Connectionists: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM]Re: how the brain works?

[Danko Nikolic]

Dear Brian,

> Indeed, perhaps a mind that has a coherent semantic network manually 
> pre-trained in IT cortex and elsewhere can skip embodiment altogether, 
> and jump straight to intelligence (assuming the rest of the 
> architecture is coherent).
Actually, according to practopoietic theory, it would not work for the 
reason that the system needs ultimately to close the sensory-motor loops 
as a way of re-checking the functionality of its abstract semantic 
networks.

Without a constant sensory-motor feedback, the semantic parts would 
quickly go astray--becoming a kind of psychotic, much like in dreams,  
sensory deprivation, phantom limbs, etc.

One can think about it in terms of development: A development of a brain 
(or an organism in general) is not possible without an interaction with 
the environment. The adult brain then works in the same way as a toddler 
brain but just with a smaller rate of change. This means that all our 
adult learning, thinking, and intelligent behavior requires in the same 
way interaction with the environment as it did when we were babies.

Only computer algorithms can work in isolation (in the manuscript on 
practopoiesis I use the example of factoring a number). Our adaptive 
biological brains cannot do that. And this is a good news because 
exactly this dependence on the interaction with the environment is what 
enables us to become more adaptive and more intelligent than machines.

With regards,

Danko




-- 
Danko Nikolic, Ph.D.

Web:
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Max Planck Institut for Brain Research
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Wolfgang Goethe University
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