Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id EAA14394 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 11 Dec 2001 04:37:33 GMT Message-Id: <5.0.2.1.0.20011210223528.00a32230@mail.clarityconnect.com> X-Sender: rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2 Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 23:31:29 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Ray Recchia <rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com> Subject: Re: Definition please In-Reply-To: <001c01c181dd$3cff3bc0$a224f4d8@teddace> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Ted,
The brain is a bit more complicated than a piano. With 100 billion neurons
each with at least 1000 connections compared with a few thousand circuits
in an electric piano the brain is at least a few billion times more
complicated. If your premise is that something as simple as an electric
piano shouldn't be capable of having a mind then I think I would agree with
you. However, since the brain is a few billion times more complicated I
would place little value on your analogy.
Personally, the thing that I have always had trouble with is how a
sophisticated organ like the brain has so much trouble adding two three
digit numbers together. I wonder more at how consciousness can be so
simple and slow when the brain appears to capable of so much more.
Joe Dees argues that in fact consciousness does arise because of increased
complexity. He has offered a hypothesis that humans are distinct from
other animals because our brains have reached a certain level of complexity
which results in consciousness. He points out that only humans and a few
primates are capable of recognizing their own faces in a mirror as
evidence of self-consciousness. Personally, I don't think the mirror test
he points to really is an indicator of something as sophisticated as
consciousness. I think it points towards a specialized ability to
recognize external visual representations which humans are better at. The
model test is the better analogy. No primate other than a human is capable
of recognizing that a miniaturized model of a room and the placement of
objects in it correlates to a real room. Some primates are capable of
making the leap with their own faces because facial recognition is so
important in primate society.
I really do not know what creates a consciousness or understand what does
and does not have one. Unlike you though, I am sufficiently impressed with
the known physical world to accept that a consciousness can arise without
resort to a new law of physics.
As I have said before though in the study of memes we should concern
ourselves with the existence of a non-genetic evolutionary system. There
is nothing about evolution that requires consciousness. Our studies should
focus on transmission, variation, and selection of memes. The study of
consciousness is peripherally related at best and should be left to
cognitive scientists. While this field should certainly take note when a
consensus answer is arrived at, memetics will not be the place where that
consensus is found
Ray Recchia
At 04:46 PM 12/10/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>From: William Benzon
>
> > > The problem is that you can't demonstrate why, if a brain is accompanied
> > > by a mind, an electric piano wouldn't have one as well.
> > >
> > > Where do you draw the line? After all, an electric piano has a kind of
> > > nervous system. It has input and output.
> >
> > It has no kind of nervous system whatever.
>
>Of course it does. Anything that links input to output is a kind of nervous
>system, regardless of how primitive. Besides, your definition of mind is so
>broad it would include any system that functions as a whole-- biological or
>technological, nervous system or not.
>
>If the mind is the functioning of the entire nervous system, why wouldn't the
>global operation of any complex object constitute a mind? What is it that's
>unique about a brain that associates it with mentality?
>
>Ted
>
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