Re: The problem of intelligence.

lesterDELzick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Lester Zick) wrote:
> On 21 Jan 2006 21:22:10 GMT, curt@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) in
> comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>
> >"JPL" <park avenue> wrote:
> >> "Curt Welch" <curt@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> >> news:20060108213941.091$gR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> > Risujin <risujin@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >> Curt Welch wrote:
> >> ...
> >> > The mind and the brain are one and the same. There are not two
> >> > things here, it's only one.
> >>
> >> Agreed, in the sense that mind is brain activity. But why do they
> >> appear as "two" ?
> >
> >I don't understand why you would ask that as if I didn't already give
> >you my answer. The 200 line message you are replying to was written
> >entirely for the purpose of explaining why they appear as two. It's
> >because we can't normally hear, see, small, taste, or touch the brain
> >activity assocated with our "thoughts"
>
> You qualify this with "normally" Curt. Is there ever a case when
> we can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch the actual brain activity
> associated with specific thoughts?

Of course. We now have the technology to allow us to see our own brain
activity if for example you just use a bio-feedback device. It could
create feedback to any sense but I believe sound and sight are the ones
most commonly used.

>
> > so that brain activity
> >appears separate in nature from all the other brain activity which we
> >call "the physical world".
>
> Curt, why do you think we cannot detect the results of brain activity
> associated with cognition which appear separate from what you call
> the physical world using the senses?

I've never talked about the "results of brain activity". I only talk about
brain activity itself. And I've always said that we are able to sense it.
I can talk to myself in my head. When I do that, I am sensing my own brain
activity. That's the point I've made over and over in these long messages.

What we can not normally do is sense it with our other senses, such as a
hearing. But with the help of hardware like a bio feedback device, we can
hear it. Of course, bio feedback is a very crude sensation and all this
would be far easier for people to accept if we had some powerful technology
to allow us to sense the activity of individual neurons in our own heads in
real time. PET scans and the like are getting us closer, but there's a
long way to go.

> There has to be some reason.

Well, I can't agree there's a reason for soemthing I never said happaned.

> You
> admit they appear separate. Why?

Gee Lester, I've written hundeds of words explain exactly why. I did it
twice when the last person asked the same question. So you want me to
explain it a thrid time just for you?

How is it that the brain is able to create the concept of a cat given the
flow of sensory data coming into the brain? How does it know that these
numbers flowing in from the eyes, and the ears, both represnt a single
object in the physical world?

The only way it can do that, is by temporal correlation of the signals.
The only way the brain can learn that the thing that looks like a cat, and
the same that sounds like a cat, is one object, instead of two objects, is
the fact that there's a repeatable temporal correlation between the signals
- meaning simply that they keep happening at the same time. We see the cat
open it's month, at the same time we hear a meow. It's the fact that that
keeps happening at the same time, that allows the brain to make the
connection between the vision of the cat, and the sound of the cat.

When we think to ourselves, and look in the mirror. We see no such
correlations. Nothing happens on our face to show us what we are thinking
about. If however, we could open up our own brain and attach probes which
made lights blink when a neuron fired, or a speaker pop when a neuron
fired, then we could see and hear our that aspect of our own thoughts. We
could see the instant correlation between something happening in our head,
and the physical senses. But without opening our head and attaching
probles, we see no correlations, and the brain is then left to conclude,
there are no objects in common, between the cause of our thoughts, and the
cause of all the sensory signals coming from the physical world.

> You consider the senses reliable.
> However you don't consider the appearance of cognition as distinct
> from the senses reliable? Why?


Read the above. Read where I wrote the same thing 5 times in this group in
the past. Read where I explained it in the messages you are following up
to.

> You consider the appearance of
> cognition as distinct from sensory information illusory yet you have
> no alternative theory to suggest why it should be illusory

Like hell I don't. It's temporal correlation. That's how the brain works.

The brain can't find anything in the physical world to explain the internal
private thoughts word because the things that are the connection, our
neurons, are hidden from our external senses by a rather large and thick
skull.

It's an illusion only in the sense that the truth is hidden from us inside
our skull. The brain is not somehow broken, or wired in a special way to
force this illusion to happen. I don't have to pull magic out of the hat
in order to explain the separation. We know how the brain learns to
connect signals together to form the concepts of "objects". It does it by
temporal correlation. The fact that the brain can find no objects in
common between the external sensory signals and the internal sensory
signals is because there are no objects in common which it normally has
access to. The connection is there, it's just hidden inside our skull.

> and sensory
> information not illusory except to assert the illusion is codified in
> language.

No, I only argue that the fact that illusion is codified in langauge to
explain why the culture is having such a hard time excepting the truth now
that it is avaiable to us - now that we have opened the skull of living
humans and know that the brain activity correlats with their private
thoughts.

> But this only shows how the illusion is conveyed if it exists
> and not whether it exists or how it can exist if sensory information
> is reliable and both are the result of brain processes. Even if some
> brain processes result in illusion in cases of sensory illusions what
> you're claiming is that all brain processes of cognition are illusory.

I'm arguring that the brain processes which allow us to understand the
nature of the signals comming into the brain is based on temporal
correlation. That's how it sorts and clasified the signals into "objects".

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@xxxxxxxx http://NewsReader.Com/
.

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