David:Mike, these statements are an *enormous* leap from the actual study of mirror neurons. It's my hunch that the hypothesis paraphrased above is generally true, but it is *far* from being fully supported by, or understood via, the empirical evidence. [snip] these are all original or recently original observations about the powers of the human brain and body which are beyond the powers of any digital computer. You claimed never to have heard an original observation here re digital computers' limitations - that's because you don't listen, and aren't interested in the non-digital and non-rational. Obviously a pet in a virtual world can have no real body or embodied integrity).
It seems that your magical views on human cognition are showing their colors again; you haven't supplied any coherent argument as to why the hypothetical function of mirror neurons (skills empathy with and mimicry of other embodied entities or representations thereof) could not be duplicated by sufficiently clever software written for digital computers. David, I actually did give the reason - but, fine, I haven't clearly explained it enough to communicate. The reason is basically simple. All the powers discussed depend on the cognitive ability to map one complex, irregular shape onto another - and that involves a "fluid" transformation, (which is completely beyond the power of any current software - or,to be more precise, any rational sign system, esp. mathematics/geometry). When you map your body onto that of the Dancers, (or anyone else's), you are mapping two irregular shapes that are not geometrically comparable, onto each other. There is no formulaic way to transform one into the other, and hence perceive their likeness. Geometry and geometrically-based software can't do this. When you see that the outline map of Italy is like a boot - a classic example of metaphor/analogy - there is no geometric, formulaic way to transform that cartographic outline of that landmass into the outline of a boot. It is a "fluid" transformation of one irregular shape into another irrregular shape. When you *draw* almost any shape whatsoever, you are engaged in performing fluid transformations - producing *rough* likenesses/shapes (as opposed to the precise, formulaic likenesses of geometry). The shapes of the faces and flowers you draw on a page are only v. (sometimes v.v.) roughly like the real shapes of the real objects you have observed, Think of a cinematic *dissolve* from one object, like a face, into another - which is not a precise, formulaic morphing but simply a rough superimposition of two shapes that are roughly alike. Crudely, you could say, your brain is continually performing that sort of operation on the shapes of the world in order to recognize them and compare them.. Or think of a face perceived through fluid rippling water. Your brain, speaking v. loosely, is able to perform somewhat similar transformations on objects. The human mind deals in fluid shapes. The human body continuously produces fluid shapes itself. When you move you are continuously shaping and then fluidly transforming your body to fit the world around you. When you reach out for an object, you start shaping your hand to fit before you get there, and fluidly adjust that hand shape as required to actually grasp the object. Geometry can only perform regular/rational transformations of objects - even topology deals in the regular likenesses besides otherwise non-comparable objects like a doughnut and a cup handle. Even, at its current, most flexible extreme, the geometry of "free-form" transformation is still dealing with formulaic transformations, that are not truly free-form/fluid and so not able to handle the operations I've been discussing. But the very term, free-form, indicates what geometry would like but is unable to achieve). There is an obvious difference between geometry and art/drawing. Computers in their current guise are only geometers and not artists. They cannot map shapes directly - physically- onto each other, (with no intermediate operations), and they cannot fluidly (and directly) transform shapes into each other. The brain is manifestly an artist and manifestly organized extremely extensively on mapping lines - and those brain maps, as experiments show, are able to undergo fluid transformations themselves in their spatial layout. Another way to say this, is to say that the brain has and computers don't have,imagination - they cannot truly handle/map images/shapes. There is nothing magical about this. What it will require is a different and/or additional kind of computer. A computer that can handle not only rational operations, which all depend on taking things to (regular/rational) pieces, but imaginative operations, which all depend on fluid comparisons of (mainly irregular/irrational) wholes (without reducing them to pieces).. A computer IOW that loosely copies not just one half, but both halves of the human brain. All the operations that equal general intelligence - visual object recognition, analogy, metaphor, conceptualisation, and creativity - - all depend on imagination - fluid transofrmations of whole shapes/forms. Rational AI can't perform these operations - and hence has consistently got nowhere and never will get anywhere - until it joins with imagination. (BTW, Ben, I'd be v. interested to know where you have seen this last proposition before). P.S. The only "magical" notion in this discussion is the idea that there is such a thing as "virtual embodiment" - that a "cardboard cutout" of a pet or other agent in a virtual world, can have any embodied properties, or embodied perception or intelligence. Fluid mapping depends on having a fluid body. ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com