Computation without Representation

As some of you may know, I am engaged in a long-term campaign against the view that concrete computations (computational states, computing mechanisms) are individuated, even in part, by their semantic properties.  Of course, computations may be interpreted, i.e., assigned semantic content, but this is not part of their individuation.  …

Feeling Someone Behind You Who Is Not There

Culture Dish comments on a fascinating finding by Swiss researchers, published in Nature and reported by the National Geographic.  “[A]s a result of focal electrical stimulation of the left temporoparietal junction,” … they induced “[t]he strange sensation that somebody is nearby when no one is actually present”.

IJCNN 2007 Call For Papers

2007 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks                    Orlando, Florida                  August 12-17, 2007       Celebrating 20 years of Neural Networks!              https://www.ijcnn2007.orgImportant Dates:Special Session and Panel Discussion Proposals: November 31, 2006Paper Submission: January 31, 2007Pre-Conference Tutorial and Post-Conference Workshop Proposals: January 31, 2007Decision Notification: March 31, 2007Camera-Ready Submission: April 30, 2007

Competence, Computation, and Mechanistic Levels

I apologize for the long post.  It’s inspired by an email exchange I’ve had with Anna-Mari Rusanen.   One recurring theme in philosophy of cognitive science is David Marr’s distinction of computational, algorithmic, and implementational levels (from his book Vision, 1982).  Sometimes people assimilate Marr’s computational level to Chomsky’s competence.  …

Reduction, Emergence, Etc.

In Ken Aizawa’s simple (and in my opinion compelling) argument against the extended mind hypothesis applied to consciousness, he assumed that properties and relations of lower-level enties determine those of higher-level entities.  In the comments, Adam Arico asked about emergence and Flora Carpenter further elaborated as follows:      Higher level states may …

Philosophy by Counterexamples

In comments to a recent post, Ken Aizawa raised the following question:      How is the development of a counterexample [to a philosophical theory] different than the       development of a falsifiable/falsified prediction of a scientific theory? I think this is a fascinating question that gets at the heart of contemporaty philosophical methodology, and I’d be curious to …

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