"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
>
> > For such diverse tasks it is clear that the brain does operate in
> > parallel. But when it comes to tasks involving similar data items, the
> > brain appears to time-division multiplex, that is, focus its attention
> > on one object at a time so quickly that the conscious mind is not aware
> > of it.
>
> Oh, oh, I think this is Eliezer's, "unconscious congnition" raising
> its ugly head.
No, this is "supporting cognition". A neuron firing is not "unconscious", it's automatic. "Unconscious" implies something that can be either conscious or unconscious; we don't describe rocks as "unconscious" either. Automatic low-level cognition is what lets the brain run without a stack overflow. Unconscious high-level cognition is psychiatric hokum.
Kudos to Dr. Luck for daring to defy the established political correctness of connectionist AI!
-- sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way