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From: cjoslyn@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: emergent properties
Keywords: Sparseness_Theory
Message-ID: <4152@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 90 15:59:16 GMT
References: <3499@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <1990Oct3.183522.17076@riacs.edu> <3549@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <45348@apple.Apple.COM> <3560@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: cjoslyn@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Organization: SUNY Binghamton, NY
Lines: 82

In article <3560@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>the very things Neal likes to wallow
>in, I suspect, are mainly the situaitons in which certain brain-parts
>are stimulated by poorly-known "innate releasing mechanisms" of the
>kind described by Lorenz and Tinbergen.  Because of the -- I said
>"primitive" to mean evolutionarily early -- way those brain-parts were
>connected in our early ancestry, those beauty-and-mystery-and-awe
>activities "take over" and inhibit the more recent developments that
>evolved in our journey from monkey to sapiens.  The joke, to me, is
>that THINKING is the glorious part of being human, and I have not the
>slightest reason to suppose that Neal's emotions when transfixed by a
>stupid blue sky or (I dare to say) stupid Rembrandt Portrait that
>people think show the character of a mind from the lines in a face --
>that those emotions are any more subtle or elevating than those of a
>mouse under whichever conditions evoke similar cognitive arrests.  

Well.  .  .a hallmark of evolving systems is that they tend to grow
monotonically, meaning that earlier forms are retained.  Thus your whole
life is dependent on metabolic pathways inhereted from bacteria, and
neoteny as an evolutionary tendency.  This said, some questions/points,
Dr.  Minsky:

1) Surely we must say that ALL of what we are is human.  Is there any a
priori basis other than prejudice to say that it is the later forms of
evolution that are more valuable?

2) Let's try to separate aesthetics from emotions.  I agree that
emotions are evolutionarily prior.  Indeed, trophisms can be understood
as primitive emotion, and thus surely all animals have emotions.  In
fact, emotinos are critical to survival, motivating people to eat,
sleep, etc.  Would you agree that achievement is necessarily motivated
by emotion, the joy of success, the fear of failure.  Without these, Dr. 
Minsky, no doubt you would not be able to achieve what you have in your
life. 

3) But on the other hand, there is every indication that *aesthetics*
are *not* evolutionarily prior, but rather closely correlated with
general human intelligence.  No other species decorate themselves.  The
earliest stone tools show aesthetic elaborations unnecessary for
function.  No doubt somewhere in the vast huge brain are mechanisms for:
a) hearing pitches, intervals, rhythms; b) color patterns; c) geometric
forms, etc.  These are inherent *human* qualities, as is humor.  I
suspect that these features of mind are *necessary* for reasoning, etc. 

4) While aesthetics cause emotional reactions, *everything* causes
emotional reactions, including rational thought.  The exhiliration of
intellectual discovery is why I do this stuff.  And I note with irony
how vehement your comments are in discussing these issues.  Further,
rational thought causes aesthetic reactions.  Many have noted that
scientists accept theories on the basis of their *beauty* and *elegance*
where other criteria fail. 

5) Mice cannot be emotionally motivated by a Rembrandt.  Many tribal
people cannot recognize their own faces in photographs.  Like language,
aesthetics is a *learned skill*, an elaboration based on innate mental
capabilities.  My father hates David Bowie.  The arts have *evolved in
culture as science has*, and are every bit as "highly evolved" as the
rational sciences. 

>Sorry to flame so long at such trivial matters.  Back to
>philosophy/science/psychology?  

These matters are not trivial.  They go to the whole basis of psychology
as an evolved capacity of surviving organisms.

To conclude, it seems extremely short-sighted to dismiss the
emtional/aesthetic as subordinate to the rational.  Aside from the
dubious theoretical basis, this attitude is extremely dangerous.  It
cuts off the *means* of living (how to live) from the *ends* (why live
at all), as the "Western" ideology threatens the viability of life on
the planet through the imperative for economic expansion at all costs. 

I suspect that your view is de-selective, and its extinction will ensue. 
I hope that it will only be the extinction of the *view*, and not of
yourself, or worse yet myself and many, many others. 


-- 
O------------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large, cjoslyn@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
| Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton, Box 1070, Binghamton NY 13901, USA
V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .