I’ve recently completed a short scientific biography of Allen Newell, for the forthcoming new volumes of Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Newell (d. 1992) is one of the giants of computer science and cognitive science. His work still amply repays its study. He was a champion of so called classical, or symbolic, …
I am getting ready for my Fall graduate seminar at Pitt–Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science. The class is a survey of the main issues in the current philosophy of cognitive science (broadly conceived). To my own surprise, it has become clear that the class I will teach will …
As many of you know, the journal Synthese devotes one issue per year to the philosophy of neuroscience. If you work in this area, you should definitely consider submitting articles to John Bickle, who is in charge of the yearly issue in question. This year, most of the yearly Synthese …
As some of you know from previous posts, Sam Scott and I have written a paper on Splitting Concepts, forthcoming in Philosophy of Science. When it comes out, our paper will be followed by a response by Edouard Machery, entitled How to Split Concepts (posted with his permission). He did a …
I just discovered a (recently reprinted) book by Nelson Goodman entitled, Of Mind and Other Matters. It may sound too close to this blog’s subtitle to be just a coincidence. But it is.
Peter Smith has posted the complete draft of his book on Godel’s Theorems online (forthcoming from CUP). Among other things, the book contains some interesting and provocative remarks about the Church-Turing thesis, including an argument that it is provable. Smith invites everyone to check out his book and send him comments and corrections.His …
Adam Arico alerted me to the following:Finally, some Cornell researchers realized John von Neumann’s dream of self-replicating automata. They are relatively simple and need some help in “feeding,” but once fed they are quite proficient. Make sure you look at the video showing how they replicate.
