IUBio

the neural net and artificial intelligence

Sturla Molden stumol at stud.ntnu.no
Tue Nov 24 13:26:06 EST 1998


In sci.bio.misc Ray Scanlon <rscanlon at wsg.net> wrote:

: You invoke an homunculus. The homunculus is the little man who sits in the
: middle of your head, watching a TV screen, and punching buttons. Some, more
: sophisticated, envision a mind (soul, self), that selects from the  data
: proffered by the brain, manipulates  that data, comes to a conclusion, and
: forwards the decision to the brain for execution.

One could also ask what's in the head of the small
goblin (homunculus). An even smaller goblin?
By using this argument it is possible, with very
few steps, to reduce the problem of consciousness 
to the realm of quantum mechanics. :)

It should be unneccesarily to say that this is a
noncense arguments, but some social scientists
don't seem to get it, even if they know Alan Sokal's 
humiliation of Social Text.


Sturla Molden




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