[Wittrs] Re: This Matter of Consciousness, Intelligence, Brains, Minds and Microcosms

  • From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 19:22:32 -0700

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Stuart W. Mirsky<SWMirsky@xxxxxxx> wrote:

<< SNIP >>

> A human doesn't need to "do" anything to understand a story. I can read a
> story quietly, and although I have no overt behavior my understanding and
> comprehension are clear, at least to me. You, on the other hand, cannot tell
> from my quiet behavior whether I understand the story or not, or even if I
> know the language the story is written in. . . A thesis of this book is that
> understanding cannot be measured by external behavior; as we'll see in the
> coming chapters, it is instead an internal metric of how the brain remembers
> things and uses its memories to make predictions. The Chinese Room, Deep
> Blue, and most computer programs don't have anything akin to this. They
> don't understand what they are doing. . .

I'd interject here that the author is proposing to alter the meaning
of "understanding" in some way to suit his conceptual predilections,
which is not a crime, more a recruiting challenge i.e. will he be able
to generate much agreement around his proposed "new rules"?  He'll
need to give us a lot of use cases, so that we understand better what
he means by "understand" (so far, I wouldn't claim that I do).

As ordinarily understood, the grammar around "understand" requires
some sign off aka peer review.  You'll read a novel silently,
confident that you'll pass muster if asked to give an account, but
you'll see doubt flickering in the eyes of your interrogators if you
fail their tests for understanding.

Perhaps the work contains veiled meanings, allusions you didn't
expect?  Even though you correctly regurgitate the plot line, your
interlocutors shake their heads, giving up on you, as it were.

Another star student is brought forward and given accolades:  "this
one understood, you did not."  One might be very surprised by this
outcome and complain bitterly e.g. "no one told me I was supposed to
'decode' this book, I just thought it was a spy novel."

Wittgenstein's own examples are usually far less complicated, i.e. he
typically gives numeric sequences following some rule, like in the
On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS).

It's actually quite easy to find recognized / published sequences
which the average intelligent reader with not understand, in the sense
of having no clue what term to give next.  A lot of IQ tests are like
this, may use sequences of images instead of numbers, but the idea is
the same:  there's a rule that's sufficient to "determine" the right
answer.

Here's an example:  1,2,3,6,11,23,47,106,235...

Wittgenstein gives examples where a pupil stares at a sequence and
then a light seems to go on.  The student brightens, looks satisfied,
and writes the next term.  "Aha!  Now I understand" our guinea pig
exclaims.  But then all the judges (referees) shake their heads:  no
this wasn't the right answer.  Their conclusion:  the student does not
understand.

The point:  the existing grammar around the concept of "understanding"
is not "centered" on what some might want to call "private first
person experiences".  You just need to consult your own database of
use cases to discover the truth of this assertion.  Or maybe you live
with a tribe that has some curious alternative use for the word?

Kirby

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