Friam

Re: The FRIAM mind (was: 'Do robots dream of electricillusions? or Bladerunner, theRealist's Cut')

Classic

List

Threaded

2 messages Options

Nick Thompson

Re: The FRIAM mind (was: 'Do robots dream of electricillusions? or Bladerunner, theRealist's Cut')

Jochen,

Nice. I discovered when I moved to a small town in New England 40 years
ago, I found that there were lots of "theys" but no "we's". So, people
would get together and discuss the bad behavior of "they" who lived "up
town", but when you got up town, you never could find any "we" that
corresponded to that "they".

So, what if your consciousness is just like that. I look across the table
and I see one body, and I assume that there is "a mind" to correspond to
that unitary body. But lo, it isnt true. Over there, on that side of the
table, there is no" I" that corresponds to that "he", just a bunch of
different systems struggling to be in control of the body and to look
responsible to the people accross the table. Given that a body can get
chucked in the loony bin for not being unitary, it is not surprizing that
the conflicting systems that control it would be under some constraint to
try to appear organized to the outside world.

Isnt this very close to Dennett's view in CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED?

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

> [Original Message]
> From: Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Date: 6/19/2009 4:35:43 AM
> Subject: [FRIAM] The FRIAM mind (was: 'Do robots dream of
electricillusions? or Bladerunner, theRealist's Cut')

>
> You are talking about the list as if it is a single
> entity (let us see how 'the list' responds), although
> it is composed of several independent individuals:
> Russ, Stephen, Glen, Douglas, to name a few.
> Can we think of the mind as a similar kind of
> list or group, which is composed of several agents?
> Is the society of mind metaphor from Minsky
> helpful to explain behavior?
>
> If the FRIAM list discusses itself, would
> this be a form of self-consciousness for
> the FRIAM mind?
>
> -J.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Nicholas Thompson
> To: [hidden email]
> Cc: Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Do robots dream of electric illusions? or
> Bladerunner,theRealist's Cut
>
> [...]
> It will be interesting to see how the list responds.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

John Kennison

Re: The FRIAM mind (was: 'Do robots dream of electricillusions? or Bladerunner, theRealist's Cut')

I'd like to switch from robots to towns. Sometimes we loosely talk of a town's spirit. We might say that the spirit is dampened when the town's little league team loses to the team from an adjoining town. Or that the town is suffering from a political illusion, etc. But we can say these things yet maintain that there really isn't a town spirit" or an "inner mind" of the town. I don't think we have the scientific knowledge to come up with much scientific evidence for or against the position that inner minds exist for people, or for towns for that matter. So far, the one reason I believe there are inner minds is purely subjective. Yes, I realize this is conceding something, maybe quite a lot, to Nick, but I don't see how my sense of awareness can be an illusion.

________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson [[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 11:17 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The FRIAM mind (was: 'Do robots dream of electricillusions? or Bladerunner, theRealist's Cut')

Jochen,

Nice. I discovered when I moved to a small town in New England 40 years
ago, I found that there were lots of "theys" but no "we's". So, people
would get together and discuss the bad behavior of "they" who lived "up
town", but when you got up town, you never could find any "we" that
corresponded to that "they".

So, what if your consciousness is just like that. I look across the table
and I see one body, and I assume that there is "a mind" to correspond to
that unitary body. But lo, it isnt true. Over there, on that side of the
table, there is no" I" that corresponds to that "he", just a bunch of
different systems struggling to be in control of the body and to look
responsible to the people accross the table. Given that a body can get
chucked in the loony bin for not being unitary, it is not surprizing that
the conflicting systems that control it would be under some constraint to
try to appear organized to the outside world.

Isnt this very close to Dennett's view in CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED?

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

> [Original Message]
> From: Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Date: 6/19/2009 4:35:43 AM
> Subject: [FRIAM] The FRIAM mind (was: 'Do robots dream of
electricillusions? or Bladerunner, theRealist's Cut')

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org