From: Roko Mijic (rmijic@googlemail.com)
Date: Wed Mar 11 2009 - 17:00:36 MDT
2009/3/11 Kaj Sotala <xuenay@gmail.com>
> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Petter Wingren-Rasmussen
> <petterwr@gmail.com> wrote:
> > After reading Simulation, Consciousness, Existence by Hans Moravec. I
> > started thinking about possible neural networks that already exists,
> outside
> > of brains and computers..
> >
> > I think the Global stockmarket can be viewed as a neural network.
> Comparing
> > it to the brain:
>
> A "neural network" is a certain type of mathematical model. It's
> pretty obvious that the stock market is not a neural network in any
> sense that doesn't stretch the original term to the point of breaking.
But dude, this is the SL4 list! We're meant to make vague, speculative
analogies that make for poor science and awful philosophy... right?
>
> (What exactly are the stock market's equivalents of neurons, and what
> corresponds to the weigths of their connections?)
>
> However, the stock market *is* an information-processing system, and
> it can also be viewed as a form of mental architecture. See for
> instance http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.33.6906
> , in which it is said:
>
> "One idea that is emerging is that social organization is itself a
> form of cognitive architecture. The argument is as follows. Cognitive
> processes involve trajectories of information (transmission and
> transformation), so the patterns of these information trajectories, if
> stable, reflect some underlying cognitive architecture. Since social
> organization - plus the structure added by the context of activity -
> largely determines the way information flows through a group, social
> organization may itself be viewed as a form of cognitive architecture.
>
> If this view is accepted, it has an odd consequence: we can use the
> concepts, constructs and explanatory models of social groups to
> describe what is happening in a mind."
>
> (Having said this, this thread sounds somewhat off-topical to me.)
>
-- Roko Mijic MSc by Research University of Edinburgh
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