IUBio

Neuro, AI, Robotics seminar Mon.27.jul.1998

F. Frank LeFever flefever at ix.netcom.com
Thu Jul 30 23:21:15 EST 1998


In <35c077c6.0 at news.victoria.tc.ca> mentifex at scn.org (Mentifex) writes:

>
>Stephen Wood <swood at papyrus.mhri.edu.au> on 30.jul.1998 from the
>http://www.mhri.edu.au Mental Health Reseach Institute writes:
>
>Mentifex wrote:      
>   

- - - - - - (snip) - - - - - - - - - - - -


>  The theory here appeals to logic.  I do not know know which of
>  your above cited varieties of neurons fits the bill for a long
>  fiber holding a concept.  Nevertheless, it is in the nature of
>  a neuron to have a long axon with potentially up to 10K synapses.
>

- - - - - - - -(snip) - - - - - - - - - - - - -


>
>  For example, the main departure point for this theory of mind is
>  the idea that logic dictates several things:
>  1.  Sensory perception MUST feed into linear memory channels.

-----I don't know whether it is the logic or the language that's
-----lacking here.  Perhaps I don't know what you mean by "linear
-----memory channels".  What's linear, the channel or the memory??
-----What we know of sensory perception is that the channels are
-----divergent, parallel, and only slghtly redundant (i.e.  the
-----channels carry different unique information based on the same
-----sensory input, en route to the hippocampus.  Increasingly
-----"permanent" memory seems to be based on a return of this
-----information, in some form, to the regioon just traversed by these
-----inputs; whether to precisely the same fibers is not known yet.
-----Truth is stranger than fiction--sorry, I mean "logic".




>  2.  There is obviously intermodal communication among the channels.

-------Not necesarily directly between channels.  Would you accept "via
-------structures such as hippocampus and/or amygdala"?


>  3.  Concepts MUST reside elsewhere than in the sensory channels.

-------Definition of "concept"?  Not obvious why they MUST reside
-------elsewhere.  Some current work suggests reactivation of the same
-------cells involved in original percepts.


>  4.  THEREFORE, concepts must lie EITHER in the neurons linking
>      the separate sensory memory channels, OR in neurons MEDIATING
>      the linkage of sensory modalities.  The second choice prevails.

-------Not clear what you mean by difference between neurons linking
-------them and neurons mediating tthe linkage.  In either case, it is
-------a logical error to say the concepts "lie" or "reside" IN them.


- - - - - - - -(snip) - - - - - - - - - - -
  
>
>  People think across a whole range of modalities; we are concerned
>  here with the generation of a COMMUNICABLE thought.  If you are
>  attending a lecture and formulating in your mind a question to ask,
>  your auditory memory channel HEARS each surface-structure version
>  of the sentence that you are generating in the form of a question.
>  The auditory memory channel is your only SELF-PERCEIVING channel:
>  whatever we think verbally, we also experience verbally -- in a
>  creative loop of initial formulation and subsequent refinement.
>

------Well, here we have tthe root of the problem: as with centuries
-----of fruitless speculation before development of scientific inquiry,
-----you have elevated your INTROSPECTION (not even an honest naive
-----introspection, but one which the Introspectionists would have said
-----involved The Stimulus Error, influenced by whatever your readings
-----led you to expect) to the level of a Self Obvious Truth.

-----F. LeFever






















>>>  Dr. LeFever, sometimes History taps a man on the shoulder and he
>>>  must choose to take advantage of that tide in the affairs of men
>>>  which leads on to fortune.  Please consider such options as wear-
>>>  ing to your meetings a nametag or button:  "Ask me about
Mentifex."
>>>  Be either the great debunker of Mentifex or the great Dr. LeFever.
>
>>  Or be both! Or alternatively, give up on Mentifex and get on with
>>  some serious research.




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