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I disagree that an intelligence operates on a distinct internal representations of things. I believe that our minds mostly operate on our memories of sensory da

I disagree that an intelligence operates on a distinct internal representations of things. I believe that our minds mostly operate on our memories of sensory data. When I remember a song in my head, I'm not iterating through an internal representation, I'm remembering my sensory experience of it. There is an important component of syncing internal representation when communicating, but I think that internal representation is mostly just recordings of sensory information; its not fundamentally different than what we sensed at some point in the past.

scotty79 13y ago
Memories don't work like that. Research on eye witness accounts indicate that people remember very little. They fill in the gaps with information that they acquired after the event, and what's more important for my point, with the information reasoned from the things they actually remember. And they are not aware that they filled anything in. They remember things they made up exactly same way as the actual memories of the event. Each time you remember something it's being reconstructed, re-imagined by your brain. Method of treating people with stressful memories is based on that. You allow them to remember the things that bother them in safe, positive environment and after few such recalls, large part of stress associated with this memory disappears because reading memory is sort of "destructive read" and brain to keep that memory has to write it again after read but it's not exactly the same as it was read. When you look at what's in front of you, you don't see the whole image even though you feel that way. You see only the thing you are focused on (inattentional blindness). The rest is filled in for you. You might argue that this comes directly from previous sensory input. I think you could design experiment where you show a person a misleading image, while influencing brain with TMS to interpret wrong way, focus attention of a person on some part other then the misleading one and then stop influencing the brain so that it could analyze the previously recorded sensory input properly. I'd bet that person would still see the rest of the image as he was seeing when his brain was influenced until you allowed him to focus attention on the misleading parts. Only then he'd be able to readjust. Perception of illusions also indicate existence of internal representation for me. With http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Dancer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Dancer illusion you can feel the moment when your brain switches between two completely different representations of ambiguous image. When you hear sounds, what you hear and remember is not just sensory input. What you hear depends on the context. Awesome demonstration of that effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k&feature=player_detailpage&t=565 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k&feature=player_de... When you hear the song backward for the first time you hear nothing. But when you see the text you were supposed to hear you can actually hear those words. I think that just presenting you with the text and telling you to remember if you heard this text the first time wouldn't change what you remember hearing. Try to pause when the text for reverse version shows up and see if your memory of reversed song playing matches any of that text. I think this effect happens because senses are very thin, and sensory input is aggressively used to construct internal representation (with much of the representation created from experience) and then discarded.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  I don't disagree with any of your examples, but I would interpret them differently. There is certainly a fair amount of "extrapolating" going on subconsciously. Our brains attempt to extract higher level meaning from sensory input (such as rotation or relative size of objects). This is a sort of knowledge that is based on the totality of sensory input received up until that point (i.e. the experience that a silhouette is likely a 3D object that is spinning in a particular direction). But I don't consider this knowledge as being distinct from the sensory input itself, rather an abstraction over a set of similar inputs that give it meaning. Personally, when I imagine a horse, I don't imagine some abstraction of a horse. My subconscious minds pieces together chunks of images from my experiences with horse-images and puts together something reasonably close. The stuff of mental computation to an extent is our memories of sensory inputs themselves, or abstractions over similar classes of inputs. Thinking about it further, our ideas may not be as far apart as they seem. Do you consider the "sensory input" as, say, the light waves hitting the retina, or the set of neural states triggered that induces a "qualia" experience of sight? In my explanation I was considering the qualia as the sensory input rather than the frequencies of light. Perhaps you're using the other definition?
  - scotty79 13y ago
    > Do you consider the "sensory input" as, say, the light waves hitting the retina, or the set of neural states triggered that induces a "qualia" experience of sight? I consider sensory input everything from retina up to a point when you become aware that the horse just passed you. I think that only this high level information gets stored and is used for all intellectual activity. Actual sight, sound and smell of a horse is just stored to the extend that allows to recognize horses better in the future but it's not the part of any reasoning you might have later of why the horse was there, where was it going and whether it would be cool to own a horse. You use abstract representation of a horse for all those thoughts. > Personally, when I imagine a horse, I don't imagine some abstraction of a horse. My subconscious minds pieces together chunks of images from my experiences with horse-images and puts together something reasonably close. You feel that but if you tried to draw or sculpt a horse you'd see how many pieces you thought you recalled you actually made up or have no idea of how they really look. If I'm not mistaken you admit that the horse you try to imagine gets rebuilt from bits and pieces that are stitched together. In my opinion foundation of that construct is that internal abstract representation of a horse concept. > (i.e. the experience that a silhouette is likely a 3D object that is spinning in a particular direction) In my opinion brain doesn't switch between spin right, spin left, but between, this person is slightly above me, this person slightly is below me. Change in the direction of rotation is just what tells you very clearly that your brain just switched. Not only perception of a 3d object changes but the whole scene, relation between observer and the object.

scotty79 13y ago

Memories don't work like that. Research on eye witness accounts indicate that people remember very little. They fill in the gaps with information that they acquired after the event, and what's more important for my point, with the information reasoned from the things they actually remember. And they are not aware that they filled anything in. They remember things they made up exactly same way as the actual memories of the event. Each time you remember something it's being reconstructed, re-imagined by your brain. Method of treating people with stressful memories is based on that. You allow them to remember the things that bother them in safe, positive environment and after few such recalls, large part of stress associated with this memory disappears because reading memory is sort of "destructive read" and brain to keep that memory has to write it again after read but it's not exactly the same as it was read. When you look at what's in front of you, you don't see the whole image even though you feel that way. You see only the thing you are focused on (inattentional blindness). The rest is filled in for you. You might argue that this comes directly from previous sensory input. I think you could design experiment where you show a person a misleading image, while influencing brain with TMS to interpret wrong way, focus attention of a person on some part other then the misleading one and then stop influencing the brain so that it could analyze the previously recorded sensory input properly. I'd bet that person would still see the rest of the image as he was seeing when his brain was influenced until you allowed him to focus attention on the misleading parts. Only then he'd be able to readjust. Perception of illusions also indicate existence of internal representation for me. With http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Dancer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Dancer illusion you can feel the moment when your brain switches between two completely different representations of ambiguous image. When you hear sounds, what you hear and remember is not just sensory input. What you hear depends on the context. Awesome demonstration of that effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k&feature=player_detailpage&t=565 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k&feature=player_de... When you hear the song backward for the first time you hear nothing. But when you see the text you were supposed to hear you can actually hear those words. I think that just presenting you with the text and telling you to remember if you heard this text the first time wouldn't change what you remember hearing. Try to pause when the text for reverse version shows up and see if your memory of reversed song playing matches any of that text. I think this effect happens because senses are very thin, and sensory input is aggressively used to construct internal representation (with much of the representation created from experience) and then discarded.

hackinthebochs 13y ago
I don't disagree with any of your examples, but I would interpret them differently. There is certainly a fair amount of "extrapolating" going on subconsciously. Our brains attempt to extract higher level meaning from sensory input (such as rotation or relative size of objects). This is a sort of knowledge that is based on the totality of sensory input received up until that point (i.e. the experience that a silhouette is likely a 3D object that is spinning in a particular direction). But I don't consider this knowledge as being distinct from the sensory input itself, rather an abstraction over a set of similar inputs that give it meaning. Personally, when I imagine a horse, I don't imagine some abstraction of a horse. My subconscious minds pieces together chunks of images from my experiences with horse-images and puts together something reasonably close. The stuff of mental computation to an extent is our memories of sensory inputs themselves, or abstractions over similar classes of inputs. Thinking about it further, our ideas may not be as far apart as they seem. Do you consider the "sensory input" as, say, the light waves hitting the retina, or the set of neural states triggered that induces a "qualia" experience of sight? In my explanation I was considering the qualia as the sensory input rather than the frequencies of light. Perhaps you're using the other definition?
- scotty79 13y ago
  > Do you consider the "sensory input" as, say, the light waves hitting the retina, or the set of neural states triggered that induces a "qualia" experience of sight? I consider sensory input everything from retina up to a point when you become aware that the horse just passed you. I think that only this high level information gets stored and is used for all intellectual activity. Actual sight, sound and smell of a horse is just stored to the extend that allows to recognize horses better in the future but it's not the part of any reasoning you might have later of why the horse was there, where was it going and whether it would be cool to own a horse. You use abstract representation of a horse for all those thoughts. > Personally, when I imagine a horse, I don't imagine some abstraction of a horse. My subconscious minds pieces together chunks of images from my experiences with horse-images and puts together something reasonably close. You feel that but if you tried to draw or sculpt a horse you'd see how many pieces you thought you recalled you actually made up or have no idea of how they really look. If I'm not mistaken you admit that the horse you try to imagine gets rebuilt from bits and pieces that are stitched together. In my opinion foundation of that construct is that internal abstract representation of a horse concept. > (i.e. the experience that a silhouette is likely a 3D object that is spinning in a particular direction) In my opinion brain doesn't switch between spin right, spin left, but between, this person is slightly above me, this person slightly is below me. Change in the direction of rotation is just what tells you very clearly that your brain just switched. Not only perception of a 3d object changes but the whole scene, relation between observer and the object.