You are only aware
of the highest level abstraction in multiple layers of
abstraction. The fact that neurons are at the root of the
process is merely coincidental.

>
>>The process that you think is so simple is, in fact, massively
>>and simultaneously recursive and parallel. ....
>
>
> You understand the complexity of implementing our behavior, but you have
> not learned to see how simple it can be when you look at it correctly.

It is not simple.

> Learning to see neurons as electical activity sensors is one step you have
> not yet taken. Try it, you might find it a useful way to look at the
> functioning of the brain.

You have not come up with a *new* way of looking at the brain.
You have simply decided to call all neurons sensors. A rose by
any other name...

>
> When you look at brain function and human behavior correctly, all that crap
> about "memory", and "imagining things", and "parallel processes" and
> storing and retreiving data, can be reduced to one operation - sensing
> patterns of electical activity.

Sure. Right. And a living cell is all about nothing but
electrons and valences. Understand valence in basic chemistry
and you understand life. 

-- 
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the 
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally 
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
     -- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Hard Problem for Behaviorists
    ... just like we have sensors that tell us when light ... way of describing the well known functions of neurons that you have never ... think about what happens to the neurons in the brain. ... They sense patterns of activity in other neurons. ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Something more interesting, please!
    ... Neurons are not equivalent to phenomenal experiences. ... latch onto ideas like firing patterns in the network to explain it. ... self image the brain builds in an attempt to define itself. ... If you drop an apple on the ground, it produces a mark in the dirt. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Reply to Wolf
    ... pulses in response to the current energy inputs and recent ... happens to them as they travel from the sensors to the ... different keys close contacts in different patterns, ... primitive behaviors that could be chained and combined" (how ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: consciousness
    ... And their is the human and their brain, ... of pattern detectors in our brain operating on the sensory data streams ... Neurons are in direct contact with other neurons, ... can be described in terms of the patterns ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: Innoivationm and the Curse of Knowledge, etc
    ... wave it at the robot from a flashlight with a very wide but dimmer beam. ... sensors and won't be able to "understand" what is happening at the level a ... work with and far more unique patterns to pick up on. ... two stimuli to connect. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)