I haven't yet read Gelernter's piece, though a friend sent it earlier, and I glanced at it. I'm sorry he feels "bullied" by scientists, but science ain't beanbag.
I'd also point out that Marvin Minsky's last book argues that feelings are very much a part of intelligence. It's called "The Emotion Machine," and it's very persuasive. P. On Jan 9, 2014, at 4:27 PM, glen <[email protected]> wrote: > > Extremely well said! > > Also, referring to the sentence just prior: "Computers are information > machines. They transform one batch of information into another. > Computationalists often describe the mind as an 'information processor.' > But feelings are not information! Feelings are states of being." > > Our previous conversation about the duality of state/process comes to > mind. Coming from a professor of computer science, you'd think > Galernter would understand that a state of being is just as validly > considered a process of being. The information being processed while > feeling (e.g. wistful) is the enteroceptive machine transforming one > batch of information into another. > > > On 01/09/2014 09:32 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: >> "But feelings are /not/ information! Feelings are states of being. A >> feeling (mild wistfulness, say, on a warm summer morning) has, >> ordinarily, no information content at all. /Wistful/ is simply a way to >> /be/.'' >> >> If there was no such state of being estimated in a transpersonal way >> then there would not be word for it. >> >> American Heritage Dictionary: >> >> wistful: >> 1. Full of wishful yearning >> 2. Pensively sad; melancholy >> >> Does anyone seriously deny personality? That there exists relatively >> unique neural connectivity that makes Me different from anyone else? >> It hard makes me a `roboticist' to observe that the these unique >> aspects, after subtracting off all that is known about personality, and >> what I infer to be similar in other people (e.g. based on >> stimulus/response experiments and modeling in everyday life), says to me >> that I'm not excessively unique. I'm again and again struck by how easy >> it is to find examples of people (say, in the media) that seem eerily >> like me and even seem to me `ahead' of me on acting on their feeling. >> If anything, this recognition of my humiliating smallness motivates me >> to get up off my ass and find something about my life trajectory that >> adds unique value. >> >> One thing that gives meaning to human life is to have each add a little >> bit to pool of written history and technology -- to make the subjective, >> objective. > > > -- > ⇒⇐ glen > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
