In <7m480g$6k4$1 at its.hooked.net> Bloxy's at hotmail.com (Bloxy's) writes:
>>In article <7m3pv4$f0c at dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>,
flefever at ix.netcom.com(F. Frank LeFever) wrote:
>>>Well, one question I can answer (assuming it is intended as a
question
>>and not as rhetoric, emerges near the bottom of this comedy of
errors:
>>>"what kinda business are you in, doc?"
>>>ANSWER: I am a neuropsychologist (both clinical and experimental); in
>>terms of livelihood, I am in the rehab business, i.e. am a member of
>>the General Medical Staff of a physical rehabilitation hospital (our
>>patients include those with stroke, traumatic brain injury, MS,
>>epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and a few other neurological disorders
>>particularly relevant to brain function, as well as conditions such
as
- - - - - -(snip) - - - - - - - - - - - -
The morbidly curious can call up and read the entire 20K mess of
Bloxy's interpolated retorts. He appears to be a lost cause. For
anyone else bothering to read all this stuff, I'll simply point out
that I gave a long answer to his perhaps rhetorical question partly
just to tweak him. Beyond that, by listing my clinical, research and
organizational activities, I meant not just to impress him or claim
higher authority, but to reassure him (and others) that my criticisms
are not just impetuous, off-the-top of my head rejoinders, but grow out
of a long and serious consideration of questions of "intelligence" and
"consciousness" as they relate to brain function.
Bloxy misses the point of my most explicit statements, that it is not a
matter of my being "unable" to define "intelligence" but of not being
interested in defining "it".
He seems unable to grasp the concept that there is no such "thing"
called "intelligence" that one is smart enough and learned enough to
define or not smart and learned enough to define. For others (if any)
reading this, let me offer this little tutorial:
Primitive man observed that animals that breathed were able to move
about and do things; those that ceased breathing also ceased to move
about and do things. In the absence of basic knowledge of physiology,
and the role of respiration in the whole of physiology, "spirit" (and
other forms of the words meaning "breath") came to be an explanatory
principle, an entity separate from the body and its functions,
animating it and (upon death) continuing independently of it.
Similarly, observing a multitude of ways that humans coped with a wide
range of problems, our ancestors inferred some kind of entity
responsible for this, and named this hypothetical thing "intelligence".
With the development of the scientific method, we have made
considerable progress in understanding specific examples of coping,
specific examples of processing sensory stimuli, organizing our
perceptions and directing "intelligent" responses.
If someone asserts that this work does not really clarify or explain
"intelligence", then it is the responsibility of this person to define
the term, so we can see just what it is that our scientific analysis
has failed to clarify or explain. This job is apparently too demanding
or the concept that the job needs to be done is too subtle for some
peoople (most people?).
The IMPLICIT definition is apparently rather simplistic: there is
something "in" humans (maybe "in" other animals as well; I suppose
there are different factions among the conceptually-challenged) that
let's us do all these intelligent things, and this "something" CANNOT
be in computers or other living things. In other words, it is a
definition which does not allow any serious discussion, much less any
investigation. It has no "truth" value, because it can neither be
proved nor disproved; it is simply a matter of faith, and/or of
"definition", i.e. it is defined in a way which makes it a priori
impossible for anything other than a living human (animal?) to be
"intelligent".
It has no heuristic value; i.e., it does not inspire efforts to
investigate anything or to learn anything already investigated.
In such a situation, one can only "rhapsodize" about the wonder of it
all. Not that I mean to knock rhapsody: wonder and admiration at the
mysteries of life are appropriate. Some of life's mysteries may never
be understood, some when understood should still inspire awe and
wonder; and true mysteries (i.e. not the vulgarized sense of difficult
clues to follow until one solves the "crime") in some sense can never
be "understood", but it is a vulgar error to rail at those trying to
understand as much as can in principle be understood when approached
with enough work and enough "intelligence".
Bloxy diatribes the common and naive (adolescent?) belief that nobody
else sees what he sees or has had the great insight that he has had; in
general, the neuroscientists he rails against have indeed had these
"insights", probably at about the same age he seems to be (14? 15? the
prediliction for "suck" supports this inference, and I know that many
really talented "computer geeks" have well-developed computer skills by
this age).
We know what he is talking about. We've been there, done that. We've
moved on. He doesn't (yet) know what WE are talking about. Give him a
few years... (of course, if this is a case of ARESTED adolesc
