On 09/06/06, Dennis Gorelik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
William,
> It is very simple and I wouldn't apply it to everything that
> behaviourists would (we don't get direct rewards for solving crossword
> puzzles).
How do you know that we don't get direct rewards on solving crossword
puzzles (or any other mental task)?
I don't know, I only make hypotheses. As far as my model is concerned
the structures that give direct reward have to be pretty much in-built
otherwise for a selectionist system allowing a selected for behaviour
to give direct reward would quickly lead to behaviour that gives
itself direct reward and doesn't actually do anything.
Chances are that under certain mental condition ("achievement state"),
brain produces some form of pleasure signal.
If there is no such reward, then what's your explanation why people
like to solve crossword puzzles?
Why? By indirect rewards! If you will allow me to slip into my
economics metaphor, I shall try to explain my view of things. The
consumer is the direct reward giver, something that attempts to mold
the system to produce certain products, it doesn't say what is wants
just what is good, by giving money ( direct reward).
In humans this role played by the genome constructing structures that
says nice food and sex is good, along with respect from your peers
(probably the Hypothalamus and amygdala).
The role of raw materials is played by the information coming from the
environment. It can be converted to products or tools.
You have retail outlets that interact directly with the consumer,
being closest to the outputs they get directly the money that allows
their survival. However they have to pass some of the money onto the
companies that produced the products they passed onto the consumer.
This network of money passing will have to carefully controlled so
that more money isn't produced in one company than was given
(currently I think of the network of dopaminergic neurons being this
part).
Now with this sort of system you can make a million just so stories
about why one program would be selected that passes reward to another,
that is give indirect reward. This is where the complexity kicks in.
In terms of crossword solving one possibility is that a program closer
to the output and with lots of reward has selected for rewarding
logical problem solving because in general it is useful for getting
reward and so passes reward on to a program that has proven its
ability to logical problem solve, possibly entering into a deal of
some sort.
This is all very subconcious, as it is needed to be to be able to
encompass and explain low level learning such as neural plasticity,
which is very subconcious itself.
Will Pearson
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