Monday, March 09, 2009

The Ducks of Meaning.

Hmm. Hokay, I want to try to describe how 'meaning' can be ascribed to a physical point located on a neural network. There is nothing special about the particular neurons there, they are all indistinguishable to the eye. They don't have "Hi I'm your concept of fashion" tattooed on their membranes. So why does one neurone-body mean "affable" and another mean "snot"..?

I want you to imagine a pool of still, unrippled water. The edge of the pool is populated by specially trained ducks. Each has a pebble to push in with its beak. They all have electrodes wired to their butts. All these wires coil away into the back of our volunteer for the evening - Bill's - head. Each wire is connected to parts of Bill's sensory sytems - His visual centre, his tactile centre etc. A very cute nurse is handing things to Bill for him to percieve, and every once in a while wiggling her hips for no reason in particular. Let's call her Miranda. And make her a blonde-bombshell.
...Continued...

Sunday, March 08, 2009

The Carrier and the Content.

AMOEBA, another marvel of engineering, but this time one not aspiring toward being alive. Now we can write our names upon the water, and not be overly Keatsian about it. Anyway. What is this doing here..? Well, it illustrates my ideas about the carrier and the content very well.

In the last post I talked about a TV:
"None of the components of a TV are individually alive. But, together, in orchestra, they support a picture, a story, the content of which has very little to do with the mechanics of the device supporting it."
But this device - comprising about 50 small wave generators acting on a common medium to form a standing wave of meaningful content - acts as a much better analogy to our own situation.
...Continued...