Robert, You're right this is important to intelligence. You're talking about body maps - see Blakeslee's The Body Has A Mind of its Own, where Rizzolatti's work is extensively discussed. Body maps help control not only your own movements around the world but are also used by the brain's mirror neurons to understand the movements of others and the world around you, Hence Ramachandran argues
"Without a doubt it is one of the most important discoveries ever made about the brain, Mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology. They will provide a unifying framework and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious..." Body maps are as fundamental to the brain's model of the world, as geometry is to science's model of the world. But while they are controlled by maps in the brain, they are expressed in maps in the body itself.. When your body map of your arm and hand extends to include a tool or a tennis racket, the map is expressed in that same arm and hand and not just your brain, as that implement becomes and feels a part of you - hence Fast Eddie in the movie The Hustler talking about playing pool when ".. he's got everything workin' for him -- timing, touch. It's a great feeling, boy, it's a real great feeling when you're right, and you know you're right. It's like all of a sudden I got oil in my arm. Pool cue's part of me. You know, it's a -- pool cue's got nerves in it. It's a piece of wood -- it's got nerves in it. You feel the roll of those balls. You don't have to look. You just know" And when your mirror neurons help you to empathise with a character in a movie, or a real person, you don't just feel "sorrow","disgust", "fear", with them - your "heart goes out to them," you feel "sick to your guts," it "sends a chill down your spine" or your whole body becomes rigid with fear. As I'm arguing on Singularity, if you want real intelligence you absolutely need a body as well as a brain. P.S. Anyone remember the history of sci. psychology? It used to be - no? - that the mind was both cognition AND "conation" (for which you need a body). Then my guess is, cognitive science came along and that distinction was rarely made - the conative and the body got shoved into the back room. They're back. Robert Wensman: This could perhaps be relevant to understanding human level intelligence. One interpretation here is that the brain of primates considers tools as part of their body, which makes them good at using them: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/128/2 This of course, still leaves the question of how a generally intelligent system uses its body in the first place, and what special hardware there is to deal with this problem. :-). Personally I believe that a general intelligence, such as the human mind, still have some specialized processors to deal with very common situations. Another thing that I guess could use some special hardware, is the ability to feel empathy and understand other human beings or animals. To understand other intelligent beings is so important for humans, yet if done in a general way it seems so incredibly expensive and difficult. Also, a human is in many ways very similar to the intelligent beings it tries to simulate, so it is my firm belief that a human uses parts of its own cognitive process to simulate other intelligent beings. I think that a social AGI system needs to be able to instantiate its own cognitive process in a kind of role-play. Assume that I know this, that I want this, and that I am in this kind of situation, what would I do. And then use this role playing to assess others actions. The fact that empathy seems to be more strongly connected to biological heritage, rather than by social influence could indicate that the ability to feel empathy needs special hardware in our brain. I think I heard of a study that showed a very strong correlation between the empathic ability of identical twins, which should indicate that their social upbringing has less influence on this particular ability. However, I don´t remember the source of that that information. ----- 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=8660244&id_secret=92282481-eaef85
