[Wittrs] Re: On the Mechanism of Understanding
- From: kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:46:17 -0700
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 4:35 PM, kirby urner<kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> People are mindless versus mindful. Maybe use that spectrum to grade
> the level of consciousness they express.
>
> Two axes then, with the mind axis (Y) reading out the level of
> consciousness (X). The medical axis for sleep to woozy to semi-awake
> to sharp could be a 3rd axis yet (Z).
>
> So picture an XYZ cube that's { awake * conscious * mindful } (each
> edge like a ruler, dot moving around inside, changing position in this
> "phase space", a very traditional way of thinking here).
>
On second thought, that's just a two axis picture.
Title: Consciousness (your host: your neuro-anatomy (more than just brain))
X-axis: Mindful (0 = aware only of self)
Y-axis: Awake (0 = unconscious)
Ways to change X: list
Ways to change Y: list
Anyway, feel free to dink around with this, anyone.
Regarding "understanding" -- you probably appreciate more clearly, now
that I've spelled out how I don't see it as a mental process or
feature of brain functioning, how I'd allow that a Chinese-speaking
computer that passed the Turing Test might count as "understanding
Chinese".
But then it's getting easier and easier to pass the Turing Test using
mindless automation, bots. Turns out many humans may not be able to
judge intelligence very well, even in themselves!
Kirby
Other related posts:
