Re: How much intelligence?


chadmaester wrote:
...it's been a while, but oh well - I don't have a lot of time on my
hands cause it's finals.

I think you will find that behaviorists do not believe
the brain stores anything. It simply "changes" in
a way to make it behave differently next time. Or
something like that.

To me, that is simply incorrect. The brain has to be storing things
because it can recall things without being anywhere close to whatever
it is thinking about. For instance, if I'm on the other side of the
world I can easily recall what my house looks like back home - anytime,
any place.

A computer program that recognizes handwritten characters stores
information about the characters. Indeed, it changes the more and more
it trains and learns the characteristics of the characters, but it DOES
have internal representations of the characters - the connections and
strengths of connections between the neurons (artificial neurons, that
is). I think our brains do the same thing, but they have a mechanism
which allows us to put these characteristics together and form mental
pictures (maybe STM; and maybe that's what cognition is). We can create
connections between neurons, and the strengths and placements of these
connections are what give us understanding. I'm not sure what forms a
solid memory - probably the more connections that exist, the more or an
understanding/grasp we have of a concept or concepts (if you know
anything about associative memory models, a single network can store
multiple memories).

Sorry I went off on a tangent there, but do you agree/disagree?

I don't have a problem with the views you expressed, behaviorist might
:-)

--
JC

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: How much intelligence?
    ... The brain has to be storing things ... A computer program that recognizes handwritten characters stores ... strengths of connections between the neurons (artificial neurons, ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: How much intelligence?
    ... The brain has to be storing things ... A computer program that recognizes handwritten characters stores ... strengths of connections between the neurons (artificial neurons, ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: How much intelligence?
    ... The brain has to be storing things ... A computer program that recognizes handwritten characters stores ... strengths of connections between the neurons (artificial neurons, ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: How much intelligence?
    ... The brain has to be storing things ... A computer program that recognizes handwritten characters stores ... strengths of connections between the neurons (artificial neurons, ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: How much intelligence?
    ... The brain has to be storing things ... A computer program that recognizes handwritten characters stores ... strengths of connections between the neurons (artificial neurons, ... The mistake in this sort of talk is to assume that control is a meaningful concept - which it happens to be when discussing a stored-program computer, but not when discussing animal brains. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)