I’m noticing a pattern… some sort of correlation between a quantum unit of dates and the flow of time… but to what end? And how does a continuum translate into an array of discrete units? But more pressing and vexing: to what end? Tick tock, tick tock, tick… NEW DAY. Hmmm.
Pressing forth into the fourth chapter of Scaruffi’s challenge
Prequel; or, In last’s week’s episode:
I’ve finished mind mapping chapter 3, which I point out as a way of hinting to the lacunae that is a better-filled understanding of its contents. I have at least made adequate notes (electronic and analogue) that can serve as a foundation for further and future research into those relevant details, prompts, and general queries. But in the meanwhile…
…in the meanwhile I’ve begun reading further:
I’ve only started making headway (electronically and by alternative-retro means), but can state some obvious realizations. This chapter (at least at its beginnings) aims to investigate cognition. In a sense, it continues from the last paragraph of the previous chapter, where it was suggested that an exploration of machine intelligence is misguided since intelligence is a nebulous concept at the best of times, and that the popular approaches towards its construction are fundamentally flawed since they hope to demonstrate problem-solving capacities. That lies in contrast to a better yard-stick (nb. while still neglecting/avoiding a firm delineation) of intelligence which can be problem-generation (i.e. as related to curiosity, but more importantly, as related to a talent that is at once less precise and more powerful, and one which we often associate with critical thinking).
With that in mind, we can commend the choice of segregating cognitive processes for a choice for focus. That’s not to say that cognitive processes will solve all the problems from previous chapters and which remain unplacated. Instead, once it is recognized that cognitive processes are an exemplary theme for philosophical investigation of the nature of consciousness, we can proceed to the actual investigation. Which is exactly what Scaruffi does, beginning with the question, “How is cognition mediated?” which develops and evolves into a subtly more sophisticated version, “What do the systems that mediate cognition look like?”
That question is treated with tools such as “physical symbol systems”, and “production systems” (the examples given for the latter are ACT and SOAR), and which may incorporate the concept of “mental modules”. Production systems have been argued against, and have been opposed by (including) “mental models”.
Some more time has passed, and more has been read:
The next few chapters seem to be variants and derivatives of the mental model theory of cognition. This includes discussions or visual processing and its relation to the mind’s eye – the idea being, I suppose, that the inner life is a less clear version of outer perception, so that to understand their relationship would enlighten a fundamental process. After all, what does it mean to see something inside one’s mind?
Without presuming an attempt on that question I would point to a point (!) of interest: I had not been aware of the anatomical dissection of the visual processing following passage through the visual cortex. Apparently, there is a ventral and a dorsal stream, with the former being associated with conscious, object-recognition type processing, while the latter is utilized more for motor control and is largely unconscious. The author further suggests that this particular dichotomy, or at least its dominance, were a fairly recent evolutionary innovation, and may thus be fundamental to some features of human (and company) species.
What else can I say? Thinking about cognition
In parallel to my reading of Scaruffi (see above), I’ve been thinking about the question that underlies and justifies largely the subject of chapter 4: What is cognitive processing? What are the principles and processes that underlie it? And consequent from such lines of questioning, follow queries such as: What happens or what needs to happen or what is are the ways by which problems are solved?
