josh@cs.rutgers.edu (08/02/90)
[This really has nothing to do with nanotechnology per se,
but has a number of peripheral connections to likely applications.]
The perfect antidote to "The Emperor's New Mind," reviewed here
a while back, is the book "The Cerebral Symphony," by William
Calvin, a neurobiologist at U. of Washington.
Calvin's major thrust is to try to develop a theory of consciousness
and thought. You'll recall that Penrose was basically a sort of
closet vitalist who denied the mechanizability of consciousness
"on faith". Calvin holds the opposite view; he writes:
HOW TO BUILD A CONSCIOUS ROBOT can now be glimpsed; it falls
out of scenario-spinning considerations, out of Darwin Machines,
out of neurallike networks. ...
... And so we will get a working Darwin Machine not unlike the
one in our heads. [pp 322-23]
As a neurophysiologist, Calvin brings to the discussion a fair
amount of information about actual working brains that is not general
knowledge. He also refers to a number of precursors that have been
discussed here, particularly Minsky's Society of Mind and Moravec's
downloading schemes (not to mention Korzybski and Julian Jaynes!).
Despite a somewhat choppy writing style that evoked memories of
Society of Mind, tCS is quite readable. Calvin is computer literate,
and doesn't hesitate to use computer metaphors ("subroutines" for
lower-level motor sequences) where appropriate. Indeed the only
substantive deficiency of the book is the same as I found with SoM,
i.e. it fills you with a grand vision but doesn't put the details
together in any usable way.
I found Calvin's obsessional dislike of telephone poles a bit nutty,
popping up as it did throughout the book. On the other hand, his
corresponding infatuation with Woods Hole, Mass., provides a fairly
pleasant pseudo-narrative backdrop for the sequence of ideas he
covers.
Although I could (and do) disagree with any number of the particular
opinions expressed in the book (e.g. he labors over a reductionist/
holist discrepancy that is a mathematical triviality, and ascribes
to Minsky an ignorance thereof that is obviously untrue), the major
points are sound and fairly insightful.
The Cerebral Symphony is not gospel but it's worth reading.
--JoSH