Edmund Blair Bolles
Encyclopedia
Edmund Blair Bolles is an American humanist
and author who argues that human freedom
, and originality
are real and natural, deriving their powers from modifications of animal memory
systems. He developed this doctrine in three books written in the 1980s.
So Much to Say (1980) is about the language
of children from birth to age five. It proposes that children are driven to talk because they have "something to say," have private emotions and thoughts to report. Language is presented as subjective - i.e., not necessarily controlled by objective determinants, established laws, or even real-world phenomena. This dependence on the subjective distinguishes human language from animal and machine communication
s which are concerned with control and the exchange of data. It also differs from mathematical languages that are concerned with the expression of logical truth
. Language is the clearest evidence that people have internal lives, and with this book Bolles began his effort to understand the natural basis of that subjectivity.
Remembering and Forgetting (1986) opens with the sentence, "Remembering is an act of imagination." As he did with language, Bolles makes a sharp distinction between computer memory (storage) and human remembering (recreating sensory experiences); however, while human language is radically unlike that of even chimpanzee communication, human remembering is much more like animal remembering and much of human memory is built on the same biological systems that serve mammals, birds, etc. There is, however, an "interpretive memory" that is unlike anything else in the animal world. It does not depend on the evolution of an unprecedented organ, but rests on the linkage of memory systems common to many animals, recall and recognition.
Recognition is a response to something when it is encountered. (Bolles does not accept the computer-based definition of recognition as pattern recognition.) For example, a person walking along a path sees a house and recognizes it as the place where he turns right. By this definition, a great deal of conditioned learning would be recognition.
Recall is the re-experiencing of something. A person hears the words "Marilyn Monroe
" and subjectively sees an image of her. Bolles believes these abilities of recognition and recall are biological inheritances from animals.
In interpretive memory recall and recognition combine to produce a new understanding of the nature of something. He gives an example from his own life. When he was a small boy he saw a pair of bridges high above a gorge where he was walking. His mother identified one of the bridges and he then simultaneously recognized the relationship between the two bridges above him and recalled an image of how they looked from above. The recognition from below combined with his recall of the scene above to produce a new understanding of the physical layout of the area. Two distinct scenes became one big space. Without having to actually explore the terrain, he understood how it was connected and became free to move correctly through it. Thus, in Bolles's humanism, human insight and understanding build on natural powers of memory.
A Second Way of Knowing (1991) is about perception
, which Bolles defines as knowing the meaning of what your senses present. The book contrasts the sensory-based knowledge of animal and humans with Bolles' view of symbolically-based computation available to computers. To Bolles, Artificial intelligence
workers focus exclusively on symbolic knowledge; a table is whatever the definition of the word "table" says. Sensory-based knowledge of a table rests on the experience and sensations of encountering tables. The more experience or understanding of tables people have, the more free they are to create original, functioning tables. Bolles describes a major conflict in this book between physicalists and humanists. Physicalists insist everything must ultimately be explainable according to the laws of physics, which (as defined by Galileo) are objective and leave no room for subjective causes. Therefore, Bolles says, all action must be reflex and all knowledge must rest on the symbolic information used by computers. Bolles' Humanists, however, favor sensation-based perceptions that free people from reflex
and enable them to discover meanings.
After developing his theory, Bolles's books changed dramatically. He became a story teller, showing freedom, originality, imagination and meaning at work in human history, particularly in the history of science. These stories serve as case histories, illustrating the power of the subjective elements he described in the 1980s. His two most notable books from this later period are:
The Ice Finders (1999), tells the story of the discovery of the ice age
. The book opens by asking why the classic limitation on computer results (garbage in; garbage out) does not always apply to humans. He then describes the long, lonely struggle of Louis Agassiz
to convince people that much of the earth was recently (in geologic terms) covered with ice. The turning point comes when a "necessary poet" provides a metaphor for the ice age: Greenland
. Now people could picture what Agassiz himself had imagined, thus making intellectual progress of the sort that is impossible for computers.
Einstein Defiant (2004) recounts the famous Bohr-Einstein debates
over quantum
physics. The story reveals the internal lives of both of these giants of twentieth-century thought, watching their minds struggle with puzzles until they snap separate things together into a meaningful insight. Bolles refers to Einstein's "almost perfect scientific imagination," suggesting why the subject appealed to him. The book provides a picture of the ultimate in free and original imaginations.
Although they are presented as works in the history of science, these books read like novels. The earlier works seems to have given Bolles the understanding he needed to tell stories about the public and internal lives of even the most creative imaginers.
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
and author who argues that human freedom
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
, and originality
Originality
Originality is the aspect of created or invented works by as being new or novel, and thus can be distinguished from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or derivative works....
are real and natural, deriving their powers from modifications of animal memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
systems. He developed this doctrine in three books written in the 1980s.
So Much to Say (1980) is about the language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
of children from birth to age five. It proposes that children are driven to talk because they have "something to say," have private emotions and thoughts to report. Language is presented as subjective - i.e., not necessarily controlled by objective determinants, established laws, or even real-world phenomena. This dependence on the subjective distinguishes human language from animal and machine communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
s which are concerned with control and the exchange of data. It also differs from mathematical languages that are concerned with the expression of logical truth
Logical truth
Logical truth is one of the most fundamental concepts in logic, and there are different theories on its nature. A logical truth is a statement which is true and remains true under all reinterpretations of its components other than its logical constants. It is a type of analytic statement.Logical...
. Language is the clearest evidence that people have internal lives, and with this book Bolles began his effort to understand the natural basis of that subjectivity.
Remembering and Forgetting (1986) opens with the sentence, "Remembering is an act of imagination." As he did with language, Bolles makes a sharp distinction between computer memory (storage) and human remembering (recreating sensory experiences); however, while human language is radically unlike that of even chimpanzee communication, human remembering is much more like animal remembering and much of human memory is built on the same biological systems that serve mammals, birds, etc. There is, however, an "interpretive memory" that is unlike anything else in the animal world. It does not depend on the evolution of an unprecedented organ, but rests on the linkage of memory systems common to many animals, recall and recognition.
Recognition is a response to something when it is encountered. (Bolles does not accept the computer-based definition of recognition as pattern recognition.) For example, a person walking along a path sees a house and recognizes it as the place where he turns right. By this definition, a great deal of conditioned learning would be recognition.
Recall is the re-experiencing of something. A person hears the words "Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
" and subjectively sees an image of her. Bolles believes these abilities of recognition and recall are biological inheritances from animals.
In interpretive memory recall and recognition combine to produce a new understanding of the nature of something. He gives an example from his own life. When he was a small boy he saw a pair of bridges high above a gorge where he was walking. His mother identified one of the bridges and he then simultaneously recognized the relationship between the two bridges above him and recalled an image of how they looked from above. The recognition from below combined with his recall of the scene above to produce a new understanding of the physical layout of the area. Two distinct scenes became one big space. Without having to actually explore the terrain, he understood how it was connected and became free to move correctly through it. Thus, in Bolles's humanism, human insight and understanding build on natural powers of memory.
A Second Way of Knowing (1991) is about perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
, which Bolles defines as knowing the meaning of what your senses present. The book contrasts the sensory-based knowledge of animal and humans with Bolles' view of symbolically-based computation available to computers. To Bolles, Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
workers focus exclusively on symbolic knowledge; a table is whatever the definition of the word "table" says. Sensory-based knowledge of a table rests on the experience and sensations of encountering tables. The more experience or understanding of tables people have, the more free they are to create original, functioning tables. Bolles describes a major conflict in this book between physicalists and humanists. Physicalists insist everything must ultimately be explainable according to the laws of physics, which (as defined by Galileo) are objective and leave no room for subjective causes. Therefore, Bolles says, all action must be reflex and all knowledge must rest on the symbolic information used by computers. Bolles' Humanists, however, favor sensation-based perceptions that free people from reflex
Reflex
A reflex action, also known as a reflex, is an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus. A true reflex is a behavior which is mediated via the reflex arc; this does not apply to casual uses of the term 'reflex'.-See also:...
and enable them to discover meanings.
After developing his theory, Bolles's books changed dramatically. He became a story teller, showing freedom, originality, imagination and meaning at work in human history, particularly in the history of science. These stories serve as case histories, illustrating the power of the subjective elements he described in the 1980s. His two most notable books from this later period are:
The Ice Finders (1999), tells the story of the discovery of the ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
. The book opens by asking why the classic limitation on computer results (garbage in; garbage out) does not always apply to humans. He then describes the long, lonely struggle of Louis Agassiz
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
to convince people that much of the earth was recently (in geologic terms) covered with ice. The turning point comes when a "necessary poet" provides a metaphor for the ice age: Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
. Now people could picture what Agassiz himself had imagined, thus making intellectual progress of the sort that is impossible for computers.
Einstein Defiant (2004) recounts the famous Bohr-Einstein debates
Bohr-Einstein debates
The Bohr–Einstein debates were a series of public disputes about quantum mechanics between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, who were two of its founders. Their debates are remembered because of their importance to the philosophy of science. An account of them has been written by Bohr in an article...
over quantum
Quantum
In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized," referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete...
physics. The story reveals the internal lives of both of these giants of twentieth-century thought, watching their minds struggle with puzzles until they snap separate things together into a meaningful insight. Bolles refers to Einstein's "almost perfect scientific imagination," suggesting why the subject appealed to him. The book provides a picture of the ultimate in free and original imaginations.
Although they are presented as works in the history of science, these books read like novels. The earlier works seems to have given Bolles the understanding he needed to tell stories about the public and internal lives of even the most creative imaginers.