On 5/25/07, Mark Waser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Sophisticated logical
> structures (at least in our bodies) are not enough for actual
> feelings. For example, to feel pleasure, you also need things like
> serotonin, acetylcholine, noradrenaline, glutamate, enkephalins and
> endorphins. Worlds of real feelings and logic are loosely coupled.
OK. So our particular physical implementation of our mental computation
uses chemicals for global environment settings and logic (a very detailed
and localized operation) uses neurons (yet, nonetheless, is affected by the
global environment settings/chemicals). I don't see your point unless
you're arguing that there is something special about using chemicals for
global environment settings rather than some other method (in which case I
would ask "What is that something special and why is it special?").
You possibly already know this and are simplifying for the sake of
simplicity, but chemicals are not simply global environmental
settings.
Chemicals/hormones/peptides etc. are spatial concentration gradients
across the entire brain, which are much more difficult to emulate in
software then a singular concetration value. Add to this the fact that
some of these chemicals inhibit and promote others and you get
horrendously complex reaction diffusion systems.
--
-Joel
"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have mastered, you
will never grow." -C.R. Lawton
-----
This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email
To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to:
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415&user_secret=e9e40a7e
