Xref: utzoo sci.lang:2080 sci.psychology:87
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From: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: ...and Jupiter aligns with Mars...
Message-ID: <973@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Date: 20 Mar 88 03:06:23 GMT
References: <70@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM> <482@minya.UUCP> <941@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <484@minya.UUCP>
Reply-To: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Organization: SUNY Binghamton, NY
Lines: 44

[ Followups directed to sci.psychology only ]

In article <484@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>In article <941@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes:
>> >If you don't know how to learn, then how can you learn to learn?
>> >How can you ever learn anything at all, if you aren't initialized with the
>> >ability to learn?
>> 
>> Why do I need to know how to learn in order to learn? Do you deny that
>> unconsioucs learning can occur? The view I cited says that
>> non-intelligent organisms do not in fact know how to learn, cannot learn
>> to learn, cannot control their learning.  
>
>Oh, I see.  You aren't distinguishing between knowledge and awareness.

Well, I am distinguishing between awareness of something (knowledge of
how to do something) and the ability to do something.  Lower animals
*have the ability to learn*, but do not in fact know anything,
especially not how to learn. 

>It's quite possible to know without being consciously aware of the
knowledge.

I don't know.  That's difficult.  I know that some people think that,
for example, one (unconsciously) knows a language in the same sense that
I know today's date.  But if this is so, it becomes difficult to
distinguish between knowledge and ability.  Let's just say it's a
contentious point, one that doesn't really bear on our argument:
planaria don't know anything, but *can* learn. 

>Anyhow, if there is no "knowledge" (conscious or otherwise) of how to learn, 
>then the organism has no ability to learn, and so it can't learn to learn.  
>Standard bootstrapping problem.  Awareness is another issue entirely.  

I don't doubt that you and I know how to learn, probably unconsciously. 
I do doubt that such knowledge is necessary for the learning itself. 
Planaria just don't know anything at all.  I have no idea what awareness
has to do with it.

O---------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, Professional Cybernetician 
| Systems Science Department, SUNY Binghamton, New York, but my opinions
| vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .