Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!cs.tcd.ie!vax1!rwallace
From: rwallace@vax1.tcd.ie
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Left vs. Right Brain <==> Reason vs. Mysticism ?
Message-ID: <30995@vax1.tcd.ie>
Date: 20 Jan 89 18:35:09 GMT
References: <1470@tank.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Computer Laboratory, Trinity College Dublin
Lines: 31

In article <1470@tank.uchicago.edu>, staff_bob@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes:  
>>Granting that you HAVE
>>the sort of right hemisphere you want to "clean up" (and I tend to agree
>>with Minsky that one should be suspicious of such brain division), 
> 
> I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call you (and Minsky) out on this one.
> Exactly what do you mean, 'that one should be suspicious of such brain 
> division'? Left/Right brain laterality wasn't invented by Julian Jaynes.
> There's a very extensive body of research, approaching 20 years in age,
> that effectively *proves* differences between left and right hemispheric
> processing. Sperry, the researcher who 'discovered' the phenomenon while
> examining fomer epileptics who had had their corpus callosum cut, was
> recently awarded the Nobel prize in biology. It might be convenient for
> Minsky to ignore this sound, scientific research, just as it's convenient
> for him to ignore the fact that he hasn't made a significant contribution
> to the field of AI since it was in its infancy, and most of the trails
> he blazed have turned out to be dead ends, but that makes it no less 
> valid.

Nobody is denying that there are differences in operation between the left
and right hemispheres of the brain. What Minsky is criticizing is the
tendency of some people to think that _everything_ can be explained by the
left/right division. There are plenty of other productive lines of approach,
such as studying the interaction between different levels of the mind, or
different systems. And statements that a major figure in AI research hasn't
made a significant contribution since the field was in its infancy are all
the better for evidence to back them up.

"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@vax1.tcd.ie