From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Feb 09 2003 - 14:13:54 MST
Brent writes
> Jef Allbright replied
>
> > If take a look at the behavior of a
> > complex system with multiple feedback
> > loops, you might feel that it is
> > amazingly responsive to its
> > environment, but you won't necessarily
> > find any one-to-one mapping or
> > representation of the outside world
> > within the system being examined. You
> > could try to build it that way, but it
> > wouldn't be efficient, and at the lowest
> > level the mapping wouldn't hold true.
>
> Yes, this is one point of view. There
> are many intelligent people that would
> agree with this. But it is my opinion
> that this view is wrong and not
> applicable to us. We have very rich
> conscious representations that map very
> closely to the reality we are aware of.
That's one possibility, and I'll admit, the
most likely one. Jef's theoretical point
is still valid, IMO.
> Everything we know is not the object
> itself, but our conscious representation
> of it. It is my opinion that accurate
> representations are the most efficient
> at being intelligent in versatile and
> creative ways. If an intelligent being
> knows something, there is something that
> is part of him that is that knowledge.
Suppose I wonder whether there is such a
representation of my monitor---on which
I'm reading email---in my brain. It turns
out that there is. In our visual cortex
(I forget whether it's V4 or what), there
indeed is such a literal mapping:
Monkeys eyes were held fixed while they
steadily looked at a certain geometric
figure (a grid or a triangle, I forget).
Then they were instantly killed, and it
was found that this same grid was
present, and spatially too, in their
visual cortex (at the back of their heads).
So it seems that we do have a picture in
our heads for visual information.
Lee
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