Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!geb
From: geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The limitations of logic
Keywords: Simulated Brain, Simulated Thought, Contemplation
Message-ID: <1902@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Date: 22 Dec 88 15:03:31 GMT
References: <9020@bcsaic.UUCP> <1628@buengc.BU.EDU> <42836@linus.UUCP> <YXci3Ey00Xo48FpkVH@andrew.cmu.edu> <42962@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu (Gordon E. Banks)
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
Lines: 16

In article <42962@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort) writes:
>
>OK.  Let's say the simulated brain considers itself to be a
>self-directed free thinker.  The question remains.  How does
>it select the subject of its contemplation?
>

Possibly we will need to understand better the control mechanisms
that direct attention in the real brain in order to properly
design an artificial one.  Both parietal and frontal lobe play
roles in directing conscious attention.  The frontal lobes
have a role in assessing competing stimuli, and the parietal
lobes are needed in order to attend to them.  I suspect that
more abstract topics for contemplation also compete for attention
by the more serially behaving conscious.  The exact mechanisms
aren't clear to me at this time.