From scarab@info.bt.co.uk Thu Apr 3 04:24:15 1997 Received: from zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk (zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk [132.146.5.1]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id EAA27964 for ; Thu, 3 Apr 1997 04:24:13 -0500 Received: from zion.info.bt.co.uk by zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk with SMTP (PP); Thu, 3 Apr 1997 10:23:24 +0100 Received: from [132.146.127.68] by zion.info.bt.co.uk; Thu, 3 Apr 1997 10:26:57 +0100 X-Sender: gregm@zion.info.bt.co.uk Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <199704022200.RAA24644@hopfield.phil.rpi.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 10:23:50 +0100 To: Selmer Bringsjord From: scarab Subject: Re: I confess, I'm zany... X-UIDL: c2411fa01e9bc0138ced4c2f08343f0a Status: R Hi Selmer, >Greg, hi. I'll keep my eyes open for the chapter (why not send the whole >book for my comment on back?), and will get you mine. Yrs, //Selmer Jeepers! You mean you'd subject yourself to all this materialist claptrap? Lots of little bits are still evolving, as I chase up all the little one-liners I've kept writing to myself ("fix this note in chapter 4", "clarify that in chapter 6", etc.), but I'd be glad to send along the rest if you're really up for it. The intro & last chapter are still being written, and the chaos & computability stuff still needs work, but *most* of the rest is mainly settled. Here's a quick summary: Chap 2 -- Zombies and Their Look-Alikes -- Take up Dennett's challenge to show why zombies are important to phil of mind. Outcome: behaviourally indistinguishable zombies are logically possible, so consciousness requires more than behaviour...need to look at what *processes* are going on inside. Chap 3 -- Information, Complexity, and Representation -- On its way to you... Says information is physical, and here's how to quantify it. Equates representation w/ mutual information content, puts off symbol grounding (being *used as* a rep'n.) until chap. 8. Chap 4 -- A Rose, By Any Other Name (Or Description) -- Jackson's Mary example offers no arguments against physicalism, because it is consistent w/ physicalist assumptions. Chap 5 -- Functional Systems -- Addresses inadequacies of standard approaches to functionalism, extends algorithmic information theory w/ measure of functional logical depth & offers an objective method for functional decomposition. Although undecidable, the method grounds talk of there *being* non-trivial functional decompositions. Chap 6 -- Self Models -- Supervenience & all. Argues that consciousness supervenes on physical world but that problems of perspective (chap 4) prevent our logically deriving ourselves into a state of grasping what it is like to be anything other than what we are. Suggests that supervenience relation is 'true but unusable' and introduces view that subject of conscious sensation is a materially instantiated dynamic data structure called a 'self model'. Chap 7 -- Schrodinger's Cat is Dead -- Side trip to debunk quantum theories of mind. Explores Omnes's rendition of consistent histories and outlines mechanisms of interactive decoherence. This chap is heavy going and regrettably technical. Chap 8 -- Building Conscious Data Structures -- Neural nets galore. How to instantiate neurally the kinds of information theoretic properties attributed to the self model in chap 6. Adaptive resonance theory, symbol grounding, etc. Chap 9 -- the chaos stuff. If you really are willing to subject yourself to this, any chance I could try PostScript again? I've been hitting up our secretary for so much printing lately that I'm trying to reduce the load on her a bit. (Although, on the other hand, that's one reason why we have a secretary!) In any case, thanks for even considering this!! Cheers, Greg