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From: daryl@cogentex.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 14 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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Sergio says...
>However, Deutsch
>lets unanswered the same question forgotten by Popper, "where
>do hypotheses come from?". This is a too "cognitive" question
>for philosophers to worry about, but it is still unanswered
>and is *very* important.

You're right. Popper didn't *care* where hypotheses come from,
but it is certainly an important question for understanding
the way minds work.

However, I really don't think that the concept of "induction"
sheds any light whatsoever on the question. Induction just
means (as far as I understand the term):

    1. Notice that all cases so far having propery P also have
    property Q.

    2. Propose the general law: P implies Q.

This informal description doesn't explain anything about where
hypotheses come from. The real question is where do the properties
P and Q come from? It certainly is not the case that people generate
all possible descriptions, and then see which ones apply and which
ones don't. So where do descriptions come from?

I think that perhaps neural nets can shed some light on concept
formation, but I don't think that "induction" sheds any light at
all.

Daryl McCullough
CoGenTex, Inc.
Ithaca, NY

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 14 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <378cd954@news3.us.ibm.net>
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Daryl McCullough wrote in message <7miesm$oud@edrn.newsguy.com>...
>Sergio says...
>>However, Deutsch
>>lets unanswered the same question forgotten by Popper, "where
>>do hypotheses come from?". This is a too "cognitive" question
>>for philosophers to worry about, but it is still unanswered
>>and is *very* important.
>
>You're right. Popper didn't *care* where hypotheses come from,
>but it is certainly an important question for understanding
>the way minds work.
>
>However, I really don't think that the concept of "induction"
>sheds any light whatsoever on the question. Induction just
>means (as far as I understand the term):
>
>    1. Notice that all cases so far having propery P also have
>    property Q.
>
>    2. Propose the general law: P implies Q.
>
>This informal description doesn't explain anything about where
>hypotheses come from. The real question is where do the properties
>P and Q come from? It certainly is not the case that people generate
>all possible descriptions, and then see which ones apply and which
>ones don't. So where do descriptions come from?
>

Descriptions come from judgements of similarity. These judgements
of similarity come from perceptual mechanisms, built by previous
experiences, up to the innate level.

Using your definition, here's my way to see it inductively:

1. All instances of object P that I've seen so far had property Q.

2. I will assume that all objects P have property Q.

This is induction. Isn't this a wonderful hypothesis for us to
test? We just have to devise experiments to put this assertion
to the test: that no matter what I do with P, it should always
keep property Q (unless it transforms itself into an abnormal P
or if it ceases to be P).

Obviously, in our daily life things aren't so simple like that.
But the inductive principle still works:

1. All instances of object P I've seen so far had property Q or R.
(this one came from previous inductions)

2. All instances of P with property Q also had property S.

3. All instances of P with property R also had property T.

Inductive hypothesis 1: All P with Q have S (a causal link?)
Inductive hypothesis 2: All P with R have T

Suggestion of Test 1: Try to find P with Q that also have T
Suggestion of Test 2: Try to find P with R that also have S

According to the result of this test, I may or may not conjecture
exclusive OR relation between properties S and T and propose a
lot more tentative relations among these concepts.

Now imagine this process being done *automatically* in our
unconscious, with hundreds of parallel threads, each one
reinforcing or weakening links, fed by the evidences captured
by the senses. This is very close to what happens with the
learning process of children. Induction, in this case, is
important, but is only part of a more exquisite mechanism
that controls all these threads. I'm after this mechanism.

>I think that perhaps neural nets can shed some light on concept
>formation, but I don't think that "induction" sheds any light at
>all.
>

Neural nets are inductive by excellence, but there are several
problems. One of the more important problems is the difficulty
that NN have of doing rule-like, symbolic generalizations and
also the ability to "copy" generalizations to other domains. My
guess is that the mechanism in our brain is hybrid, with the
statistical power of NN but with pattern and rule-like capacities
in which symbolic systems excel.

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 15 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <378dd76b@news3.us.ibm.net>
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Steven B. Harris wrote in message <7mjbur$q4c@dfw-ixnews14.ix.netcom.com>...
>In <378cd954@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
>writes:
>>
>>Daryl McCullough wrote in message <7miesm$oud@edrn.newsguy.com>...
>>>Sergio says...
>>>>However, Deutsch
>>>>lets unanswered the same question forgotten by Popper, "where
>>>>do hypotheses come from?". This is a too "cognitive" question
>>>>for philosophers to worry about, but it is still unanswered
>>>>and is *very* important.
>>>
>>>You're right. Popper didn't *care* where hypotheses come from,
>>>but it is certainly an important question for understanding
>>>the way minds work.
>>>
>>>However, I really don't think that the concept of "induction"
>>>sheds any light whatsoever on the question. Induction just
>>>means (as far as I understand the term):
>>>
>>>    1. Notice that all cases so far having propery P also have
>>>    property Q.
>>>
>>>    2. Propose the general law: P implies Q.
>>>
>>>This informal description doesn't explain anything about where
>>>hypotheses come from. The real question is where do the properties
>>>P and Q come from? It certainly is not the case that people generate
>>>all possible descriptions, and then see which ones apply and which
>>>ones don't. So where do descriptions come from?
>>>
>>
>>
>>Descriptions come from judgements of similarity. These judgements
>>of similarity come from perceptual mechanisms, built by previous
>>experiences, up to the innate level.
>>
>>Using your definition, here's my way to see it inductively:
>>
>>1. All instances of object P that I've seen so far had property Q.
>>
>>2. I will assume that all objects P have property Q.
>>
>>This is induction. Isn't this a wonderful hypothesis for us to
>>test? We just have to devise experiments to put this assertion
>>to the test: that no matter what I do with P, it should always
>>keep property Q (unless it transforms itself into an abnormal P
>>or if it ceases to be P).
>>
>>Obviously, in our daily life things aren't so simple like that.
>>But the inductive principle still works:
>>
>>1. All instances of object P I've seen so far had property Q or R.
>>(this one came from previous inductions)
>>
>>2. All instances of P with property Q also had property S.
>>
>>3. All instances of P with property R also had property T.
>>
>>Inductive hypothesis 1: All P with Q have S (a causal link?)
>>Inductive hypothesis 2: All P with R have T
>>
>>Suggestion of Test 1: Try to find P with Q that also have T
>>Suggestion of Test 2: Try to find P with R that also have S
>>
>>According to the result of this test, I may or may not conjecture
>>exclusive OR relation between properties S and T and propose a
>>lot more tentative relations among these concepts.
>>
>>Now imagine this process being done *automatically* in our
>>unconscious, with hundreds of parallel threads, each one
>>reinforcing or weakening links, fed by the evidences captured
>>by the senses. This is very close to what happens with the
>>learning process of children. Induction, in this case, is
>>important, but is only part of a more exquisite mechanism
>>that controls all these threads. I'm after this mechanism.
>
>
>   Ahem-- does the name Pavlov ring a bell?  Synaptic potentiation is
>inherently inductive.  If you're looking for the "biological" source of
>this phenomena, I suspect that's it.
>

Ahem, my bell did not ring. Pavlov and Skinner notwithstanding, what
I had in mind is something that goes *beyond* mere stimulus/response.
Conditioning cannot explain generative aspects of our cognition
(such as language, storymaking, design improvement, certain forms
of recognition, etc). These generative aspects are exactly what
made our civilization so different from that of dolphins.

>   Of course, it's turtles all the way down.  How is it that nervous
>systems evolved synaptic potentiation behavior, reflex arcs, and so on?
>Because they worked.  So why does induction work?  Dunno.  Nature is
>uniform, for some reason, at some levels.

Induction is better than random guess, that's the point. But once
one wants an even better strategy, then one may find that induction
may be used to develop "mental models" of the world, causal structures
which may start inductively, but later are developed through
"hypothesis checking" strategies. In a way, this kind of behavior can
be found in children, they often test hypothesis (beating his little
brother to see if hurts, if you know what I mean).

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 16 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <378f385b@news3.us.ibm.net>
References: <37790B77.CF1B5B3C@travellab.com> <g9ae3.2900$c5.749565@news1.usit.net> <3779420F.B83925B6@travellab.com> <378928aa.275952835@netnews.worldnet.att.net> <3789F5D6.5D1041AC@sandpiper.net> <7mdsnj$dn4@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com> <378A7FE3.54AB8622@sandpiper.net> <378b3b7a@news3.us.ibm.net> <378B967B.FFF8643@sandpiper.net> <378ba2d9@news3.us.ibm.net> <7miesm$oud@edrn.newsguy.com> <378cd954@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mjbur$q4c@dfw-ixnews14.ix.netcom.com> <378dd76b@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mlno2$ei5@dfw-ixnews16.ix.netcom.com>
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Steven B. Harris wrote in message <7mlno2$ei5@dfw-ixnews16.ix.netcom.com>...
>In <378dd76b@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
>writes:
>>>
>>>   Ahem-- does the name Pavlov ring a bell?  Synaptic potentiation is
>>>inherently inductive.  If you're looking for the "biological" source
>of
>>>this phenomena, I suspect that's it.
>>>
>>
>>Ahem, my bell did not ring. Pavlov and Skinner notwithstanding, what
>>I had in mind is something that goes *beyond* mere stimulus/response.
>>Conditioning cannot explain generative aspects of our cognition
>>(such as language, storymaking, design improvement, certain forms
>>of recognition, etc). These generative aspects are exactly what
>>made our civilization so different from that of dolphins.
>
>   Well, it's not the only reason.  Dolphins can't make fire even if
>they were smart enough to, and don't have any hands, either.  Even if
>they were very intelligent (which they aren't-- being somewhere between
>dogs and chimps, so say their trainers) they would have a very
>different "civilization."  Certainly not a technical one.
>

Being unable to make fire and having no hands is a serious handicap.
But I doubt that this could prevent the emergence of sophisticated
civilizations. What is really important, IMHO, is the appearance
of sophisticated and structured symbolic forms of representing
knowledge (in other words: language).

Dolphins were found to teach their offsprings of techniques developed
by themselves (a certain hunting behavior, I don't recall exactly).
But the problem is that this offspring *will not* be able to learn
what was discovered by its distant forebears. Without that (which
is a result of sophisticated language-related activities like
lectures and books), I doubt that a civilization like ours will ever
emerge. Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine in 1796 and
we're still benefiting from this (and subsequent work by Koch, Salk,
Sabin). This cumulative effect (knowledge added over knowledge)
is what makes us special.

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 17 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <3790a1d3@news3.us.ibm.net>
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Steven B. Harris wrote in message <7mpf6q$9li@dfw-ixnews14.ix.netcom.com>...
>In <378f385b@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
>writes:
>>
>>Steven B. Harris wrote in message
><7mlno2$ei5@dfw-ixnews16.ix.netcom.com>...
>>>In <378dd76b@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
>>>writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>   Ahem-- does the name Pavlov ring a bell?  Synaptic potentiation
>is
>>>>>inherently inductive.  If you're looking for the "biological"
>source
>>>of
>>>>>this phenomena, I suspect that's it.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Ahem, my bell did not ring. Pavlov and Skinner notwithstanding, what
>>>>I had in mind is something that goes *beyond* mere
>stimulus/response.
>>>>Conditioning cannot explain generative aspects of our cognition
>>>>(such as language, storymaking, design improvement, certain forms
>>>>of recognition, etc). These generative aspects are exactly what
>>>>made our civilization so different from that of dolphins.
>>>
>>>   Well, it's not the only reason.  Dolphins can't make fire even if
>>>they were smart enough to, and don't have any hands, either.  Even if
>>>they were very intelligent (which they aren't-- being somewhere
>between
>>>dogs and chimps, so say their trainers) they would have a very
>>>different "civilization."  Certainly not a technical one.
>>>
>>
>>
>>Being unable to make fire and having no hands is a serious handicap.
>>But I doubt that this could prevent the emergence of sophisticated
>>civilizations. What is really important, IMHO, is the appearance
>>of sophisticated and structured symbolic forms of representing
>>knowledge (in other words: language).
>>
>>Dolphins were found to teach their offsprings of techniques developed
>>by themselves (a certain hunting behavior, I don't recall exactly).
>>But the problem is that this offspring *will not* be able to learn
>>what was discovered by its distant forebears. Without that (which
>>is a result of sophisticated language-related activities like
>>lectures and books), I doubt that a civilization like ours will ever
>>emerge. Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine in 1796 and
>>we're still benefiting from this (and subsequent work by Koch, Salk,
>>Sabin). This cumulative effect (knowledge added over knowledge)
>>is what makes us special.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Sergio Navega.
>
>
>
>    You're just arguing against yourself, here.  Our own higher
>civilizations (anything more complex than neolithic villages-- about
>the level of American Indians) only arose when we began to store
>knowledge peripherally from our brains as clay symbols (circa 8000 BC),
>then clay tablets (circa 4000 BC), then writing on paper and velum
>(1000 BC or so), and finally machine-printed material. With the
>invention of the printing press using cast metal movable type (for
>which you need fire, obviously), circa 1450, we got the industrial and
>scientific revolutions in fairly short order right next.  No
>coincidence, I think.  You can't DO good science without printing
>presses, because the mass of data in your methods section is just too
>damn much work to copy and distribute to a large community by hand, and
>then keep archived.
>
>   So it's writing--> urban civilization---> then printing --->
>industrial/scientific civilization.  But to DO this kind of thing you
>need HANDS, or something equivalent.  Without them, you're reduced to
>something like flipper or snout-cuneiform, and I think it's going to be
>really hard to base much of a complex civilization on that.

Your point is interesting, but I don't agree. Hands are obviously
important, but much more important is the ability to recognize
complex symbolic and syntactical structures. Hands help to potentialize
this, but we could have progressed without them. Before anyone can
read a book or understand an uttered phrase, one must have the
ability to deal with abstract concepts, in which symbols represent
things. This demands brain power.

If dolphins had enough capacity to do that, they would have evolved
a complex language of their own, and they would have developed
methods to register symbols (even down water). Also, they would
care to teach this language to their offsprings, which for this
reason would have to have enough brain capacity to understand
pictorial and symbolic items. Our children have this.

An armless human can "mold" his world to his disability, with
creativity. But in order to do that, it is necessary to have a
powerful brain.

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 19 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <37932e96@news3.us.ibm.net>
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Steven B. Harris wrote in message <7mrthu$kpb@dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>...
>In <3790a1d3@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
>writes:
>
>>>Harris:
>>    You're just arguing against yourself, here.  Our own higher
>>>civilizations (anything more complex than neolithic villages-- about
>>>the level of American Indians) only arose when we began to store
>>>knowledge peripherally from our brains as clay symbols (circa 8000
>BC),
>>>then clay tablets (circa 4000 BC), then writing on paper and velum
>>>(1000 BC or so), and finally machine-printed material. With the
>>>invention of the printing press using cast metal movable type (for
>>>which you need fire, obviously), circa 1450, we got the industrial
>and
>>>scientific revolutions in fairly short order right next.  No
>>>coincidence, I think.  You can't DO good science without printing
>>>presses, because the mass of data in your methods section is just too
>>>damn much work to copy and distribute to a large community by hand,
>and
>>>then keep archived.
>>>
>>>   So it's writing--> urban civilization---> then printing --->
>>>industrial/scientific civilization.  But to DO this kind of thing you
>>>need HANDS, or something equivalent.  Without them, you're reduced to
>>>something like flipper or snout-cuneiform, and I think it's going to
>be
>>>really hard to base much of a complex civilization on that.
>
>Navega:
>
>>Your point is interesting, but I don't agree. Hands are obviously
>>important, but much more important is the ability to recognize
>>complex symbolic and syntactical structures. Hands help to
>potentialize
>>this, but we could have progressed without them. Before anyone can
>>read a book or understand an uttered phrase, one must have the
>>ability to deal with abstract concepts, in which symbols represent
>>things. This demands brain power.
>
>
>   Comment: sure.  Brain power is *necessary* for writing and printing,
>followed by the specialization which leads to high civilization, but it
>is NOT sufficient.
>

Yes, I agree, it is not sufficient, but in order to potentialize
intelligence, one may use a lot of methods to stand for "writing".
As a really weird idea, imagine if dolphins could move little rocks
in the bottom of the sea in order to make "primitive symbols", accepted
by the community. Those could be the ways to make such messages as
"shark area in that direction", which would obviously improve their
life condition. Dolphins don't do that mostly because their brains
don't have the necessary power to link referent to refereed.

>
>
>>If dolphins had enough capacity to do that, they would have evolved
>>a complex language of their own, and they would have developed
>>methods to register symbols (even down water).
>
>
>   Baloney.  The easy counterargument is that humans didn't develop
>anything close to writing until 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, and yet we've
>been at our present level of intelligence for at least 40,000 years and
>probably more like 200,000.  Most human cultures never did make it, and
>remained at the neolithic level in consequence.  Every human in North
>America, for example.  The AmerInds were just as intelligent as the
>Europeans, but they didn't have writing.  That was all it took.  So
>there is NOTHING about intelligence per se which guarantees you can
>make a high civilization.  It only happened recently and by chance with
>US.  Dolphins, even as intelligent as we, would surely be out of luck,
>and would not have made it by now any more than the Anasazi of 1450 AD.
>

There are two questions here. One is the birth of evolved civilizations,
which I'm sure you have a point. But I was not talking about
evolved civilizations, I was talking about a way to *symbolically* pass
knowledge from one generation to the other. What the descendants
do with this knowledge (improve it and share it in order to make a larger,
more complex civilization or just improve his life condition and that
of his family, is really another question; as an aside: I believe that
the greatest influence on the emergence of civilizations is the way
in which this civilization makes use of simple versions of the
"scientific method"; most civilizations that didn't use such a method
would remain primitive).

About 40k years ago we had drawings in caves representing animals,
hunting situations, etc. Although primitive, that's *symbolic*: no
other animal can do such a thing. In order to do that, it is necessary
to have enough brain capacity.

>  The situation is confused a bit by the fact that N. American American
>Indians didn't have large cities, either---- but large cities are the
>PRODUCT of high civilization, not the primary cause of it (though they
>help it along in a snowball effect, once going).  Large masses of
>humans cannot live together without a pretty sophisticated method of
>transporting goods and services from peripheral agricultural sectors to
>the city people, who trade specialized services for it.  You cannot
>keep TRACK of an economy like that, without writing, and noplace has it
>ever been seen to occur without writing.  The N. American Indians (by
>contrast with some of their Southern cousins) couldn't stay in one
>large village for long, because there was no infrastructure to allow
>such a large collection of people to stay in one place for more than a
>few weeks' "pow-wow."  The congregation that Custer happened upon at
>the Little Bighorn (for example) was a very temporary thing, size-wise.
>Custer had never seen that kind of thing before, and for good reason.
>It was rare.  Custer just happened to be having a very bad day,
>luck-wise, when he did finally see it (making up for a lot of very good
>luck days in his past, if you know that history).
>
>   The other advantage Europeans had on the Amerinds of both N and S
>America, is that Europeans had been living in large cities for a very
>long time by contrast even with the Aztecs, exposed all that time to
>contageous diseases which spread in humans only when the population is
>very dense.  The natural state of humans can be described as "shit and
>move on."  If they don't, dire things happen in terms of disease,
>unless they adapt or build high tech sanitation, or both.  The peoples
>of the Americas, by and large, had done neither.  European communicable
>diseases-- the sort of biowarfare long bred unconsciously by Europeans
>in their large cities-- when brought to the New World proved most
>deadly.  Again, however, this was simply due to the European head start
>on civilization, in turn due to earlier invention of writing in the
>East.  The disease thing is a secondary phenomena which comes from a
>history of a longer adaptation time to large cities.  It's not a
>primary thing.
>

I concede that there is a distance between symbolic reasoning and
the "state of evolution" of one civilization, and that distance
obviously is a function of the interaction among the (social)
groups of agents in one community. One kind of social interaction
would remain relatively constant throughout time (as the indian
communities that you cited). Others would potentialize and add,
examples of our own. I suggest that this is the result of the
good use of the scientific method.

But it is the symbolic ability of each element of one community
that potentializes the snowball. Although some communities of apes
demonstrate some kind of organization and hierarchy, there is no
animal on earth which resembles our "spiral evolution" of societies
of today. I see as the determinant factor for this difference our
ability to manipulate and communicate symbols, on a first place,
and our ability to stick with that "scientific method", as a second
requirement.

>
>> Also, they would
>>care to teach this language to their offsprings, which for this
>>reason would have to have enough brain capacity to understand
>>pictorial and symbolic items. Our children have this.
>
>
>    The children of the Sioux had this.  It didn't give them writing.
>

This is an evidence of the lack of "sufficient". I wasn't making
a point of this. I was trying to say that "writing", in the usual
way we see this, as letters on paper, written by hands, is not
a *necessary* condition. It is, granted, highly convenient and
improves the process, maybe we can say that *our* civilization is
a result of writing on paper. But in order to use that
potentialization factor, one *must have* symbolic reasoning
abilities, which demands a brain capable of doing that.

>>An armless human can "mold" his world to his disability, with
>>creativity. But in order to do that, it is necessary to have a
>>powerful brain.
>
>   Again, necessary but NOT sufficient.  Look to your history.
>
>

You won't believe in the number of printed papers I have in my
office. I'm a printing freak, I love paper. But that would be useless
if I hadn't the capacity to understand what it conveys.

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 20 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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References: <37790B77.CF1B5B3C@travellab.com> <g9ae3.2900$c5.749565@news1.usit.net> <3779420F.B83925B6@travellab.com> <378928aa.275952835@netnews.worldnet.att.net> <3789F5D6.5D1041AC@sandpiper.net> <7mdsnj$dn4@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com> <378A7FE3.54AB8622@sandpiper.net> <378b3b7a@news3.us.ibm.net> <378B967B.FFF8643@sandpiper.net> <378ba2d9@news3.us.ibm.net> <7miesm$oud@edrn.newsguy.com> <378cd954@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mjbur$q4c@dfw-ixnews14.ix.netcom.com> <378dd76b@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mlno2$ei5@dfw-ixnews16.ix.netcom.com> <378f385b@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mpf6q$9li@dfw-ixnews14.ix.netcom.com> <3790a1d3@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mrthu$kpb@dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com> <37932e96@news3.us.ibm.net> <7n0epm$8rh$4@its.hooked.net>
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Bloxy's wrote in message <7n0epm$8rh$4@its.hooked.net>...
>In article <37932e96@news3.us.ibm.net>, "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
wrote:
>>Steven B. Harris wrote in message
<7mrthu$kpb@dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>...
>>>In <3790a1d3@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
>>>writes:
>
>>>>>Harris:
>[...]
>
>>>   Comment: sure.  Brain power is *necessary* for writing and printing,
>>>followed by the specialization which leads to high civilization, but it
>>>is NOT sufficient.
>
>>Yes, I agree, it is not sufficient, but in order to potentialize
>>intelligence, one may use a lot of methods to stand for "writing".
>>As a really weird idea, imagine if dolphins could move little rocks
>>in the bottom of the sea in order to make "primitive symbols", accepted
>>by the community. Those could be the ways to make such messages as
>>"shark area in that direction", which would obviously improve their
>>life condition.
>
>And what do you know about dolphins?
>And what if they ALREADY posess ALL necessary means
>of identifying such a danger?
>

Yes, I agree, they may do (at least most of them). They can perceive
things beyond our imagination, not only because they are a completely
different species, but also because they live in a world unlike
ours. But guess what: their "learning" (sensibility to sharks or
other potential dangers) was obtained through natural selection. That
means that *a lot* of dolphins died, and what we've got today were
only the ones with the "right" perceptual equipment.

That's one hell of a big difference from us: today we humans can
assure the survival of the weak and those that were born with
disabilities (because we developed our intelligence). Under
"natural" conditions, those pour souls would have no chance.
That's what we can call humanity and I guess we can say that it
is closely related to human intelligence.

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 20 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <3794f18b@news3.us.ibm.net>
References: <37790B77.CF1B5B3C@travellab.com> <g9ae3.2900$c5.749565@news1.usit.net> <3779420F.B83925B6@travellab.com> <378928aa.275952835@netnews.worldnet.att.net> <3789F5D6.5D1041AC@sandpiper.net> <7mdsnj$dn4@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com> <378A7FE3.54AB8622@sandpiper.net> <378b3b7a@news3.us.ibm.net> <378B967B.FFF8643@sandpiper.net> <378ba2d9@news3.us.ibm.net> <7miesm$oud@edrn.newsguy.com> <378cd954@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mjbur$q4c@dfw-ixnews14.ix.netcom.com> <378dd76b@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mlno2$ei5@dfw-ixnews16.ix.netcom.com> <378f385b@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mpf6q$9li@dfw-ixnews14.ix.netcom.com> <3790a1d3@news3.us.ibm.net> <7mrthu$kpb@dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com> <37932e96@news3.us.ibm.net> <7n0epm$8rh$4@its.hooked.net> <379488b2@news3.us.ibm.net> <37948CD8.D7EB8419@X.X>
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X wrote in message <37948CD8.D7EB8419@X.X>...
>Sergio Navega wrote:
>
><snipped dolphins>
>
>> That's one hell of a big difference from us: today we humans can
>> assure the survival of the weak and those that were born with
>> disabilities (because we developed our intelligence). Under
>> "natural" conditions, those pour souls would have no chance.
>> That's what we can call humanity and I guess we can say that it
>> is closely related to human intelligence.
>
>Hi Sergio,
>
>    this is related to a point I have been making on sci.philosophy.meta (I
>can hear the groans already). To whit, there is something in humans which does
>not fit the general patterns of nature.
>
>The point was in counter-point to someone who said that humans do not have a
>choice over what we find to be "good" and "bad". He was arguing that he had no
>"choice" to see a third degree burn as good, unless it was sustained in the
>attainment of a more valuable goal.
>
>It seems however, that this is not the case: humans have voluntarily submitted
>themselves to bonfires in the past so as not to refute their religion.
>
>It seems to me that the only thing in humans which does not exist in the rest
>of nature is this ubiquitous subset of intelligence which we cannot define,
>but will all agree that humans possess, to the exclusion of other species.
>
>I argued in sci.philo.meta that this is a special case of evolution which does
>not (observably) occur outside humankind: the deliberate loss of DNA data in
>the pursuit of a goal which cannot be defined physically.
>
>This is at best an operational definition of certain aspects of human
>intelligence (that which makes us overlook individual survival). But it must
>at least be a useful data point in the search for a definition ...
>

I'm finding more and more examples that much of the behaviors that
we find unique in humans also have counterparts in other animals.
Monkeys were found to brutalize, rape and kill others of different
families. Altruism was found in rodents. Lots of things put humans
in very comparable position with the other species. I guess most of
our "ethical" and "moral" decisions can be explained by evolutionary
psychology.

But intelligence is the factor that, sooner or later, will put us
completely apart (some think that this is already happening, but
I think we have a lot to develop to be really different). AI is
an important step toward that direction, because AI systems could
show us what it is to be "purely intelligent" (I often think that
the results may be "uncomfortable").

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 22 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <3797323b@news3.us.ibm.net>
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Steven B. Harris wrote in message <7n6opb$b2h@dfw-ixnews8.ix.netcom.com>...
>In <379488b2@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
>writes:
>>
>>Bloxy's wrote in message <7n0epm$8rh$4@its.hooked.net>...
>>>
>>>And what do you know about dolphins?
>>>And what if they ALREADY posess ALL necessary means
>>>of identifying such a danger?
>>>
>>
>>
>>Yes, I agree, they may do (at least most of them). They can perceive
>>things beyond our imagination, not only because they are a completely
>>different species, but also because they live in a world unlike
>>ours. But guess what: their "learning" (sensibility to sharks or
>>other potential dangers) was obtained through natural selection. That
>>means that *a lot* of dolphins died, and what we've got today were
>>only the ones with the "right" perceptual equipment.
>
>
>   May I point out that none us knows much about the life-table and
>demographic structure of dolphins, nor about their natural mortality
>rates in the wild.  So spare us the Rousseauvian visions of your
>imagined utopian dolphin world.  You don't know.  I don't know.
>
>   I will point out inductively, however, that whenever naturalists
>have been able to quantitatively measure the morality of any species in
>the wild, and construct from life-tables the appropriate
>Gompertz-Makeham relation, which says something about how the species
>dies of exponentially time-dependent mortality causes [snip]

Steven, I guess you didn't understand my point. I was not talking
about natural life span neither mortality rates, I was talking about
natural selection and its effects on the development of the species.

The big point I was making in other words is this: dolphins became
more apt to survive to its predators (sharks, etc) because only
the ones with the "right" kind of perceptual abilities and physical
efficacy to run away, survived. All the others died in the "hands"
of their predators, having less chance to pass their genes to
their offsprings. Their learning was obtained through "destructive"
methods (evolution).

On the other hand, mankind was able to survive to the smallpox not
because only the resistant humans survived (we can still catch the
disease), but because we *developed* vaccines through thinking and
scientific work. This is not directly linked to natural selection
(at least the way it applies to usual animals), this is related to
a process that happens in "parallel" with traditional evolution,
that does not directly affect genetic transmission (only indirectly).

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 20 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <379488be@news3.us.ibm.net>
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Steven B. Harris wrote in message <7n0tss$ccm@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>...
>In <37932e96@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>

>>Steven Harris wrote:
>>>   Comment: sure.  Brain power is *necessary* for writing and
>printing,
>>>followed by the specialization which leads to high civilization, but
>it
>>>is NOT sufficient.
>>>
>>
>>
>>Yes, I agree, it is not sufficient, but in order to potentialize
>>intelligence, one may use a lot of methods to stand for "writing".
>>As a really weird idea, imagine if dolphins could move little rocks
>>in the bottom of the sea in order to make "primitive symbols",
>accepted
>>by the community. Those could be the ways to make such messages as
>>"shark area in that direction", which would obviously improve their
>>life condition. Dolphins don't do that mostly because their brains
>>don't have the necessary power to link referent to refereed.
>
>
>   I don't know why dolphins don't do this.  It's not obvious that use
>of symbols to communicate such simple ideas are a even a product of
>intelligence.  Consider the bee dance-- the info conveyed is even more
>complex than "shark area in that direction."  It's on the level of how
>far away in that direction and how many sharks.  Not bad.  But bees are
>dumb as dirt by most criteria.  Certainly not as intelligent as
>dolphins.
>

Bee behavior may look to us as complex, but what we're seeing is
not the complexity of the bee's brain, but the complexity of the
social cluster of bees, an emergent phenomenon. Under this same
view, a tornado is another example of mindless complexity.

>>
>>There are two questions here. One is the birth of evolved
>>civilizations, which I'm sure you have a point. But I was not
>>talking about evolved civilizations, I was talking about a way to
>>*symbolically* pass knowledge from one generation to the other. What
>>the descendants do with this knowledge (improve it and share it in
>>order to make a larger, more complex civilization or just improve his
>>life condition and that of his family, is really another question;
>
>   I suppose so, but the answer seems obvious to ME.  What they do with
>it if human is make a complex civilation, which requires urbanization,
>specialization, agriculture, etc.  EVERY human urban civilization of
>ancient times-- from the Chinese to the peoples of the Indus River
>Valley, to the Sumerians/Akkadians/Hittites and various civilizations
>of mesopotamia, to the Egyptians and Phoenecians and paleo-Greeks, to
>the Incas and Aztecs, had writing.  I know of no single counterexample
>in either direction.  There are no urban civilizations that didn't have
>writing, and there are none which developed writing which did not
>urbanize.  That's kind of suggestive, don't you think?  Somewhere there
>is a causal assocation.  If writing is a confounder (stasticially) then
>I'd like to know what it is that correlates with both writing and
>urbanization better than they correlate with each other (which is what
>the true "third cause of both" effect would have to do).    Especially
>since (so far as I can tell) writing and cities correlate perfectly.
>Unless you're going to argue that cities invent writing, I think you've
>got some arguing to do.
>

I can agree with you here, when you find the correlation between
writing and civilization strong. In fact, I've never thought much
about this. But I put the greatest emphasis not on writing, but
on symbolic languages.

>   Now for dolphins, or an intelligent water critter?   Who knows.
>Perhaps writing only leads to cities with humans.  But it seems to me
>that what writing does is lead to, is the possibility of high
>specialization of knowledge and tradecraft within our limited
>lifetimes, and THAT requires a very complex trade system, and lots of
>people doing something other than farming or hunting, and being close
>together to do it.  I don't think that large cities are just a foible
>of human, therefore.  Of course, I can't prove that until I see some
>intelligent extraterrestrial cultural history <g>.
>

Extraterrestrials would clarify a lot of things we're in doubt
here on Earth! ETs, are you listening to this? ;-)

>>as an aside: I believe that
>>the greatest influence on the emergence of civilizations is the way
>>in which this civilization makes use of simple versions of the
>>"scientific method"; most civilizations that didn't use such a method
>>would remain primitive).
>
>
>   That gets into a long discussion what the scientific method is, and
>I'd rather not go there (we've been there on this forum too recently).
>But there are lots of urban civilizations in the past with writing
>which didn't have anything close to what I would recognize as the
>modern scientific method.  Yes, they had people who could think.  But
>"scientific investigation" as a systematized method and cultural or
>individual pursuit?  That's a modern thing except for very recently.
>The Greeks and Romans (who stole the idea from them) came closest in
>the deep past, but no other civilizations of BC that I know of even had
>an Aristotle, much less a Newton.
>

I mentioned the scientific method because I think this is the only
way one civilization have to improve consistently and considerably.

Take astrology, for instance. According to some, developed since
the ancient Babylonians. Nothing appears to have been gained
consistently from the results of this pseudo-science (other than
some side-effects of noticing and annotating positions of stars,
which gave birth to astronomy as we know today). Thousands of
years after the birth of astrology and the guys don't have a
clue of any reasonable causal mechanism.

>>About 40k years ago we had drawings in caves representing animals,
>>hunting situations, etc. Although primitive, that's *symbolic*: no
>>other animal can do such a thing. In order to do that, it is necessary
>>to have enough brain capacity.
>
>   Bees.  And besides, you're being a "visual chauvanist" here in many
>ways.

I confess: I'm a visual chauvinist! :-)

> If you could see the territories of wolf packs where raised leg
>urinations are marked visually, you would see a very complex thing
>(this has been done).  It's just that wolves work in a different media
>than sight.  So the information conveyed in a graph of raised leg
>urination instances is (of course) far more complex than "wolf was
>here."  It also says sex, time of oestrus, something of pack genetics,
>and god knows what else.  When dogs sniff each other's butts there's a
>heck of a lot more useful knowledge passed, no doubt, than "Hi, how are
>you?  Fine, how are you?  Great.  Where you from?  Around here?"
>

I agree. But that does not address my point of symbolic representation.
Marking one's territory with "piss" may be seen as some form of
symbolization, although primitive. But what we don't seem to find
are examples where, for instance, rocks or leaves are put in a
special position to convey a special message to whoever animal
that "reads" it.

>
>>I concede that there is a distance between symbolic reasoning and
>>the "state of evolution" of one civilization, and that distance
>>obviously is a function of the interaction among the (social)
>>groups of agents in one community. One kind of social interaction
>>would remain relatively constant throughout time (as the indian
>>communities that you cited). Others would potentialize and add,
>>examples of our own. I suggest that this is the result of the
>>good use of the scientific method.
>
>    I suggest it isn't.  EVERY group that has writing advances
>technically.  Not all are very scientific (does Minoan science impress
>you?  Indus River science?).  By contrast, there is no science as we
>know it done without writing, and no group with good science that isn't
>urbanized and literate FIRST.  As noted, there are no ubanized
>societies without writing, no literate socities of the past which
>didn't urbanize.  It's one-to-one correlation.  The reverse of some of
>these occurs thoughout history (literate and urbanized, crumby science,
>as above.  Think of Rome).  In order to make your case you're going to
>have to give some counterexamples if you think "science" is primary.
>Or else define "science" is some way that is pretty primitive.  If you
>mean what a cat or a bluejay hunting dog does in searching an area for
>something, not going back to previous places searched (hypothesize,
>test, store results, use results in further research), and doing it
>systematically, in order to find something, then you have a very loose
>definition of the word.  But not one that applies only to people.
>

I was saying something much simpler, your point appears to be more
advanced than mine. As an example, take some primitive indian community
that believes that thunders are the complaints of "gods" in the sky.
They will pretty much stay in that situation forever. A scientific
society will start noticing that those thunders appear to happen
without any regard to what they do on Earth. This is a good way
to start *doubting* this assumption, which is the *germ* of
science: to doubt of things that do not appear to be working
coherently. Then, establish tests: do something really nasty
and see if thunders complain.

>>But it is the symbolic ability of each element of one community
>>that potentializes the snowball. Although some communities of apes
>>demonstrate some kind of organization and hierarchy, there is no
>>animal on earth which resembles our "spiral evolution" of societies
>>of today.
>
>   But there sure were a lot of human societies of the past which
>didn't have any kind of spiral evolution.  For millennia.  The ones
>without writing.  Brains they had, writing they didn't.
>

And I believe we can find some societies that had brains, had writing
but didn't developed. Or societies that had all this, *including*
scientific methods and also didn't survive. That's the "rule of the
jungle", natural selection often kills those who don't adapt fast
enough to alterations of its environment.

>
>> I see as the determinant factor for this difference our
>>ability to manipulate and communicate symbols, on a first place,
>>and our ability to stick with that "scientific method", as a second
>>requirement.
>
>   Well, I see it differently, and I've given you my reasoning.
>

It is nice to have different opinions about such a complex subject.
Here, again, we demonstrate that diversity is one of the most
fundamental aspects of evolution.

>
>>>> Also, they would
>>>>care to teach this language to their offsprings, which for this
>>>>reason would have to have enough brain capacity to understand
>>>>pictorial and symbolic items. Our children have this.
>>>
>>>    The children of the Sioux had this.  It didn't give them writing.
>>
>>This is an evidence of the lack of "sufficient". I wasn't making
>>a point of this. I was trying to say that "writing", in the usual
>>way we see this, as letters on paper, written by hands, is not
>>a *necessary* condition.
>
>   Then give ONE counterexample.  I say it is necessary for high
>civilization, which I have defined convenently as urban, technical, and
>progressing in complexity over time.
>

You're looking at this example right now. We are communicating
over an entirely "electronic" medium, with no paper. In the future
(maybe 50 or 100 years) we may dispense keyboards and link
the thing directly into our cortex. Now some 500k years or
1 million years from now, even our hands could atrophy, if we
can control things mentally. What remains, then? Only our
symbolic processing abilities. Now, if we talk about *symbolic
languages*, then, I agree entirely with all the rationale. The
progress of any civilization appears to be strongly related
to language.

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

From: "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
Subject: Re: Neurons and consciousness
Date: 22 Jul 1999 00:00:00 GMT
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Steven B. Harris wrote in message <7n6tad$aqg@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>...
>In <379488be@news3.us.ibm.net> "Sergio Navega" <snavega@ibm.net>
>>
>>Bee behavior may look to us as complex, but what we're seeing is
>>not the complexity of the bee's brain, but the complexity of the
>>social cluster of bees, an emergent phenomenon.
>
>   I suspect the same, but of course the argument is just as easy to
>apply to dolpins, since we can no more read their minds than we can
>bees'.
>
>   Pushed far enough, of course this decends to solipsism.  Your
>behavior may seem superficially complex, but as you repeat one after
>another of the "lots of animal are as smart as we human
>species-chauvanists are," arguments of the 60's, I do begin to wonder
>if *your* behavior is not just a mindless manifestation of a social
>phenomenon also.  No offense intended, of course.
>

None taken, I agree that most of our behaviors is "conditioned" by
social constructs. But I'd like to rephrase your interpretation
of what I said: "lots of humans are strikingly similar to the
behaviors of other animals".

>> Under this same view, a tornado is another example of mindless
>>complexity.
>
>   Not quite, for a tornado shows no signs of learning.  Bees do.   And
>the hive is smarter than any individual bee, due to distributed
>thinking of a sort (ie, a communal mind, where the organism is the
>colony, not the individual social insects).  And, of course,
>specialization and division of labor of the colony's members allows
>greater adaptiveness and toughness of the colony as a whole.  This kind
>if thing drives the development of multicellular organisms (and, we
>note in passing, is probably the origin of aging).  It can fool you,
>though, when it comes from culture.  Ability to build moon rockets and
>leave the planet is an emergent property of humans.  It's not that any
>of us got more brainpower-- it's solely a function of extrasomatic
>storage of knowledge and the resultant possibility of division of
>labor.  Humans who don't have this are still living in the jungle with
>sticks stuck through their noses, looking for a monkey to shoot for
>dinner, and hoping that some village witch hasn't hexed them so they
>don't get sick and maybe even die.  Which they regularly do.
>

I have nothing against this reasoning. But our emergent behavior
of going to the moon is a direct result of our symbolic abilities
and brain capacity. No number of bees would be able to accomplish
this feat. Symbolic reasoning is one of the "elemental" components
of our complex behavior, a necessary component to explain our
achievements.

>>
>>I was saying something much simpler, your point appears to be more
>>advanced than mine. As an example, take some primitive indian community
>>that believes that thunders are the complaints of "gods" in the sky.
>>They will pretty much stay in that situation forever. A scientific
>>society will start noticing that those thunders appear to happen
>>without any regard to what they do on Earth. This is a good way
>>to start *doubting* this assumption, which is the *germ* of
>>science: to doubt of things that do not appear to be working
>>coherently. Then, establish tests: do something really nasty
>>and see if thunders complain.
>
>
>   Sure, though in practice a statement can be made more or less
>data-proof and unfalsifiable, as we've argued so much here on the
>forum.  You can always think of a reason a posteriori, why the Gods
>were angry, or why they were propitiated.
>
>   The problem here is not really theories that are non-falsifiable
>(though this is a direct outcome of it)-- the even more root problem is
>that people are not really naturally honest, and we have really bad
>memories, considering the tasks we have to do in order to
>industrialize.  We cheat.  We lie.  Even to themselves.  Hell,
>especially to themselves.  In other words, we all have pretty small
>brains relative to what there is out there that is necessary to
>understand for the "good-life," the world is a complex buzzing blooming
>confusion, and it's pretty easy to go about fooling ourselves into
>noticing only those parts of it which agree with our theories, and
>which therefore raise our status in society and increase our share of
>resources.

One way to reduce our proneness to self-deception is to cultivate the
diversity of ideas. Science progress because of that. But I think
most of our "problems" of self-deception stem on emotional grounds.
The more we understand emotion, the better we will live with them.

>[snip]
>  In this view mathematics enters science mainly as
>a way to keep people honest about what they are predicting.  Math is a
>shorthand method of writing logical and quantitative predictions, based
>on a *few* well defined parameters, and explicitly excluding all
>others.  That keeps things a *great* deal more honest.  An equation is
>a *contract.*  Not with nature, but with your society, when you publish
>it.  If you write it down and publish it, it's a bet, and you have to
>stand by it.  No welching.  No fudging when the data generated don't
>fit.  People try to do this all the time, of course! (Guess what--
>we're human).  But they're less sucessful at it than ever before.
>Because of clear and unambiguous quantitative language (ie, math), and
>public prediction a priori (publication-- pringing).
>

This is a good point, I've never seen mathematics dealt this way.

>   I would like to suggest that this is the real core of science.   It's
>not really hypotheses and testing and induction-- though these are part
>of the machinery.  The core of science is public, unambiguous
>prediction.  Math removes ambiguity, and publication (writing,
>printing) is what makes it public and checkable, and stops
>argumentation based on weak memory.  How people actually get from
>looking at the world to making the published quantitative predictions,
>is of quite secondary importance.  In the history of science we've seen
>many routes.  All have been fruitful and some times and places for some
>people.  But whether some of the process lies in Bayes' theorem where
>we can look at it, or some of it deep in the unconscious of a genius
>like Newton, or both, it doesn't matter.  That part just affects how
>fast we get to where we want to be in understand and predicting the
>future (ie, to having wealth and women <g>).  It's the basic mechanism
>of keeping ourselves honest that insures that no matter what, fast or
>slow, we as a society make progress without having to wait for
>mutations in our genes and the early deaths or failure of reproduction
>of people who don't have them.  Dolphins and bees aren't gunna do this.
>

Your point is interesting and reasonable. The way mathematics and
writing have to do with the process is agreable. But I find that
this addresses too much the methodology, leaving aside the most
important aspect, in my opinion. I agree that science is required
to help us in predicting things, but the *greatest* value is not
to predict something, but to *explain* something. Prediction
alone is insufficient. We've got to understand, to devise models,
to construct mental structures of the world. This is more than
just dry prediction, it is the creation of "virtual worlds" which
can be "run" in our heads and which allows us to *creatively*
explore ideas, without the need to build real-world equivalents.

Prior to our visit to the moon, thirty years ago, thousands of
"virtual visits" were performed in the minds of the engineers and
scientists of the project. I think that only because of *that* we
were able to really go to the moon. This is more than just
prediction, it is understanding of the scientific aspects
involved. Science is about explanation, not just prediction.

>>And I believe we can find some societies that had brains, had writing
>>but didn't developed.
>
>  Well, you may believe it, but you'll have to come up with some
>concrete examples.  In public I've now said there aren't any.  If you
>can come up with some, it's going to do horrible things to my theory
>that I won't be able to welch on.  Or welch very well.
>

I'm not an anthropologist, it's a bit outside of my area. I have
a suspicion that such societies could have existed. Our own society
have gone through several "critical" times, where nuclear war could
have wiped out the entire planet because of a pain in the back of
one president or prime-minister. Writing abilities alone would not
prevent our extinction.

>> Or societies that had all this, *including*
>>scientific methods and also didn't survive.
>
>  Ditto on this.
>

Again, I'll not be able to surprise you on this, it is just a
suspicion. The question is that survivability of species depends
highly on emotional stability of its components and also the
"emotional stability" of the complex, resultant society. We humans
did have a lot of technical and scientific advances, but in emotional
terms, our individuals and our societies are "neanderthals" (can't
be different, until we can alter genetic aspects of emotions,
which can be even more dangerous).

>
>    In the year 3535, if man is still alive, and woman can survive,
>they may find... who knows?   "Some machine is doing that for you."
>But you've made a lot of assumptions above and bollixed up the
>argument. Welching by adding new variables and cosmic constants, a
>postiori!   I'm talking (as I thought was rather clear) about human
>beings as we know them, not brains in jars with cortexes connected to
>computers.  Writing is necessary because of our lousy memories, and to
>keep us "honest" in our dealings (which is BOTH a selective memory AND
>a processing problem, as noted).  Writing doesn't have to be on paper,
>and I never said it did (I mentioned clay and vellum, and CD ROMs are
>just one more extension of that).  And as soon as our memories are
>connected directly with cyberspace (both directly to each other's, and
>to very secure and relatively tamperproof extrasomatic cyber-storage,
>all bets are off.
>
>   Not relevent to our discussion of dolphins and bees and Sioux.
>

I agree, I was focusing on symbolic abilities, which is closer
to my interest of artificial intelligences.

Regards,
Sergio Navega.

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