winghorse at aol.com (WingHorse) wrote on 11 Apr 2001 18:24:25:
> In article <3acf213b at news.victoria.tc.ca>,
>uj797 at victoria.tc.ca (Arthur T. Murray) writes:
>>> The neural net gradually recognizes self as an entity.
>> Wherever the self directs or shines its searchlight of attention,
>> it finds data streaming inwards, and thus an illusion of
>> consciousness emerges from the voluntary process of attention.
>> The _illusion_ of consciousness is enough to _be_ consciousness.
>> Do you really mean to say that data-streaming-inwards is
> the same as consciousness?
ATM:
No. What the brain-mind _does_ with the "data-streaming-inwards"
is consciousness.
>> Even if you do, how do you equate data-streaming-inwards
> with self-recognition?
ATM:
Please see the various "Mentifex" brain-mind diagrams online at
http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/diagrams.html -- an original model
of the mind.
Incoming data are shunted orthogonally into the semantic memory,
where conceptual nerve fibers hold the concepts behind the data
by gathering together all the associative tags that define concepts.
The concept of self grows in depth and breadth along with all
the other concepts of non-self, of other, of the external world.
To perceive self amid the various streams of data, and to
succumb to the illusion that the self is conscious, is
in fact to _be_ conscious -- because consciousness is the
illusion of consciousness.
>> I have visited your websites and find nothing that in any way
> duplicates or even resembles cognition, much less "consciousness."
ATM:
A limited form of rudimentary cognition occurs in the
http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/jsaimind.html Artificial Mind.
> The neural net seems to be a mathematically devised machine
> which operates only on the "rules" that you have worked out
> for it and programmed into it. It may be an interesting toy,
> but in no way can I see any even remotely valid way you can
> extrapolate from that device to organismic cognition.
ATM:
Organismic? Do you mean, "biological" or "corporeal"?
It matters not whether the mind is in a mammal or a robot (cf.
http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/robowife.html -- Robo Wife).
Please also see
http://assc.caltech.edu -- Assoc. for the Scientific Study of Consc.;
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/ -- Consciousness Studies
All the various Mentifex webpages present an original theory of mind.
Arthur T. Murray
--
http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/ -- Home Page
http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/standard.html -- proposed AI standards
http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/acbor.html A Cyborg Bill of Rights