Matt Gingell wrote:
>
> I find the notion that there exists some universal 'language of mind'
> encoding system underlying cognition extremely implausible. It seems
> much more likely that each individual's representation system is highly
> idiosyncratic. If everyone's high-level codes are different, the
> prospects for wire-to-brain interfaces seem bleak.
Yes, that's the point. Suppose they are idiosyncratic, as unique as the locations-in-memory of a semantic net. There still have to be certain regularities that can be used to hook up cognition with the emotional system, which *is* regular, or at least a lot more regular. If you figure out what the regularities are, you can use them as an entrance point into any particular individual's idiosyncratic encoding.
--
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