IUBio

Bennett and Hacker: Village Idiots or Philosophers?

k p Collins kpaulc at [----------]earthlink.net
Tue Feb 17 11:07:55 EST 2004


"Alex Green" <dralexgreen at yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:42c8441.0402170131.4e3f081c at posting.google.com...
> "AlphaOmega2004" <OmegaZero2003 at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<2b87008a9fd70789cb534988f584011a at news.teranews.com>...
> > I think the conceptual error these guys make is that one cannot explain
the
> > psychological terminology by reference to neuropsychological concepts.
> >
> > These are *all* bona fide *ways* of conceptualizing a space that is
> > multi-dimensional in the broadest sense.  TO think one can divorce the
> > psychological from the neuropsychological is non sense.
> >
>
> Nicely put. The problem is literally one of dimensionality. It is
> possible to describe a square as a stack of lines or a cube as a stack
> of squares but these descriptions are only understood if squares and
> cubes are known. This would be a trivial, obvious point if it were not
> for the fact that many neuroscientists and AI specialists are indeed
> claiming the equivalent of "I believe a square is an infinity of short
> lines".
>
> The discovery of the connections within the brain and the nature of
> brain activity is essential for medical and neurophysiological
> progress. Unfortunately this data is being overhyped by some
> commentators. As an example, to declare that the experience of a pain
> in a leg is a particular succession of impulses at a particular place
> is a mistake. An experience of pain in the leg is a zone of things
> within a geometrical manifold whereas an impulse in an axon is just a
> signal.  As people who are 'experience' we can imagine that impulses
> in axons may contribute to the content of experience but they cannot,
> by themselves, actually be that experience.
>
> As you said, "the conceptual error these guys make is that one cannot
> explain the psychological terminology by reference to
> neuropsychological concepts".  It is indeed possible to convert
> 'impulse' into 'experience'.  The transformation that is required is
> firstly to define the geometry of the manifold that we call
> experience, secondly to locate the physical field of things that
> creates the content of the manifold and lastly to determine how
> impulses modulate this field.
>
> Those commentators who 'jump the gun' and declare that experience is
> simply a set of signals and behaviours without specifying how those
> signals become the phenomenon of experience are doing science a great
> disservice.
>
> Best Wishes
>
> Alex Green

I agree.

the Geometry, and its activation, are Reified
in NDT [FWIW].

ken [k. p. collins]





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