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Leonhart comments on Useful Concepts Repository - Less Wrong Discussion

32 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 10 June 2013 06:12AM

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Comment author: Leonhart 10 June 2013 11:10:16PM *  5 points [-]

Various bits from Dennett: cranes versus skyhooks, the Cartesian Theatre, 'figment', the intentional stance, the notion of an intuition pump.

Braitenberg's Vehicles does something indescribably non-verbal. It's a tiny book that passes through your mind silently, like a ninja, and then any lingering shreds of vitalism you have just sort of explode and blow away on the wind. Every child should have a copy (and robot parts to use it with).

Comment author: lukeprog 11 June 2013 02:22:14AM 2 points [-]

Seconding Braitenberg's Vehicles (if you can't get the book, see the links here).

Comment author: Dr_Manhattan 11 June 2013 06:26:39PM 0 points [-]

I'll third it. http://web.mit.edu/~luke_h/www/BraitenbergVehicles.pdf

There is also a variety of demos/software, under Google:"braitenberg vehicles simulation" not sure which one is worth trying.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 11 June 2013 01:12:15AM 0 points [-]

Links?

Comment author: Leonhart 11 June 2013 09:39:35PM *  0 points [-]

Added some, sorry. Cranes vs. skyhooks is the central metaphor of Darwin's Dangerous Idea but doesn't seem to have its own page anywhere; it seems to me akin to EY's notion of "follow-the-improbability".

"Figment" is from Consciousness Explained; it's sort of the notion of a volume of imagined colour. Dennett used it in a discussion of e.g. the retinal blind spot, to make the distinction between the brain's actively "filling in" a missing signal (which he takes to be a confused reification) versus the brain simply not caring about the missing signal.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 11 June 2013 02:35:52AM -1 points [-]

Dennett - Competence without Comprehension. The magic that is real is not real magic.