Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA17417 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 5 Feb 2002 21:29:08 GMT Message-ID: <006b01c1ae8b$7b7c10a0$7624f4d8@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <200202050205.g15258C10579@mail13.bigmailbox.com> Subject: Re: Beam me up, Scotty Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 13:24:22 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Joe Dees
> >> >I've never suggested that form (morphe) is beamed into our heads.
> >> >My claim is that memory is a property of nature. What distinguishes
> >> >life from, say, books and computers, is that living things possess
> >> >natural memory-- the retention of the past-- while books and
> >> >computers rely on storage of material configurations.
> >> >
> >> How droll. And disingenuous. The manner in which our brains store
> >information (in configurations of dendrite-and-axon-connected neurons)
> >IS natural; it naturally evolved.
> >>>>
> >
> >Mechanism confuses the distinction between nature and artifice by
claiming that mechanical objects evolved naturally. While our brains did
indeed evolve through natural selection, it would be the most astonishing
coincidence if they just happened to develop into essentially the same
device designed and manufactured by human intelligence. The idea that
brains are computers-- with artificial memory and logic-- is crude,
anthropic projection.
> >
> Of course, we made computers to operate like their intentional model, the
human brain. It's not that brains are computers, it's that computers are
modeled after brains (and imperfectly).
>>>
Says who? My impression was that the computer-brain analogy emerged after
the basics of computer science were already in place. The early 20th
century metaphor of the brain was the telephone switchboard.
> But one thing that people who built computers got right is the fact that
brains store knowledge and memories, so they intentionally built an analogue
into computers for the naturally evolved ability of human brains to store
memories and knowledge in neuronal-axonal-dendritic-synaptic configurations.
>>>
You sure about that? Who devised the electronic storage of data, and where
did he claim to have been mimicking the brain?
Ted
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