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| Posted by gualtiero piccinini at | | | |
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Does anyone know of any studies that have done something like the following, or know a reason it shouldn't work?
Imagine a population of computer agents that spit out sequences of sentences, random well-formed formulas of first-order logic. Selection acts not at the genetic level, but the agents
are able to remember the inter-sentence transitions that lead from true to false sentences, and stop using such transitions. After a zillion iterations, would their allowable inter-sentence transitions look anything like inferences in first-order logic?
There would obviously be some problems if it were done without good planning. For instance, the world would have to be large enough to have lots of predicates, but small enough to have a manageable simulation (if it were too large of a world, they would so rarely say true things that it would take way too long). Perhaps we could clamp their first N sentences to the value 'true' to speed up the simulation (observation statements or some such). We'd also have to limit the length of the sentences (e.g., no more than two disjuncts or conjuncts, no infinitely nested conditionals, that sort of thing).
In other words, to avoid obvious problems we'd have to have parameters in the simulations to limit its complexity. Someone like Chomsky might say this shows it is BS because they weren't learning the rules of inference, but that's not really the goal. It would be a more Brandomian goal of seeing how far we can get without any explicitly coded rules. How logical can you get without thinking explicitly about logic?
Has anyone done something like this?
It would be cool to see the output of such a simulation, the types of strings as the simulation progressed. Hopefully they wouldn't end up sitting around repeating the same sentence over and over. 
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| Posted by Eric Thomson at | | | |
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| It's hard to believe, but apparently there is empirical evidence. This points towards a cure: if we can teach conservatives to be less frightened by danger, they might abandon their crazy political views. |
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| Posted by gualtiero piccinini at | | | |
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| Here. |
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| Posted by gualtiero piccinini at | | | |
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Recently there have been some valuable inititiatives in the philosophy of science in MO.
Three philosophers at U of MO - Columbia (Andre Ariew, Andrew Melnik, and Philip Robbins) have organized the first Missouri Philosophy of Science Workshop, which will take place next weekend in Columbia.
And some philosophers in St. Louis (including Carl Craver (whose idea it was), Kent Staley, and myself) are forming the St. Louis Area Philosophy of Science Association, which will have its own first conference on February 28, 2009. |
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| Posted by gualtiero piccinini at | | | |
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Over the past two months, I've used a series of surveys to examine the relationship between the concept of knowledge and the concept of belief. So far, the results suggest that many people have intuitions which are
in opposition to the claim that knowledge is a species of belief. For those who are interested, a summary of the results are posted over at Experimental Philosophy.
Comments are welcome.
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| Posted by blake myers-schulz at | | | |
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As announced a few weeks ago, I wrote a paper in which I survey the state of the art on computationalism. Thanks a lot to those who suggested topics I should cover. I touched on most of the suggested topics.
The paper is due at Philosophy Compass by the end of the month. If anyone is interested in commenting on it, here it is. Needless to say, your comments would be greatly appreciated.
Update [9/17/08]: And here is the abstract:
Computationalism has been the mainstream view of cognition for decades. There are periodic reports of its demise, but they are greatly exaggerated. This essay surveys some recent literature on computationalism. It concludes that computationalism is a family of theories about the mechanisms of cognition. The main relevant evidence for testing it comes from neuroscience, though psychology and AI are relevant too. Computationalism comes in many versions, which continue to guide competing research programs in philosophy of mind as well as psychology and neuroscience. Although our understanding of computationalism has deepened in recent years, much work in this area remains to be done.
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| Posted by gualtiero piccinini at | | | |
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| Here. |
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| Posted by gualtiero piccinini at | | | |
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The deadline for the SSPP 2009 is November 16, 2008. Consider submitting a paper or a symposium proposal.
To submit a symposium proposal, the main thing you need are three or so willing participants, their contact information, and abstracts of the proposed papers.
As I pointed out before, both the venue (Savannah, GA) and the invited program are quite attractive.
If you have any questions about submissions, feel free to contact me. |
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| Posted by gualtiero piccinini at | | | |
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Call for Papers:
Consciousness Online: The First Cyber Consciousness Conference
February 20-27, 2009
Please post and distribute widely; appologies for cross-posting
Following the success of the On-Line Philosophy Conference I am pleased to announce Consciousness Online: The first cyber consciousness conference. Invited talk by David Rosenthal. Papers in any area of consciousness studies are welcome and should be roughly 3,000 words, suitable for blind review, and sent to consciousnessonline@gmail.com by December 15th 2008. Those interested in being referees, commentators, or in helping in other ways with the organization of COnline should email me directly at onemorebrown@yahoo.com. For more information go to http://consciousnessonline.wordpress.com
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| Posted by Richard Brown at | | | |
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