> This is hard for neuroscientists to digest because they’re committed to the Aristotelean idea that there is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses.
How is the problem with this not obvious? Animals have all sorts of instinctive behaviors which incorporate knowledge. Many if not most are not attributable to training.
- How does a hungry animal know that it must eat to live? How does it know to eat the correct food instead of dirt? If they had to accumulate this knowledge through their senses they'd just die. Nothing could live.
- How does a spider which has never woven a web "know" that the behavior will lead to catching insects?
- Animals migrate to places where they've never been.
Those examples go on forever. The simplest animal brains are full of knowledge they never individually acquire.
Is that related to how human brains store knowledge? I don't know but I wouldn't rule it out.
BTW I read this article from a link. I have no idea if this site is political in nature. Something about "activism?" I don't endorse anything. I just enjoyed the article.
I don't understand why the reference is to "numbers" rather than "data". Surely there's no evidence that the data stored in neurons is truly used as numbers. We can interpret any data as a number, of course, but the brain is unlikely to treat this data as numbers.
This resembles what was proposed by Francis Otto Schmitt in 1962 in his edited volume “Macromolecular Specificity and Biological Memory.” Amazing to see this resurface.
This was a truly fascinating read. My professor fiercely believed that the brain processes numbers, that too what he called trans-ordinal numbers - numbers that are bigger than ordinals (1, 2, to billions, trillions, and more) but not as big as trans-finites (aleph, omega). And in that important way our brain-computer differs from a digital-computer, we operate on a different type of numbers.
Thank for this interview :)
Maybe you should talk to number theorists instead of molecular biologists or neuro scientists!
"they’re committed to the Aristotelean idea that there is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses. [...] The problem is that there are no sensory receptors for times of day and for interval-durations. A duration doesn’t feel like anything—it’s ineffable."
Where does Aristotle actually say that time is known as an object of the senses? I assure you he never says this. For Aristotle, time is the measure of change with respect to succession. Time is not a "thing"!
Tabula rasa doesn't mean that mental faculties don't exist. That's not what it means for something not to be in the mind that was not in the senses.
Really interesting article and questions - feel a bit hazy on a lot of the elements - one question that is important to me is - how does this help us learn/teach better? I am working on adult education - specifically on leadership that includes values and well being - and am curious what I might experiment with with learners - sort of the other end of Araidne's thread - coming back to the king's throne room
Andrew, check this out [in the context of this post]
https://actu.epfl.ch/news/a-secret-language-of-cells-new-cell-computations-u/
Is there a link or a citation for this ferret article? I don't see any anywhere.
> This is hard for neuroscientists to digest because they’re committed to the Aristotelean idea that there is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses.
How is the problem with this not obvious? Animals have all sorts of instinctive behaviors which incorporate knowledge. Many if not most are not attributable to training.
- How does a hungry animal know that it must eat to live? How does it know to eat the correct food instead of dirt? If they had to accumulate this knowledge through their senses they'd just die. Nothing could live.
- How does a spider which has never woven a web "know" that the behavior will lead to catching insects?
- Animals migrate to places where they've never been.
Those examples go on forever. The simplest animal brains are full of knowledge they never individually acquire.
Is that related to how human brains store knowledge? I don't know but I wouldn't rule it out.
BTW I read this article from a link. I have no idea if this site is political in nature. Something about "activism?" I don't endorse anything. I just enjoyed the article.
I don't understand why the reference is to "numbers" rather than "data". Surely there's no evidence that the data stored in neurons is truly used as numbers. We can interpret any data as a number, of course, but the brain is unlikely to treat this data as numbers.
Is there a link or citation to this ferret article? I don't see any anywhere.
How is this different/related to Eric Kandel's research on memory
This resembles what was proposed by Francis Otto Schmitt in 1962 in his edited volume “Macromolecular Specificity and Biological Memory.” Amazing to see this resurface.
This post at The Faculty of Language contains links to a Johansson article from 2017: http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-gallistel-king-conjecture-update.html#comment-form
This was a truly fascinating read. My professor fiercely believed that the brain processes numbers, that too what he called trans-ordinal numbers - numbers that are bigger than ordinals (1, 2, to billions, trillions, and more) but not as big as trans-finites (aleph, omega). And in that important way our brain-computer differs from a digital-computer, we operate on a different type of numbers.
Thank for this interview :)
Maybe you should talk to number theorists instead of molecular biologists or neuro scientists!
"they’re committed to the Aristotelean idea that there is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses. [...] The problem is that there are no sensory receptors for times of day and for interval-durations. A duration doesn’t feel like anything—it’s ineffable."
Where does Aristotle actually say that time is known as an object of the senses? I assure you he never says this. For Aristotle, time is the measure of change with respect to succession. Time is not a "thing"!
Tabula rasa doesn't mean that mental faculties don't exist. That's not what it means for something not to be in the mind that was not in the senses.
Ooops, Sorry:
https://twitter.com/CrocodileChuck/status/1556982485044834306
Really interesting article and questions - feel a bit hazy on a lot of the elements - one question that is important to me is - how does this help us learn/teach better? I am working on adult education - specifically on leadership that includes values and well being - and am curious what I might experiment with with learners - sort of the other end of Araidne's thread - coming back to the king's throne room