Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!xanth!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!agarn!throopw From: throopw@agarn.dg.com (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: "Boss, look: da brain, da brain!" Message-ID: <4277@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 20 Mar 89 19:07:54 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <416@censor.UUCP> Sender: usenet@xyzzy.UUCP Lines: 30 > harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) > If you examine the brain with a view to slicing off its "transducers" > and "effectors," you come up against a problem, because even if you > yank off the sensory surfaces, what is actually left over is repeated > analog transforms of the sensory surfaces as you go deeper and deeper > into the brain. An interesting assertion. It seems incorrect on two counts. First is the trivial one, that the chemical reactions in the brain are, at base, representable as discrete and symbolizable. That is, there is a limit to the "analogness" of the brain's representation of the world around it. Second, no case has been made for how much of the "analogness" of the signal that makes its way to the brain is significant. There is some evidence that the "analogness" is, in fact, filtered out quite quickly, and what is left are symbolic representations of relationships among various input stimuli. In fact, it would be very, VERY surprising if the analogness mattered, because the analogness that exists in human neural systems is not accurate. It seems plausible (and even likely) that the "analogness" of signals within the brain are not representations of analog quantities in the "real world". -- "Who would be fighting with the weather like this?" "Only a lunatic." "So you think D'Artagnian is involved?" --- Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw