Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!violet!cpshelley
From: cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley)
Subject: Re: Perceptron limitations...
Message-ID: <1991Apr2.145525.11793@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Owner of Many System Processes)
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <1991Apr2.092041.9391@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1991 14:55:25 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <1991Apr2.092041.9391@watserv1.waterloo.edu> ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Sneaky Sanj ;-) writes:
>I am writing up a paper for philosophy and I would like to push the
>non-reductive materialism model of the mind.
>
>The basic idea is that an increase in quantity gives rise to a 
>spontaneous and sudden change in quality.

Apparently not, if you're just talking about lumping neuron upon neuron
in a `brain'.  Not only do our brains contain more than some minimum of
neural cells, but the cells come in many kinds and similar ones tend to
group themselves together.  The groups then tend to take on different
functions.  This kind of diversity is apparently part of what makes
`mind' possible.  Since the human brain is our best (understood) example
for mind, the factor of morphological diversity should at least be taken
into account.

>I was wondering if it is correct to cite Minsky & Pappert's _Perceptrons_
>to support such a model of minds, where in order to have a human
>mind be able to process a symbolic language like English, it must be
>of sufficient complexity, and failure to demonstrate this capacity
>in lower primates is the result of a lower complexity brain.

Slightly off topic, there is an article in a 1976 Scientific American 
about paleoneurology.  The author suggests that since our ancestors
had a very rudimentary sense of smell, they could not do things like
territory marking by scent (like wolves), so they resorted to vocalizations
(like apes do, at least when film-crews are around).  This, he claims,
might have been our first impetus to speech and thus language.  If 
you're going to start comparing us with lower primates, then you
should check the paleologic work out.

(The article is the first in a SA reader printed last year.  If you
want to borrow it, e-mail me and I'll bring it in...)

				Cam

--
      Cameron Shelley        | "Belladonna, n.  In Italian a beautiful lady;
cpshelley@violet.waterloo.edu|  in English a deadly poison.  A striking example
    Davis Centre Rm 2136     |  of the essential identity of the two tongues."
 Phone (519) 885-1211 x3390  |				Ambrose Bierce