From: Mike & Donna Deering (deering9@mchsi.com)
Date: Thu Jul 04 2002 - 14:43:06 MDT
Ben Goertzel, The book you recommended "A UNIVERSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS" by Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi, in response to my comment that consciousness might have some things in common with a sensory modality, turns out to be not exactly as you stated. I read the whole book carefully and at no point did it make any comparisons between consciousness and a sensory modality. Nevertheless, I am glad you recommended it. It is an excellent book. I learned a lot of neuroanatomy. The book included a complete model of the functioning brain. I can't say that I didn't have some disagreements with the author, but it was still enlightening to see another point of view, stimulating new perspectives. It basically proposed that consciousness was a network of corticothalamic circuits with peripheral algorithmic subprocesses in the amygdale and cerebellum. His contention that consciousness is not algorithmic but rather connectionist relational in nature does not bode well for my particular preference in AI design. He states that consciousness is not the result of a deterministic process but requires the fuzziness of a biological substrate. Personally, I thing any fuzzy connectionists process can be simulated by an algorithmic deterministic design.
Mike.
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