Perception, Feedback, and Qualia
Evgenii Rudnyi
Thanks a lot for the first chapter of your book and the first lecture. I
have enjoyed it. As a small comment for the first chapter I have written
a text
Perception, Feedback, and Qualia
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2011/01/perception-feedback-and-qualia.html
As there is a couple of pictures there, it would be better to read it at
the link above but the best to discuss it here. I will make a link to
this email at Google Groups.
Best wishes,
Evgenii
P.S. Will be the picture ch1.tiff available somewhere online?
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Evgenii,
Philosophers and qualia notwithstanding, scientists are delving into bacterial perception:
Armitage, J.P., C.J. Dorman, K. Hellingwerf, R. Schmitt, D. Summers & B. Holland (2003). Thinking and decision making, bacterial style: Bacterial Neural Networks, Obernai, France, 7th-12th June 2002. Mol Microbiol 47(2), 583-593.
You seem to be implying that if we understand a system, it can’t be perceiving. This is contrary to the spirit of:
Braitenberg, V. (1984). Vehicles: Essays in Synthetic Psychology. Cambridge, MIT Press.
Nice looking dog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHJJQ0zNNOM, but does it bite?
Robots excuse us from writing into our programs the physical world. As “explanations” they may prove to be cop outs.
Now back to your flushing example. It is not the ballcock that perceives. It is the toilet. Think on that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker
Thanks.
Yours, -Dick Gordon gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
ps: I tried posting this as a comment to your blog, but got:
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/comment-page-#comment-
Error 404 - Link Not Found!
when I hit Submit.
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "EmbryoPhysics" group.
> To post to this group, send email to embryo...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to embryophysic...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/embryophysics?hl=en.
>
>
Evgenii Rudnyi
> Saturday, January 15, 2011 2:25 PM, Panacea, Florida Dear Evgenii,
> Philosophers and qualia notwithstanding, scientists are delving into
> bacterial perception:
>
> Armitage, J.P., C.J. Dorman, K. Hellingwerf, R. Schmitt, D. Summers&
> B. Holland (2003). Thinking and decision making, bacterial style:
> Bacterial Neural Networks, Obernai, France, 7th-12th June 2002. Mol
> Microbiol 47(2), 583-593.
This reminds me the theory of Gaia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
Why not? Everything is a matter of definitions.
> You seem to be implying that if we understand a system, it can�t be
> perceiving. This is contrary to the spirit of:
>
> Braitenberg, V. (1984). Vehicles: Essays in Synthetic Psychology.
> Cambridge, MIT Press.
Thanks for the reference. Looks nice.
Yet I do not understand indeed how we got our feelings. For example, can
Big Dog feel ache? What Braitenberg says about ache by vehicles?
> Nice looking dog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHJJQ0zNNOM, but does
> it bite?
>
> Robots excuse us from writing into our programs the physical world.
> As �explanations� they may prove to be cop outs.
>
> Now back to your flushing example. It is not the ballcock that
> perceives. It is the toilet. Think on that:
But then when we say "a bacterium perceives" is it the same as "a toilet
perceives"? Or is there a difference?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker Thanks. Yours, -Dick Gordon
> gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
>
> ps: I tried posting this as a comment to your blog, but got:
> http://blog.rudnyi.ru/comment-page-#comment- Error 404 - Link Not
> Found!
I do not know why Wordpress does not like you, as other somehow manage
to do it. Have you entered your email? In any case, now I have made a
link to this thread on Google Groups.
William R. Buckley
The important point about the toilet flush control is that perception
constitutes the act of releasing water from tank to bowl in response
to the recognition of signal reception: the application of force to
the
handle on the side of the tank is recognised within the context of
the flush control (the entire mechanism) to yield meaning, which is
that the tank flushes. The toilet example represents a system which
reacts to physical input (which in this case has an informational
character) in a context sensitive manner to yield meaning - a
semiotic
system.
So, perception is the context sensitive response to the acceptance
of a unit of information by a semiotic system. Further, the nature
of
perceiving systems has nothing to do with the act of perception; what
a system does with stimulus has nothing to do with the means (nature)
of transfer of that stimulus to the perceiving system. That the
toilet
flush control does no more than alter the state of the flapper is just
a
consequence of the complexity of the control, and there is the
slippery
slope: what is the threshold that defines the transition between a
system
which perceives and a system which does not perceive?
I suspect that some notions of consciousness cloud your view of
perception, Evgenii.
Dick:
Your comment:
be cop outs. "
is meaningless. How does an excuse come about? How is a
robot any less valid an example of individual than is a single cell?
What is wrong with the analogy that others employ, when they
choose to use a robots as a counter-example to the arguments
which others advance?
wrb
On Jan 15, 2:39 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi <use...@rudnyi.ru> wrote:
> on 15.01.2011 20:29 Dr. Richard Gordon said the following:
>
> > Saturday, January 15, 2011 2:25 PM, Panacea, Florida Dear Evgenii,
> > Philosophers and qualia notwithstanding, scientists are delving into
> > bacterial perception:
>
> > Armitage, J.P., C.J. Dorman, K. Hellingwerf, R. Schmitt, D. Summers&
> > B. Holland (2003). Thinking and decision making, bacterial style:
> > Bacterial Neural Networks, Obernai, France, 7th-12th June 2002. Mol
> > Microbiol 47(2), 583-593.
>
> This reminds me the theory of Gaia
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
>
> Why not? Everything is a matter of definitions.
>
>
> > Braitenberg, V. (1984). Vehicles: Essays in Synthetic Psychology.
> > Cambridge, MIT Press.
>
> Thanks for the reference. Looks nice.
>
> Yet I do not understand indeed how we got our feelings. For example, can
> Big Dog feel ache? What Braitenberg says about ache by vehicles?
>
>
> > Robots excuse us from writing into our programs the physical world.
> > Now back to your flushing example. It is not the ballcock that
> > perceives. It is the toilet. Think on that:
>
> But then when we say "a bacterium perceives" is it the same as "a toilet
> perceives"? Or is there a difference?
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ThinkerThanks. Yours, -Dick Gordon
> > ps: I tried posting this as a comment to your blog, but got:
>
> I do not know why Wordpress does not like you, as other somehow manage
> to do it. Have you entered your email? In any case, now I have made a
> link to this thread on Google Groups.
>
> > when I hit Submit.
>
> > Richard (Dick) Gordon Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
> > Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical&
> > Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
Evgenii Rudnyi
Thanks for your description. I am actually quite flexible with
definitions. I am working now mostly with engineers and they would
consider a toilet as a feedback system but I am personally fine with "a
toilet perceives".
Here I see though some problem how to define information unambiguously.
Let me quote Jim Holt (I took it from
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/msg/7cf7a2f287f70293):
"Take that rock over there. It doesn't seem to be doing much of
anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it
consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy
chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest
supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The
rock's innards 'see' the entire universe by means of the gravitational
and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a
system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one
whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our
brains might run through. And where there is information, says
panpsychism, there is consciousness. In David Chalmers's slogan,
'Experience is information from the inside; physics is information
from the outside.'
But the rock doesn't exert itself as a result of all this 'thinking.'
Why should it? Its existence, unlike ours, doesn't depend on the
struggle to survive and self-replicate. It is indifferent to the
prospect of being pulverized. If you are poetically inclined, you
might think of the rock as a purely contemplative being. And you might
draw the moral that the universe is, and always has been, saturated
with mind, even though we snobbish Darwinian-replicating latecomers
are too blinkered to notice."
Best wishes,
Evgenii
on 16.01.2011 22:09 William R. Buckley said the following:
> Evgenii and Dick:
>
> The important point about the toilet flush control is that
> perception constitutes the act of releasing water from tank to bowl
> in response to the recognition of signal reception: the application
> of force to the handle on the side of the tank is recognised within
> the context of the flush control (the entire mechanism) to yield
> meaning, which is that the tank flushes. The toilet example
> represents a system which reacts to physical input (which in this
> case has an informational character) in a context sensitive manner to
> yield meaning - a semiotic system.
>
> So, perception is the context sensitive response to the acceptance of
> a unit of information by a semiotic system. Further, the nature of
> perceiving systems has nothing to do with the act of perception;
> what a system does with stimulus has nothing to do with the means
> (nature) of transfer of that stimulus to the perceiving system. That
> the toilet flush control does no more than alter the state of the
> flapper is just a consequence of the complexity of the control, and
> there is the slippery slope: what is the threshold that defines the
> transition between a system which perceives and a system which does
> not perceive?
>
> I suspect that some notions of consciousness cloud your view of
> perception, Evgenii.
>
>
> Dick:
>
> Your comment: "Robots excuse us from writing into our programs the
> physical world. As �explanations� they may prove to be cop outs. "