Brains

Consciousness Online: 2nd Call for Papers

Richard Brown — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:28:19 GMT

Only three more weeks left to submit a paper to Consciousness Online: The First Cyber Consciousness Conference. For details see the conference website.

Another Large-Scale Brain Simulation

Corey Maley — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:44:37 GMT

On the heels of the Blue Brain project, here's another effort to simulate neural systems on a very large scale, with the provocative title "Cognitive Computing via Synaptronics and Supercomputing." This link is to the PI's blog:

www.modha.org

From DARPA's announcement: “The end goal: ubiquitously deployed computers imbued with a new intelligence that can integrate information from a variety of sensors and sources, deal with ambiguity, respond in a context-dependent way, learn over time and carry out pattern recognition to solve difficult problems based on perception, action and cognition in complex, real-world environments... The end goal is inevitable, but is unpredictable."

Philosophers' Carnival #82

gualtiero piccinini — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:55:30 GMT

Here.

A Review of the Hypercomputation Literature

gualtiero piccinini — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:26:26 GMT

A. Syropoulos, Hypercomputation: Computing Beyond the Church-Turing Barrier. New York, Springer, 2008.

There is now a wide range of proposals for physical (more or less) systems that purportedly compute functions that are not computable by Turing machines. This new book reviews many proposals from the hypercomputation literature, such as infinite time Turing machines, interactive machines, Hogarth's machines, etc. There is even a chapter on "hyperminds", i.e., the thesis that minds have hypercomputational powers.

This area is full of problems, some of which are physico/mathematical and some of which are conceptual. Unfortunately, from a quick sample, Syropolous's book does not avoid common mistakes and confusions--some of which I've been trying to correct in my own work.

This area of the literature has a long way to go before it is put on a sound footing. There is lots of good work waiting to be done.

Workshop on Doing without Concepts

edouard machery — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:36:51 GMT

To celebrate the publication of my book, Doing without Concepts (OUP, January 2009), the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh organizes a symposium with Barbara Malt (psychology, Lehigh) and Jesse Prinz (philosophy, UNC), March 5, 2009. They comment, I reply, we take some questions! Information here.

If you want to come, everybody is invited!

Edouard

Another philosophy of science postdoc

daniel weiskopf — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:37:38 GMT

Readers of this blog might be interested in the following post-doctoral fellowship position. We are particularly interested in folks working in history and philosophy of science and medicine, which I'm sure includes many of the participants here and their students. This ad is included in the November issue of the JFP.

99.,*100.,*101. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA, TAMPA, FL. Postdoctoral Fellowships. AOS: History of Philosophy (all periods), Continental Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Science and/or Medicine, or Ethics. AOC: Open. Postdoctoral Fellows will: (i) contribute to one or more of the priority goals of the USF strategic plan (http://www.ods.usf.edu/plans/strategic/); (ii) work closely with distinguished USF faculty (see www.cas.usf.edu/philosophy/facultypage.htm); (iii) participate in interdisciplinary and programmatic seminar series; (iv) teach one course each semester; (v) continue to build an independent research record; and (vi) seek external funding. Appointments begin August 2009 and are renewable for an additional academic year subject to satisfactory progress. Salary is $45,000. Applicants must have a doctoral degree earned no earlier than 2005. Candidates who will have successfully defended their dissertations by May 1, 2009, will also be considered. For additional information, see www.grad.usf.edu/postdoc.asp. Send a cover letter, CV, two letters of reference, scanned copies of current transcripts, and a writing sample, by January 5th, to the USF Graduate School at postdoc@grad.usf.edu. USF is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action/Equal Access employer. (180)

Theoretical neuroscience rising

Eric Thomson — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:22:24 GMT

That's the title of Larry Abbott's recent perspective piece in Neuron (you can find the full article here). It starts with an excellent discussion of the roll of theory in neuroscience, and proceeds with a selective overview of the main insights gained from modeling over the last 20 years.

Note by 'theoretical neuroscience' he isn't talking about neurophilosophy, but mathematical modeling. He discusses the by now common distinction between word models and mathematical models:

What has a theoretical component brought to the field of neuroscience? Neuroscience has always had models (how would it be possible to contemplate experimental results in such complex systems without a model in one's head?), but prior to the invasion of the theorists, these were often word models. There are several advantages of expressing a model in equations rather than words. Equations force a model to be precise, complete, and self-consistent, and they allow its full implications to be worked out. It is not difficult to find word models in the conclusions sections of older neuroscience papers that sound reasonable but, when expressed as mathematical models, turn out to be inconsistent and unworkable. Mathematical formulation of a model forces it to be self-consistent and, although self-consistency is not necessarily truth, self-inconsistency is certainly falsehood.

It isn't clear to me that equations force you to be consistent (a>0 and a<0 are both equations, after all). But inconsistencies in your equations will typically be discovered quite fast, especially if you try to use them for simulations. It would be interesting to see examples of word models that turned out to be inconsistent that Abbott mentions.

I think what makes mathematical models so useful is not our ability to spot inconsistencies (it isn't trivial to find inconsistencies in a complicated mathematical model after all!). Rather, it is their ability to make precise predictions that can be tested. It is also that they make all assumptions and relevant variables explicit. It is harder to hide bullshit in a set of differential equations than in a natural language treatise.

Note this topic of the difference between natural language analysis and mathematical analysis came up before, over at Brain Hammer in the post Math vs Natural Language.

Philosophers' Carnival #81

gualtiero piccinini — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:53:03 GMT

Here.

The carnival links to my previous post but contains a slight misunderstanding. I wasn't trying to argue that "cognition is computation plus X"; rather, I was arguing that the most plausible version of computationalism is that cognition is computation plus X. I was being neutral on whether computationalism holds.

Self-Knowledge without Introspection

gualtiero piccinini — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:38:48 GMT

I just read a paper by Bob Gordon entitled "Simulation Without Introspection or Inference from Me to You" (in Mental Simulation, ed. M. Davies and T. Stone, Blackwell, 1996). Bob argues that introspection (looking inside your mind/perceiving your mental states/observing the qualitative aspect of your mental states) is unnecessary for mental state attributions to oneself (and to others). All you need is "ascent routines" (an idea indebted to Gareth Evans). Here is how the ascent routine for belief self-attribution works: consider whether P, and if so, then conclude that you believe that P. When considering whether someone else, “recenter your egocentric map” and proceed as in your own case, although your conclusion now apply to the other person. Bob also suggests that introspection develops later than the attribution of mental states. I find this compelling.

Here is another reason to believe Bob’s account:

Why should you need to introspect in order to ascribe to yourself mental states while no one thinks you need to introspect in order to act in a nonverbal way on those same mental states (or at any rate, on the mental causes of your behavior)? You can seek water when you are thirsty (“want water”), seek food when hungry (“want food”), pick up a toy when you believe it’s in front of you, etc. No need to introspect there. But isn’t the attribution of mental states just another kind of behavior? And if you can act on your thirst by seeking water without introspecting first, why wouldn’t you be able to act on your thirst, in appropriate circumstances, by saying “I’m thirsty” (which in many circumstances would actually qualify as water-seeking behavior, especially for helpless babies) without introspecting first?

Obviously there is a lot more to say here (including facing some objections), but I'll stop here for now.

New book: Mental Causation

anthony dardis — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:04:13 GMT

My book Mental Causation: The Mind/Body Problem is out and available (you can get the paper copy from Columbia University Press or Amazon or Barnes&Noble for about $23 USD).

The book works its way up to a solution to a certain class of mental causation problems, roughly the ones picked out by Kim's supervenience argument. The problem is about properties: can a mental event cause anything in virtue of (or because) it has its mental properties -- in other words, are mental properties causally relevant to any other property? Given supervenience, it doesn't make sense to compare mental properties with their supervenience bases for causal relevance. Kim's argument doesn't rule them out either, since mental properties aren't independent of physical properties (again, assuming supervenience). Maybe the basic intuition behind the problem is this: if what an event does has a complete explanation in terms of the laws of nature governing the parts of the objects involved, then nothing else about it is causally relevant. The book proposes a way to link up supervening properties to laws of nature. Start with some supervening property (like being the desire for tea), and an instance of it. Then "qualify" the supervening property with just enough so that the conjunction of the supervening property and the qualifying property amounts to the physical supervenience base for this instance of the supervening property. The conjunction necessitates the effect just as certainly as does the supervenience base. (Not just any old supervening property counts as causally relevant: a property has to be a "best explainer" at its supervenience level.)

[The strategies developed in the book work well also to get clear on recent debates in philosophy of biology about whether there are laws in biology and whether selection is a cause.]

The first 4 chapters are about the mind/body problem in Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Huxley, and the 20th century conversations about behaviorism, identity, functionalism and anomalous monism, and the ways that the mental causation problem comes up for all of them (except for identity, which gets ruled out on the ground that mental properties are just not identical to physical properties).

Chapter 5 gives an overview of theories of properties and an argument for an "abundant" theory of properties. Chapter 6 argues for the link between causal relevance and laws of nature. Chapter 7 is about dispositions and other properties that essentially involve causation (hence the title "Sunburn and Fragile Things"). The chapter argues that those properties don't have causal relevance relations with their essential partners (so exposure to the sun isn't causally relevant to sunburn, and being fragile isn't causally relevant to shattering). Chapter 8 goes over the supervenience argument. Chapter 9, the final chapter, sets out the solution to the problem described above.

The book is intended for use in classes, like philosophy of mind, metaphysics of mind, a seminar on mental causation (or even free will)... I've used the first few chapters in an introductory level class. Things get more complex later in the book, but it tries to present the background needed to get into the current conversations about metaphysics of mind.

Tony Dardis

Reminder: SSPP deadline is November 16

gualtiero piccinini — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:15:52 GMT

There are less than three weeks left to submit your paper or symposium for the SSPP 2009.

The Resilience of Computationalism

gualtiero piccinini — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:06:45 GMT

Roughly speaking, computationalism is the view that cognition is computation. Although some form of computationalism has been mainstream in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind for decades, many people remain sceptical of it. Their reasons vary, but none of them amount to a refutation.

In the philosophical literature, the most prominent objections to computationalism are of the following form: cognition involves feature P, but computation is insufficient for P; therefore, cognition is not computation. Candidate P's include mathematical insight, intentionality/understanding, consciousness, embodiment, and embeddedness.

The main problem with these objections is that even if they are correct that computation is insufficient for some of the P's, computationalism can still be retained in a slightly weakened form: cognition is computation plus X, where X is what is needed, in addition to computation, to account for P(s). In fact, most computationalists already subscribe to this weaker version of computationalism.

But there is another series of objections, which have attracted far less attention by philosophers. They have the following form: cognitive processes are (implemented in) neural processes, neural processes have feature Q, and feature Q is incompatible with being (implementing) computations. In my opinion, this is the only kind of consideration that can settle whether computationalism holds.

I have written a short paper, “The Resilience of Computationalism,” in which I discuss objections to computationalism and why they don't succeed as they stand. Most of the paper is devoted to objections of the second kind, arguing that as they have been formulated to date, they are either confused or insufficiently precise to refute computationalism. But I suggest that they can be improved upon by relying on a more precise account of computation. I will present this paper at the 2008 PSA meeting in a couple of weeks. If anyone cares to look at it, comments are extremely welcome, especially by November 5.

Philosophers' Carnival #80

gualtiero piccinini — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:09:45 GMT

Here.

Post-doc in the philosophy of science

edouard machery — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:42:50 GMT

This might of interest for those readers who approach psychology and neuroscience from a philosophy of science perspective:

The Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, announces two new postdoctoral fellowships for the academic year 2009-2010. Each fellowship includes a $40,000 stipend with benefits. Eligible candidates must be within 5 years of the awarding of their doctorates at the time of commencement in September 2009 and must have their doctorate awarded by April 15, 2009.

For more details, see Postdoctoral Fellows Program on the Center Web site (http://www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr).

Edouard

A Moral Sense Test for Philosophers

gualtiero piccinini — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:45:46 GMT

Fiery Cushman and Eric Schwitzgebel are running a new version of the "Moral Sense Test", which asks respondents to make moral judgments about hypothetical scenarios. They're especially hoping to recruit people with philosophy degrees for this test so that they can compare philosophers' and non-philosophers' responses.

The test should take about 15-20 minutes.

Here's the link to the test.

Conference: What It Means to Be "Human"

gualtiero piccinini — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:31:31 GMT

THE NATIONAL HUMANITIES CENTER EXPLORES
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “HUMAN”
Final Conference with Leading Scientists and Humanists

WHAT:            The National Humanities Center will host the third and final conference that explores how modern scientific developments give more insight into what it means to be “human.” The 2008 “The Human & The Humanities” Conference will bring together philosophers, neurologists, cultural scholars and scientists from various disciplines to discuss the implications of technological advances, and how recent scientific findings alter our understanding of human autonomy, singularity, and creativity. Ultimately, the conversations will focus on how new knowledge is redefining the human experience.

                        The 2008 Autonomy, Singularity and Creativity Conference will feature an opening keynote address by renowned neurologist, Oliver Sacks, M.D. from Columbia University, probably most well known for Awakenings, a 1990 movie based on his work in treating a group of patients with sleep-sickness. Sacks has conducted multiple groundbreaking studies on scientific and social issues surrounding neurology, Tourette’s syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, and the hearing impaired.

WHO:            The conference will include lectures and panel discussions that feature leading international thinkers, including: Anthony Appiah, Princeton University; Patricia Churchland, UC-San Diego; Michael Gillespie, Duke University; Katherine Hayles, Duke University; David Krakauer, Santa Fe Institute; Jesse Prinz, UNC-Chapel Hill; Peter Railton, University of Michigan; Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University; Raymond Tallis, M.D., Manchester University; Holden Thorp, UNC-Chapel Hill; and Mark Turner, Case Western Reserve University.

WHEN/
WHERE:            November 13 – 15, 2008
                      (See times below detailed with each location)

Thursday, November 13
Kick-off: Oliver Sacks: “Creativity and the Brain”
Introduction by UNC- Chapel Hill’s Chancellor Holden Thorpe
7:00 p.m. at The William and Ida Friday Center - 100 Friday Center Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27517

Friday, November 14
9:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Panel 1: “The Psychology of Ethics”
Featuring Kwame Anthony Appiah and Michael Gillespie
At the National Humanities Center
7 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

10:45 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Panel 2: “On Deviation from the Human Mean”
Featuring Oliver Sacks and Jesse Prinz
At the National Humanities Center
7 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

12 - 1:30 p.m
Lunch
National Humanities Center
7 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

1:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Panel 3: “What’s so Human about Human Nature?”
Featuring Raymond Tallis, Robert Sapolsky (by video) and Peter Mallios
At the North Carolina Biotechnology Center
15 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

3:15 - 5:30 p.m
Panel 4: “Neuroscience, Morality and What Makes us Human?”
Featuring Mark Turner, Patricia Churchland and Peter Railton
At the North Carolina Biotechnology Center
15 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

5:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Reception
National Humanities Center
7 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

6:30 p.m.
Dinner
National Humanities Center
7 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

Saturday, November 15
8:15 - 9:00 a.m.
Continental Breakfast
National Humanities Center
7 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

9:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Panel 1: “Creative Evolution”
Featuring David Krakauer and Katherine Hayles
At the National Humanities Center
7 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Concluding Panel:
“From Analysis to Synthesis: The Human and the Humanities”
Featuring all panelist
At the National Humanities Center
7 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC

CONTACT:
For more information, or to RSVP to the event, please contact Martha Johnson at
the National Humanities Center, (919)549-0661;
mjohnson@nationalhumanitiescenter.org

Philosophy Carnival #79

gualtiero piccinini — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:17:13 GMT

Here.

Logic agents?

Eric Thomson — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:53:01 GMT

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.

Are Conservatives People Who Get Easily Scared?

gualtiero piccinini — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:42:46 GMT

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.

Philosophers' Carnival #78

gualtiero piccinini — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:00:22 GMT

Here.