Logical Reasoning

PT114 · S4 · Q19 Anders: The physical structure of

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Anders: The physical structure of the brain plays an important role in thinking.

Main Conclusion (therefore)

Researchers would increase their chances of successfully developing a workable thinking machine if they focus on the brain's function and simply ignore its physical structure.

Intermediate Conclusion (So)

Thinking machines closely modeled on the brain's structure are likely to fail.

Intermediate Conclusion

The fact that the brain plays an important role in our thinking doesn't mean it plays an essential role.

Evidence (after all)

No flying machine based on the structure of birds has worked.

Evaluate

On Evaluate questions, we basically want to use the same mindset as on Weaken questions, so we can ask ourselves how we would fight this conclusion: how could ignoring the physical structure of the brain and focusing on the brain's function fail to help us successfully develop thinking machines?

Maybe there's something crucial we can learn from looking at the brain's structure, even if we decide not to copy that structure in the thinking machine we're building. Maybe we can't understand how the brain functions unless we pay attention to its physical structure.

Finally, maybe the analogy to birds / aircraft isn't strong support. Maybe there's some crucial difference when it comes to modeling aircraft after the structure of birds vs. modeling thinking after the structure of the brain, in which the former is a bad idea but the latter is a good one.

Goal

Look for an answer that gives us some idea we could use to object to Yang's argument, to either argue that the analogy between bird/aircraft and brain/thinking is a weak one, or to argue that researchers shouldn't ignore the physical structure of the brain, because there something important to gain from studying it.

19.

In evaluating Yang's argument it would be most helpful to know whether

  1. Correct

    studies of the physical structure

    Why this is right

    This weakens Yang's argument, because Yang is saying, "Since we're presumably not going to copy the physical structure of the brain in order to build thinking machines (just as we didn't copy the physical structure of birds to build flying machines), researchers should just ignore the physical structure of the brain." We can use this answer to say, "No they shouldn't. The people who built the first aircraft didn't ignore the structure of birds. By studying birds' structure, they got crucial information that facilitated developing working aircraft. So it's very possible that studying the brain's structure could provide crucial information that assists in developing working thinking machines."

    Skill tested: Evaluate · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    81% picked this

  2. researchers currently working on thinking

    No Impact

    The fact that researchers think thinking is comprised of common sense and factual knowledge (and maybe other things) doesn't give us any good way of arguing, "So they shouldn't ignore the structure of the brain."

    4% picked this

  3. as much time has been

    Irrelevant Comparison: time spent

    When it comes to this analogy between birds/aircraft and brains/thinking machines, we don't really need there to be a comparable amount of time spent working on it. It won't affect the author's argument if more time has been spent working on thinking machines or if more time was spent working on aircraft. We only care about whether studying the structure of birds/brains is worthwhile when trying to build machines that emulate their functions.

    2% picked this

  4. researchers who specialize in the

    No Impact

    The wording here seems pretty relevant, but does it make any difference whether this idea is true or false? Let's say that among those working on thinking machines, there are at least some researchers who specialize in the structure of the brain. Does that help / hurt Yang? It doesn't seem to have any effect. If there are currently some brain-structure specialists working on thinking machines, Yang can say "Go ahead and fire them. They're useless" or say "Cool, just tell them to ignore the brain's structure and to focus on function". If there are currently no brain-structure experts working on thinking machines, does that impact Yang's argument? No, he'd just be like, "Okay, cool. Well, we don't really need them, so that's chill."

    9% picked this

  5. some flying machines that were

    No Impact

    We can't hurt Yang by saying, "Hey, Yang --- you know there was at least one flying machine that wasn't modeled on birds and it didn't work". He'd be like, "Cool, I never said 100% of the ones that weren't modeled on birds were successful. I said 100% of the ones that were modeled on birds were unsuccessful. The only models that were successful weren't structurally similar to birds."

    5% picked this

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