Gary, Thanks for providing a link to the interesting article by Epstein. I broadly agree with his critique of artificial intelligence, but in the end he seems to run out of gas. He doesn't seem to understand the brain, either, except that it is a living organism. I have read elsewhere that leading AI practitioners now (belatedly) acknowledge that AI software is not modeled on the way the brain works.
Regards, Tom Wyrick > On May 21, 2016, at 11:25 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote: > > List, > > I recently read a rther controversial essay in Aeon by Robert Epstein on what > the author considers to be the "faulty logic of the IP metaphor" of the brain. > > https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer. > > >> Epstein writes: > > The faulty logic of the IP metaphor is easy enough to state. It is based on a > faulty syllogism – one with two reasonable premises and a faulty conclusion. > Reasonable premise #1: all computers are capable of behaving intelligently. > Reasonable premise #2: all computers are information processors. Faulty > conclusion: all entities that are capable of behaving intelligently are > information processors. > > > Earlier in the article he sets forth what we do and do not "start with" and > which, in his view, we never develop: > > Senses, reflexes and learning mechanisms – this is what we start with, and it > is quite a lot, when you think about it. If we lacked any of these > capabilities at birth, we would probably have trouble surviving. > > But here is what we are not born with: information, data, rules, software, > knowledge, lexicons, representations, algorithms, programs, models, memories, > images, processors, subroutines, encoders, decoders, symbols, or buffers – > design elements that allow digital computers to behave somewhat > intelligently. Not only are we not born with such things, we also don’t > develop them – ever. > > We don’t store words or the rules that tell us how to manipulate them. We > don’t create representations of visual stimuli, store them in a short-term > memory buffer, and then transfer the representation into a long-term memory > device. We don’t retrieve information or images or words from memory > registers. Computers do all of these thinThe information processing (IP) > metaphor of human intelligence now dominates human thinking, both on the > street and in the sciences. There is virtually no form of discourse about > intelligent human behaviour that proceeds without employing this metaphor, > just as no form of discourse about intelligent human behaviour could proceed > in certain eras and cultures without reference to a spirit or deity. The > validity of the IP metaphor in today’s world is generally assumed without > question. > > But the IP metaphor is, after all, just another metaphor – a story we tell to > make sense of something we don’t actually understand. And like all the > metaphors that preceded it, it will certainly be cast aside at some point – > either replaced by another metaphor or, in the end, replaced by actual > knowledge.gs, but organisms do not. > > *** > > And later: > > [E]ven if we had the ability to take a snapshot of all of the brain’s 86 > billion neurons and then to simulate the state of those neurons in a > computer, that vast pattern would mean nothing outside the body of the brain > that produced it. This is perhaps the most egregious way in which the IP > metaphor has distorted our thinking about human functioning. Whereas > computers do store exact copies of data – copies that can persist unchanged > for long periods of time, even if the power has been turned off – the brain > maintains our intellect only as long as it remains alive. There is no on-off > switch. Either the brain keeps functioning, or we disappear. What’s more, as > the neurobiologist Steven Rose pointed out in The Future of the Brain (2005), > a snapshot of the brain’s current state might also be meaningless unless we > knew the entire life history of that brain’s owner – perhaps even about the > social context in which he or she was raised. > > Any thoughts? > > Best, > > Gary R > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] > . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] > with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at > http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . > > > >
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