My personal opinion is that the internal use of words is largely for
indexing. That words are a device closely connected with
serialization. This doesn't mean that they are an efficient way to
think, and I doubt that they are, except in special circumstances. Of
course, if what you're doing is retrieval, then words can be VERY efficient.
One reason that words are so useful for this is that they are coded
(digital). Slight mispronunciations don't cause faliure, as error
correction can automatically correct. (Look at the word "failure"
earlier in the sentence. I'll wager that you interpreted it correctly,
even though it was misspelled.) Because of this it's easy to create
linkages between memories with words. You can say "chair" to yourself
every time you encounter a chair. This can start with someone saying
"chair" to you, and pointing, in several different contexts. Eventually
you get the idea. But this couldn't be done without a readily
duplicable symbol.
But one clear consequence of this is that words discard most of the
meaning of any particular instance. A chair has to be a rather general
kind of thing, covering all potential chairs. So if I conceptualize to
myself a desire for a chair, I don't use the word, I just go and get
it. The word doesn't appear until there's necessity for tagging it.
(Well, actually I probably *do* mutter to myself something like "Now
where is that stupid chair!, O, I left it in the kitchen.", but that's
fairly clearly for memory access, and I don't usually even become
conscious of the process.
Mike Tintner wrote:
Edward,
What you and everyone else is doing here - trying to analyse your
conscious thought processes directly to see grounding or not - is v.
misleading.
One central point I have been making is that grounding - the brain
making sense of conscious symbols - is largely *unconscious.* Thinking
consciously in words is much more economic of effort than thinking
consciously in visuals. We will never stop thinking mainly in words -
or, in maths, in numbers.
If you really want to understand grounding - and, I suggest, seriously
improve your thinking - look at all the examples you can find of
CONFUSION - when you *don't* understand something.
That's a basic principle of something like neuropsychology of old -
if you want to understand how a thing works, look at when and why it
*doesn't* work.
What are the subjects or subject areas (in say science, philosophy,
psychology etc etc) that give you difficulty? Make a list.
And then try and see what it takes to overcome some of those
difficulties - what the brain needs to "see the light", for things
finally to "click."
Then you'll start to see common patterns in how the brain does and
doesn't work/ understand.
If you and everyone else starts to do that, you'll also start to find
this whole business of grounding seriously interesting.
Edward:Different people's minds probably work differently. For me
dredging up of
memories, including verbal memories, is an important part of my mental
processes. Maybe that is because I have been trained as a lawyer.
I am not arguing against the fact that visual memories play an important
role in human thinking. They do. I often do a lot of my best
thinking in
terms of images.
What I am arguing is that other types of grounding play an important part
as well. I am arguing that visual grounding is not necessarily the
largest force in each and every mathematical thought. Yes, the human
brain dedicates a lot of real estate to visual processing, but if you
take
all of the language, behavioral, emotional and higher level association
areas, you have a lot of brain real estate dedicated to concepts that are
either non-visual or only partially visual. We should not assume that
all
that brain real estate plays little or no role in most thinking.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if visual memories and patterns are
taking at least some part in the massively parallel spreading activation
and inferencing in the sub-conscious that helps pop most thoughts up to
consciousness -- without me even knowing it. But by similar reasoning I
would also assume a lot of non-visual memories and patterns would also be
taking part in such massive parallel inferencing.
In many types of thinking I am consciously aware of words in my head much
more than I am of images. Perhaps this is because I am a patent lawyer,
and I have spent thousands of hours reading text in which many of the
words have only loose association to concrete visual memories. And as a
lawyer when I read such abstract texts, to the extent that I can sense
what is in my consciousness and near consciousness, many of the words I
read seem to derive their meaning largely from other concepts and
memories
that also seem to be largely defined in terms of words, although
occasionally visual memories pop out.
When I read "The plaintiff is an Illinois corporation selling services
for
the maintenance of photocopiers" it is probably not until I get to
"photocopiers" than anything approaching a concrete image pops into my
mind.
Thus, at least from my personal experience, it seems that many concepts
learned largely through words can be grounded to a significant degree in
other concepts defined largely through words. Yes, at some level in the
gen/comp pattern hierarchy and in episodic memory all of these concepts
derive at least some of their meaning from visual memories. But for
seconds at a time that does not seem to be the level of representation my
consciousness is aware of.
Does any body else on this list have similar episodes of what appears to
be largely verbal conscious thought, or am I (a) out of touch with my own
conscious processes, and/or (b) weird?
Edward W. Porter
Porter & Associates
24 String Bridge S12
Exeter, NH 03833
(617) 494-1722
Fax (617) 494-1822
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles D Hixson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 7:56 PM
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [agi] The Grounding of Maths
But what you're reporting is the dredging up of a memory. What would be
the symbolism if in response to "4" came the question "How do you know
that?" For me it's visual (and leads directly into the definition of "+"
as an amalgamation of two disjunct groupings).
Edward W. Porter wrote:
(second sending--roughly 45 minutes after first sending with no
appearance on list)
Why can't grounding from language, syntax, musical patterns, and other
non-visual forms of grounding play a role in mathematical thinking?
Why can't grounding in the form of abstract concepts learned from
hours of thinking about math and its transformations play an important
role.
Because we humans are such multimedia machines, probably most of us
who are sighted have at least some visual associations tainting most
of our concepts -- including most of our mathematical concepts -- at
least somewhere in the gen/comp hierarchies representing them and the
memories and patterns that include them.
I have always considered myself a visual thinker, and much of my AGI
thinking is visual, but if you ask me what is "2 + 2", it is a voice I
hear in my head that says "4", not a picture. It is not necessary that
visual reasoning be the main driving force in reasoning involving a
particular mathematical thought. To a certain extent math is a
language, and it would be surprising if linguistic patterns and
behaviors -- or at least patterns and behaviors partially derived from
them -- didn't play a large role in mathematical thinking.
Edward W. Porter
Porter & Associates
24 String Bridge S12
Exeter, NH 03833
(617) 494-1722
Fax (617) 494-1822
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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