Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!necntc!dandelion!ulowell!eagle!sbrunnoc
From: sbrunnoc@eagle.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: language, thought, and culture
Message-ID: <5378@swan.ulowell.edu>
Date: 10 Mar 88 21:54:13 GMT
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Reply-To: sbrunnoc@eagle.UUCP (Sean Brunnock)
Organization: University of Lowell, CS Dept.
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Keywords: thought modalities

In article <5776@dhw68k.cts.com> doug@dhw68k.cts.com (Doug Salot) writes:
>In article Cliff Joslyn writes:
>
>There are currently discussions going on in sci.bio, sci.med,
>sci.psychology, comp.edu, and here in sci.lang that all skirt
>around the question of the nature of intelligence, so I'm cross-
>posting this in the hopes that we can converge on a solution.
>
>There are several issues here.  Why can humans speak, but animals
>cannot (from comp.ai, "Why can't my cat talk?").  What is intelligence?
>Is the ability to communicate a neccessary precondition of intelligence?
>Does it follow from intelligence?  What is it that differentiates smart
>and stupid people (or animals?)?  How can we best exploit the intelligence
>mechanisms in education?

   OK I'll bite. I define intelligence as the ability to make new
Stimulus -> Response associations. Everything responds to stimulus.
Put a rock in open air and its response is to fall to the ground.
Flowers bloom when exposed to light. These S->R relationships can
be explained by laws of physical sciences and these S->R relationships
will never change.

   An animal can make new S->R relationships though. The flatworm
(the simplest animal to possess a brain) normally shows no response
upon exposure to light and will recoil upon electrical shock. If you
repeatedly expose the flatworm to light and electrical shock together,
then after many trials the flatworm will learn to recoil upon exposure
to light. This is the most basic form of learning discovered by Pavlov.

   What seperates man from a flatworm? What has been developing in the
brain that puts man at the top rung of the ladder? The frontal lobe.
The frontal lobe is considered to be the seat of man's intelligence.
If you remove the frontal lobe ( a lobotomy ) from a person, then that
person becomes "stupid". He will only be capable of Pavlovian learning
and no more intelligent than a flatworm. Man would possess more complex
sensory and motor organs and therefore able to make finer distinctions
in stimuli than a flatworm, but if you gave a flatworm the same organs
and a brain large enough to make sense of the inputs, then the person
and the flatworm would possess comparable intelligence.

   What does the frontal lobe do that gives man his greater intelligence?
I believe that it possesses conciousness. A man with conciousness can
(for lack of a better word) conciously make reactions without the need
for outside stimuli. Conciousness can also create stimuli at will (the
cognitive image). This makes learning in a person more efficient. By
tweeking responses at the same time the brain gets sensory input (whether
real or imagined), associations are strengthened much faster. I won't go
into the details of the physiology of this.

   This is how I believe the human mind works. I would like to get some
input on how conciousness works.
   
   If there are any women offended by my exclusive use of the term "man",
I am sorry. It is due to my laziness.

   Much of what I have learned concerning the brain comes from Isaac
Asimov's book "The Human Brain: Its Capacities and Functions" (Houghton
Mifflin, 1963).


       Sean Brunnock
       University of Lowell
       sbrunnoc@eagle.cs.ulowell.edu