Re: Sociobacteriology

On Oct 27, 9:24 am, r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:16:41 +1000, j.wilki...@xxxxxxxxx (John

Wilkins) wrote:

<snip out all except portions on thinking and AI>





Mujin <umwin...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A large problem here is that we have no account of how intentionality
arises from underlying neural processes as yet. We recognise that it
does, as a phenomenon, and so it is licensed in the case of these
brains, etc. We suspect it might be multiply realiseable, so we can't
rule out that bacterial communities *are* intentional. But, and here is
my objection, we need to have *some* criteria for the use of terms as
loaded as "thinking", "problem solving", and so on, because these terms
get quickly out of hand, and confuse the issue enormously.

So then you consider "thinking systems" to be tautologically equivalent to
"systems with structures like brains"?

Not tautologically. It's a prototype, not a definition. We call that
thinking which behaves enough like a brain and has some obvious
underlying structure that supports it. I simply do not think that quorum
sensing and ecological interactions make a system complex enough.

Remember, natural selection is a replacement term for an intentional one
- "design". Calling adaptation "design" confused and blocked progress
for a long time. Likewise calling what ecosystems do, even if they are
very small ones like a microbial community or biofilm, "thinking" is
equally going to retard progress. Use of intentional language is onerous
- you have to be able to defend it in cases that vary too far from the
prototypes.
Aren't you then taking this conclusion
as the foundation for your assertion that thinking machines *must* resemble
brains? It seems a bit of a stretch to me, but I assume there's more to
the argument than would reasonably fit in a Usenet post?

I do not say that AIs *must* resemble brains. I say that in order to
explicate what human brains *do* do, AIs need to be quite a bit more
like the brains they are trying to model. So far they are toy models of
simplified and abstracted subprocesses in brains, and so far, they don't
exhibit thinking.

What you seem to be saying is that "No, thinking arises by some
mysterious process from brains and without brains you can't have
thinking" by simply denying that anything that doesn't look like a
brain is so far removed that it can't possibly think. You deny it and
then confirm it.

You also revert back to that vertebrate/animal/metazooan bias you
decry by dismissing microbial ecological systems as merely "very
small". By that you can't mean merely that the participants are
microscopic in size; you deliberately intend that the scope of the
system is small and limited in capability.

There's such a difference in magnitude of so many factors between a
collection of bacteria and a highly differentiated collection of
neurons or the group of people who carry these neurons as a "brain",
that I think we may need to think in terms of differences in kinds (or
categories) instead of degree. Much different types of things can
emerge out of a crowd of humans than a clump of bacteria.

We know (no matter how much you may deny it) that a collective of
mutually interacting agents can act as an entity and perform tasks far
beyond the capability of the individual agents.

A pseudplasmodial grex can achieve more than the individual amoebae
themselves yes. So!?

When a mother bacterium hits her child in the mall do all the
passersby suddenly stop and stare at her? When bacteria attend a heavy
metal concert do they form a mosh pit?

We know that these
capabilities are not simply the cumulative power derived by adding
together small increments but are completely new phenomena
qualitatively different from the behavior of the separate individual
agents.

There's a chance of a severe category error here. If you gloss over
too much in the disanalogy department you may misdirect yourself down
a fruitless path.

We know that that collective behavior can perform
operations that would in other contexts be considered goal seeking
and have such complex internal organization and be so clearly
specialized to perform tasks as to be considered in other contexts to
be design.

Now you have again crossed the line with [mis?]appropration of
terminology from other disciplines. Sociology has a specific term
"collective behavior" that is applied in certain instances to groups
of humans. In applying this sociological term to non-human systems are
you glossing over some important details in the development of the
concept and surrounding theories as it applies to humans to forcefit
bacteria into a Procrustean bed of crowd dynamics?

We know that such complex systems can develop naturally
without the guiding hand of an intelligent overseer.

Human crowds can form and do things that individual members may not
have done alone. and this is not always a positive thing.

However when confronted with descriptions of such processes performed
by organisms as puny as little ol' bacteria described in a context
where exuberant language and description would be appropriate and
clearly understood by the audience, you retreat in horror.

Psychological and sociological terms apply in their appropriate
context to humans. We run the risk of anthropomorphism *writ large* if
we apply these terms to bacteria. It's risky enough if we apply some
human derived theories to closest relatives like chimpanzees. There's
the essential tension between anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism.
In the case of chimps I"d be more likely to risk being
anthropomorphic. In the case of bacteria, I think is not even
anthropocentric to say terms that apply to humans are inappropriate.
Do bacteria sail pirate ships? Do they listen to classical music? At
some point it becomes ludicrous to apply an analogy.

The complex systems audience knows what the words mean and how they
are used. Your insistence that nothing but the molecular mechanisms
have any reality in the "real world" will not stand as we get closer
to explaining how the brain is capable of performing the things it
does. You will not find "thought" in the opening and closing of ion
channels in a membrane or the binding of neurotransmitters to a
membrane receptors. Yet that is what the brain actually does. No,
"thought" and "consciousness" and "free will" arise from higher level
emergent properties of collectives of neurons interacting with other
collectives; from activity patterns that may exist even independent of
the particular neurons on which they arise interacting with other
activity patterns. These higher level processes are not reducible to
molecular interactions even though they are nothing more than
molecular interactions. And I would argue that the notions arising
out of complex systems ways of thinking are the best and possibly the
only way to understand the system-level processes operating in the
brain, in ecosystems, and in the operation of the process we call
"life".

OK I think in terms of emergence, but I think at the end of the day it
reduces to lower levels. Its just that interections of factors at
lower levels make for more than an additive effect.

That being said, would complex systems theorists subscribe to the
following definition of collective behavior (from Donelson Forsyth's
_Group Dynamics (2nd ed)_: "spontaneous and often atypical actions
performed by individuals when they become part of a large group."
Superficially it seems like this might apply to a group of bacteria
where individuals might act differently than when alone, but the devil
is in the details. We are talking specifically about a human group
here.

.

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