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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Dear John,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Thanks for your prompt and elaborate response. Let's wait
and see whether/how (some of) the recipients of our emails respond. I
hope Sir Roger Penrose will read your suggestion with a
smile. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Your definition of mind ('A mind is what its corresponding
brain does') intrigues me. <STRONG>Is what the brain does an event or an
action? </STRONG>On the difference between the two, see:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Samuel Guttenplan,<EM> Mind's Landscape</EM>, Blackwell,
2000;</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Bruno Gnassounou, <EM>Philosophie de l'action</EM>, Vrin,
2007;</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis (eds.), <EM>A
Companion to the Philosophy of Action</EM>,<EM> </EM>Blackwell,
2010;</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><A
href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/action">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/action</A>;
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><A
href="https://sites.google.com/site/pacherie/home">https://sites.google.com/site/pacherie/home</A><FONT
size=2>.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Hans</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=weng@cse.msu.edu href="mailto:weng@cse.msu.edu">Juyang Weng</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=j_kuijper@online.nl
href="mailto:j_kuijper@online.nl">hans kuijper</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, February 18, 2013 1:59
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: computational terms as a
sign of maturity</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Dear Hans,<BR><BR>Thank you very much for your points.
<BR><BR>I have a basic disagreement with <FONT face=Arial>Roger
Penrose. I am now giving him a CC so that he can join our
discussion. Prof. Penrose, please let me know if you like to be dropped
from this discussion. <BR><BR>I suggest that
Prof. </FONT><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial>Roger Penrose</FONT>
should learn neuroscience first and then re-examine his positions.<BR><BR>In
particular, the Godel's incompleteness theory that he cited has a fundamental
problem. Kurt Godel proved his </FONT><FONT face=Arial><FONT
face=Arial>incompleteness theory in 1931. I guess that his idea was inspired
from a paradox that </FONT></FONT><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><A
title="Bertrand Russell"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell">Bertrand Russell</A>
discovered in 1901, now called Russell's paradox:</FONT></FONT><BR><FONT
face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><IMG class=tex
alt="\text{let } R = \{ x \mid x \not \in x \}
\text{, then } R \in R \iff R \not \in R"
src="cid:E408E5F872B94A2BBA91EBEC97D3184B@uw313ad20dcb0a"><BR>Put in an
intuitive way, Russell defined a set so that a particular logic question
cannot be answered as simply yes or no. </FONT></FONT><FONT
face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial>Kurt Godel did a similarly
thing.<BR><BR>Think about a simpler version of the paradox: I define the
set of my sisters based on the condition that the person is NOT my
sister. Then, "is the person my sister?" cannot be answered.
<BR><BR>There are many ways to object to </FONT></FONT></FONT><FONT
face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial>Roger Penrose's
position. My first objection could be: "In the Brain's self-organization
principles: there is no absolutely right or wrong" as I argued in
<BR></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><FONT
face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><A
href="http://www.brain-mind-magazine.org/read.php?file=BMM-V1-N2-paper5-Obama.pdf#view">The
2nd Open Letter to the US President Obama: Why US Should Be Friendly with
Every Government?</A> <BR>In other words, there is no
absolute yes or no answer for a brain. For any natural-world question, two
brains can come up with two different answers: one answers yes and the other
no. Therefore, mathematical logic seems too simple and too rigid
as a tool for studying brain-mind. <BR><BR>Your questions are great
ones. I am afraid that not all my answers below are correct or agreeably
by many experts on this email list. Just for the purpose of discussion,
I try to give my response. Let me know if I am wrong. You all are
welcome to BMI this summer so that we can further our interesting discussion.
<BR></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT><BR><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><FONT
face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial>1) Can the mind be modelled
directly or only indirectly (via the brain)? If the latter, why?
<BR></FONT> <BR>Weng: Yes. Any model of the nature is an
approximation, including more basic phenomena described by Newtonian
physics. I gave a simplified model about the rise of a mind from a
grounded emerging brain in<A
href="http://www.brain-mind-institute.org/press.html"> Natural and Artificial
Intelligence<BR></A></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>2) Can the mind (as distinct from the
brain) be modelled wholly or only partly? If the latter,
why?<BR><BR>Weng: Only partially, since we humans can never say that we have a
complete understanding about the nature. </FONT><FONT face=Arial><FONT
face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial>Newtonian physics is an
example. An interesting point is then whether we can model to a
large degree so that the difference from the nature is not very obvious to us.
<BR></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>3) In the ongoing mind-body debate, to which camp
do you belong?<BR><BR>Weng: I think that mind is impossible without the
corresponding body. This does not mean that a robot body has to be
developed (a designed body seems to be more practical for robots at the
current stage of technology). I also belong to an optimistic camp, since the
basic principles to give rise to probably the first-order mind seem to be
relatively simple. Do not laugh at me at this point. Come to the
BMI to convince yourself. <BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>4) Do you think we are (very complicated) robots?
If so, what makes these robots acting and behaving?<BR><BR>Weng:
Yes, we are "meat robots" in a sense. Five factors made us: (1)
environment, (2) sensors, (3) effectors, (4) developmental mechanisms such as
those of a cell<BR>(I called it developmental program), and (5) how we are
taught. Although those cellular mechanisms in (4) are relatively simple,
many cells work together to give rise to amazing minds. <BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>5) If we are robots, physically
determined, where does our sense of liberty, justice or
compassion come from?<BR><BR>Weng: Largely from the above 5 factors, but
experience played a critical role. We thought that we have
independent minds. But in fact, we do not really. Each
individual mind is heavily shaped by the environment, including mother,
father, brothers and sisters, and peers. When one says "I want
...", what he wants is largely determined by the environment from which he is
raised and the current environmental context. <BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>6) In the sentence 'the mind models the mind'
subject equals object, right? How can?<BR><BR>Weng: Great question! That
is why understanding one's own mind using one's own mind seems to be one of
the last scientific problems facing humanity. Fortunately, humans
have spent so much money and resource in studying the nature including human
nature. Now, we seem to be very close to solving this mystery "in the
first order sense" but in precise computational terms. Yes, brain-mind
phenomena can also be simulated and demonstrated by developmental robots (not
traditional non-developmental robots). But this demonstration needs
resource and time. We need to "raise" our robots like the way we
"raise" our children in our human environments. <BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>7) If mind and culture are somehow related (I think
they are pretty much the same), what could be the relationship between nature
(brain) and culture? And would it be (theoretically) possible to
formalise this relationship?</FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial><FONT
face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><FONT face=Arial><BR>Weng: a mind is what its
corresponding brain does. Culture seems to be the common knwoledge
and common behaviors among many brains in a society. The physical brains
enable the rise of culture after many generations of brains interact with the
environment in this world (including other brains and bodies).
Like culture, traditions, languages, politics, sense of right or wrong, all
emerge from such interactions. Yes, it seems possible to
rigorously formalise this relationship theoretically in mathematical
terminology. We all can work together along this line. I
hope that Prof. Roger Penrose can be convinced one day. <BR><BR>Just my 2
cents of worth.<BR><BR>-John<BR></FONT> </FONT><BR></FONT><BR></FONT>
<DIV class=moz-cite-prefix>On 2/17/13 6:07 PM, hans kuijper wrote:<BR></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Dear John,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I think your point (a science, or discipline, is
immature until its phenomena can be explained in computational terms) is
debatable. In 'On understanding understanding' (<EM>International Studies in
the Philosophy of Science</EM>, 11:1 [1997], 7-20), Roger Penrose argues, by
use of specific examples, that 'mathematical understanding is
something which cannot be modelled in terms of entirely computational
procedures'. See also his book <EM>The Road to Reality: A Complete
Guide to the Physical World</EM>, BCA, 2004, pp. 7-24,
374-378,1027-1045; and his foreword to Hector Zenil (ed.), <EM>A Computable
Universe: Understanding and Exploring Nature as Computation</EM>, World
Scientific, 2013. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Talking about scientific/computational modelling,
I would like to raise the following questions:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>1) Can the mind be modelled directly or only
indirectly (via the brain)? If the latter, why? </FONT>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>2) Can the mind (as distinct from the
brain) be modelled wholly or only partly? If the latter,
why?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>3) In the ongoing mind-body debate, to which camp
do you belong? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>4) Do you think we are (very complicated) robots?
If so, what makes these robots acting and behaving?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>5) If we are robots, physically
determined, where does our sense of liberty, justice or
compassion come from?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>6) In the sentence 'the mind models the mind'
subject equals object, right? How can?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>7) If mind and culture are somehow related (I
think they are pretty much the same), what could be the relationship between
nature (brain) and culture? And would it be (theoretically) possible to
formalise this relationship?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>It seems to me that an unequivocal answer to
these vexed questions is a prerequisite for having a sensible
discussion about mind's embodiedness (link with brain) and embeddedness
(link with society/<EM>Mitwelt</EM>). </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Kind regards, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Hans Kuijper </FONT></DIV></DIV>
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