Dear Erin,
In your 22/6 13:16 -0400 posting you ask feedback on Grossberg's Adaptive
Resonance Theory about consciousness.
Your quote is not only difficult to read because of jargon. Some sentences
near the end are in a tangle.
It reads like a theory about how to build a computer that can do what humans
do by simulating consciousness (in the sens of awareness). The model lacks a
social level and (related with that ...) a level on which humans do lots of
things subconsciously. It doesn't work as a model of human consciousness
(and it won't work as a manual for building artificial intelligence),
because it doesn't seem to distinguish between the mental activity which we
are aware of and subconscious mental activity. The mental activity which we
are aware of cannot possibly manage all our bodily processes and behavior
that need mental guidance. It is much to slow for that. (Imagine consciously
deciding how to move a tennis racket and meanwhile the rest of your body in
order to get the tennis ball approximately where you want it to go...) Most
of it must be guided by subconscious mental activity. Using conscious mental
activity as a model of subconscious mental activity (as the ART seems to do)
is a mistake: subconscious mental activity would be too slow for its task
also. Not 'learning' and 'intentionality' should be core concepts in a model
of subconscious mental activity, but 'habitual repetition' and 'imitiation'.
22/6 12:41 -0400 you wrote to Jim:
'There is an unconscious when we are alert too. I think for me the
distinction between subconscious and
unconscious is that some things can be brought into consciousness with
effort and some things can not.
Things that are able to become conscious but are not at the present moment
are subconscious.'
You seem to be dividing 'mental activity' in three categories:
consciousness/awareness, subconsciousness and unconsciousness. You claim
that all three are present when we are awake and that we can move 'things'
back and forth between consciousness/awareness and subconsciousness but not
between either of these and unconsciousness. Is that right?
This is a SOM-based model of a supposed objective reality. Why do you need
three categories instead of two? What are these 'things' that can be moved
between consciousness/awareness and subconsciousness? How do we know if such
a 'thing' exists and where it is, when we are not aware of it? What reality
has for instance an 'idea' which we have stored in memory, but do not need
at present? Is it really the same 'idea' as the 'idea' we 'restore from
memory' when we do need it again? Or have we re-created that idea from habit
and need and imitation?
I still prefer my model of 'mental activity' with categories that are
associated with three types of patterns of values (biological, social and
intellectual) and three types of 'valuing' (hard-wired/bio-chemically
mediated reaction, imitation and choice). I wouldn't call
hard-wired/bio-chemically mediated reactions part of consciousness (they are
there even when I am asleep or knocked-out). I associate imitation with
subconsciousness and I associate choice with awareness.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:20 BST