In Part 1 I connected polyviscosity with the account of consciousness and reorganization offered by William Powers in Behavior: The Control of Perception (1973). In Part 2 I rambled on about how neural ‘fluidity’ required 1) that neural circuity be ready for reorganization at any time, but that 2) commitment to reorganization was retrospective, and 3) that entire system had to undergo a global transformation in an instant in times of emergency (the so-called startle response). I also speculated about the active nature of the inter-cellular space in and around synapses. Now I want to talk about substrate independence.
Substrate independence is the idea that the mind (considered as an information processing system) can be implemented on any substrate in which the necessary functions can be realized. As I have previously suggested – see posts listed below – this implies a distinction between hardware and software that doesn’t (seem to) apply to natural nervous systems. That distinction also implies a symbolic computing regime in which computational process is physically separate from memory. That is not realistic either.
A mind, at least of a natural kind, would seem to imply a polyviscous substrate. Does that require living tissue? I don’t know but my default belief would be that it does. I keep saying that minds are organized from the inside (see post listed below). I’m thinking that requires that the constituent elements be living cells, not only neurons, but glial cells as well.
Of course, given a sufficiently detailed description of how neural circuitry works, it might be possible to simulate these processes. But that would be computationally expensive.
What does this do to the definitions of artificial minds that I offered in Relational Nets Over Attractors, A Primer: Part 1, Design for a Mind, Version 2? Nothing. The definitions still stand. But it might prove to be all but impossible to construct an artificial system with the requisite properties.
I note, as well, that those definitions did not take into account the requirements of polyviscosity and memory as I am coming to understanding them. That thinking is subsequent to finishing that paper. It might well have to be revised with those considerations in mind.
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Other posts dealing with the substrate of mind:
- Follow-up on Dennett and Mental Software, 5.11.15
- Minds are built from the inside [evolution, development], 12.25.22 (originally from Sept. 2020)
- Substrate Independence, 12.18.21
- What’s the opposite of substrate independence, 12.29.21
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