From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Thu Dec 21 2000 - 19:11:23 MST
From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
> There is a difference between philosophy as a mental or social game
> and the study of how to live one's life in the best way. The former is
> not per se useful (it can be entertaining), but the second is in some
> sense what we all need and try to learn throughout life. A formal
> study of philosophy can be helpful to learn the second form if you pay
> attention to the relevant parts and ignore the games.
Yes! Exactly right! I did that! That's how I figured out that *academic*
philosophy (the kind they teach in school) is a waste of time, unless you
plan to teach it yourself. It's more invigorating to reason things out for
yourself.
BTW, Eugene Leitl forwarded this on the Transhuman list:
Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience
Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain
http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=0262650541
This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata
over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main
ideas in the field. The neural units in the simulations use equations based
directly on the ion channels that govern the behavior of real neurons, and
the neural networks incorporate anatomical and physiological properties of
the neocortex. Thus the text provides the student with knowledge of the
basic biology of the brain as well as the computational skills needed to
simulate large-scale cognitive phenomena.
This book just came out in September, so maybe you haven't heard of it.
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
3M TA3
=====================
I think I must add "free will" to the list of "consciousness" "phlogiston"
"vitalism" and "mind" as examples of useless hypotheses.
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