From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Fri Dec 11 1998 - 03:16:39 MST
Damien Broderick and I both noticed that Wilson, as is often the case, was
outputting hallucinogenic science fiction rather than science, and gently
attempted to point this out. I'm sorry you don't agree, and I'm sorry that I
don't have the time to attack in detail everything that Wilson writes, but
there comes a certain point where basic scientific literacy demands that one
recoil in instinctive horror from, and I quote, "Four are extraterrestrial,
reside in the "silent" or inactive right lobe, and are for use in our future evolution."
To answer your original question - no, I don't think there is anything
whatsoever worth discussing in the "8-circuit" model. _I_ don't have to prove
it. The instant somebody starts talking like the quote above, the burden of
proof descends on them like a ton of bricks. But even leaving out that quote,
or anything else you wish to disclaim as irrelevant, I can't see anything in
the "8-circuit" model that constitutes a useful guide to understanding or
building minds. Neither can anyone else. If you think the contrary is true,
you're going to have to demonstrate it. Not complain about our lack of
understanding. Show us we're wrong. Don't tell.
And I, at least, probably know more about split-brain phenomena than you do,
including the various forms of blindsight-oid phenomena. I know that
unfocused electromagnetic stimulation of the right side of the brain produces
depression and the left side produces happiness, and that I am therefore
probably far more right-side than anyone else on this list, not that it
matters. I know how emotions key in to intelligence, and that the idea that
they are on separate "circuits" is useless. I am telling you that the "8
circuits" are oversimplified and flat wrong.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/sing_analysis.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.
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