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Neuron Digest Volume 06 Number 11
Neuron Digest Saturday, 10 Feb 1990 Volume 6 : Issue 11
Today's Topics:
Turing 1990 Colloquium, 3-6 April 1990, Sussex University
Call for papers and referees - HICSS
Proceedings book available
NIPS-90 WORKSHOPS Call for Proposals
NIPS-90 CALL For Papers
connectionism & AI conf.
Searle/Pinker: BBS Call for Commentators
Send submissions, questions, address maintenance and requests for old issues to
"neuron-request@hplabs.hp.com" or "{any backbone,uunet}!hplabs!neuron-request"
Use "ftp" to get old issues from hplpm.hpl.hp.com (15.255.176.205).
------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Turing 1990 Colloquium, 3-6 April 1990, Sussex University
From: Aaron Sloman <aarons%cogs.sussex.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK>
Date: Sun, 04 Feb 90 19:11:17 +0000
I have been asked to circulate information about this conference.
NB - please do NOT use "reply". Email enquiries should go to
turing@uk.ac.sussex.syma
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
TURING 1990 COLLOQUIUM
At the University of Sussex, Brighton, England
3rd - 6th April 1990
This Conference commemorates the 40th anniversary of the publication in Mind
of Alan Turing's influential paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence".
It is hosted by the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences at the
University of Sussex and held under the auspices of the Mind Association.
Additional support has been received from the Analysis Committee, the
Aristotelian Society, The British Logic Colloquium, The International Union
of History and Philosophy of Science, POPLOG, Philosophical Quarterly, and
the SERC Logic for IT Initiative.
The aim of the Conference is to draw together people working in Philosophy,
Logic, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and
related fields, in order to celebrate the intellectual and technological
developments which owe so much to Turing's seminal thought. Papers will be
presented on the following themes: Alan Turing and the emergence of
Artificial Intelligence, Logic and the Theory of Computation, The
Church-Turing Thesis, The Turing Test, Connectionism, Mind and Content,
Philosophy and Methodology of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science.
Invited talks will be given by Paul Churchland, Joseph Ford, Robin Gandy,
Clark Glymour, Douglas Hofstadter, J.R. Lucas, Donald Michie, Christopher
Peacocke and Herbert Simon, while other prominent contributors include
Robert French (Indiana), Beatrice de Gelder (Tilburg), Andrew Hodges
(Oxford), Philip Pettit (ANU) and Aaron Sloman (Sussex).
Anyone wishing to attend this Conference should complete the enclosed form
and send it to Andy Clark, TURING Registrations, School of Cognitive and
Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, England, U.K.,
enclosing a STERLING cheque or money order for the total amount payable,
made out to "Turing 1990". We regret that we cannot accept payment in other
currencies. The form should be returned not later than Thursday 1st March,
1990, after which an extra fee of #5.00 for late registration is payable and
accommodation cannot be guaranteed.
The conference will start at lunchtime on Tuesday 3rd April, 1990, and will
end on Friday 6th April after tea. Final details will be sent to registered
participants in February 1990.
Conference Organizing Committee
Andy Clark (Sussex University), David Holdcroft (Leeds University),
Peter Millican (Leeds University), Steve Torrance (Middlesex Polytechnic)
___________________________________________________________________________
PROGRAMME OF INVITED SPEAKERS
Paul CHURCHLAND (UCSD)
Title to be announced
Joseph FORD (Georgia)
CHAOS : ITS PAST, ITS PRESENT, BUT MOSTLY ITS FUTURE
Robin GANDY (Oxford)
HUMAN VERSUS MECHANICAL INTELLIGENCE
Clark GLYMOUR (Carnegie-Mellon)
COMPUTABILITY, CONCEPTUAL REVOLUTIONS AND THE LOGIC OF DISCOVERY
Douglas HOFSTADTER (Indiana)
Title to be announced
J.R. LUCAS (Oxford)
MINDS, MACHINES AND GODEL : A RETROSPECT
Donald MICHIE (Turing Institute)
MACHINE INTELLIGENCE - TURING AND AFTER
Christopher PEACOCKE (Oxford)
PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF CONCEPTS
Herbert SIMON (Carnegie-Mellon)
MACHINE AS MIND
____________________________________________________________________________
REGISTRATION DOCUMENT : TURING 1990
NAME AND TITLE : __________________________________________________________
INSTITUTION : _____________________________________________________________
STATUS : ________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS : ________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
POSTCODE : _________________ COUNTRY : ____________________________
Any special requirements (eg. diet, disability) : _________________________
I wish to register for the Turing 1990 Colloquium and enclose a Sterling
cheque or money order, payable to "Turing 1990", for the total amount
listed below :
Please ENTER AMOUNTS as appropriate.
1. Registration Fee: Mind Association Members #30.00 ..............
(Compulsory)
Full-time students #30.00 ..............
(enclose proof of status
- e.g. letter from tutor)
Academics (including
retired academics) #50.00 ..............
Non-Academics #80.00 ..............
Late Registration Fee #5.00 ..............
(payable after 1st March)
2. Full Board including all meals from Dinner #84.00 ..............
on Tuesday 3rd April to Lunch on Friday
6th April, except for Thursday evening
OR
All meals from Dinner on Tuesday 3rd April #33.00 ..............
to Lunch on Friday 6th April, except for
Thursday evening
3. Conference banquet in the Royal Pavilion, #25.00 ..............
Brighton on Thursday 5th April
OR
Dinner in the University on Thursday 5th April #6.00 ..............
4. Lunch on Tuesday 3rd April #6.00 ..............
5. Dinner on Friday 6th April #6.00 ..............
______________
TOTAL #
______________
Signed ________________________________ Date ______________________
Please return this form, with your cheque or money order (payable to "Turing
1990"), to:
Dr Andy Clark
Turing 90
Cognitive and Computing Sciences,
University of Sussex,
Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QH,
England.
------------------------------
Subject: Call for papers and referees - HICSS
From: Okan K Ersoy <ersoy@ee.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 90 10:22:56 -0500
CALL FOR PAPERS AND REFEREES
HAWAII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYSTEM SCIENCES - 24
NEURAL NETWORKS AND RELATED EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
KAILUA-KONA, HAWAII - JANUARY 9-11, 1991
The Neural Networks Track of HICSS-24 will contain a special set
of papers focusing on a broad selection of topics in the
area of Neural Networks and Related Emerging Technologies.
The presentations will provide a forum to discuss new advances in
learning theory, associative memory, self-organization,
architectures, implementations and applications.
Papers are invited that may be theoretical, conceptual, tutorial or
descriptive in nature.
Those papers selected for presentation will appear in the
Conference Proceedings which is published by the Computer Society
of the IEEE.
HICSS-24 is sponsored by the University of Hawaii in cooperation
with the ACM, the Computer Society,and the Pacific Research Institute
for Informaiton Systems and Management (PRIISM).
Submissions are solicited in:
Supervised and Unsupervised Learning
Issues of Complexity and Scaling
Associative Memory
Self-Organization
Architectures
Optical, Electronic and Other Novel Implementations
Optimization
Signal/Image Processing and Understanding
Novel Applications
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING PAPERS
Manuscripts should be 22-26 typewritten, double-spaced pages in length.
Do not send submissions that are significantly shorter or
longer than this.
Papers must not have been previously presented or published,
nor currently submitted for journal publication.
Each manuscript will be put through a rigorous refereeing process.
Manuscripts should have a title page that includes the title of
the paper, full name of its author(s), affiliations(s), complete
physical and electronic address(es), telephone number(s) and a
300-word abstract of the paper.
DEADLINES
A 300-word optional abstract may be submitted by April 30, 1990 by e-mail
or mail. Feedback to author concerning abstract will be given by May 31, 1990.
Six copies of the manuscript are due by June 25, 1990.
Notification of accepted papers by September 1, 1990.
Accepted manuscripts, camera-ready, are due by October 3, 1990.
SEND SUBMISSIONS AND QUESTIONS TO
O. K. Ersoy
Purdue University
School of Electrical Engineering
W. Lafayette, IN 47907
(317) 494-6162
E-Mail: ersoy@ee.ecn.purdue.edu
------------------------------
Subject: Proceedings book available
From: inesc!lba%alf@relay.EU.net (Luis Borges de Almeida)
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 90 13:46:27 -0500
The proceedings volume of the EURASIP Workshop on Neural Networks
(Sesimbra, Portugal, 15-17 Feb. 1990) is already available from
Springer-Verlag. It has been published in their Lecture Notes in
Computer Science series, and the complete reference is:
Neural Networks
EURASIP Workshop 1990
Sesimbra, Portugal, February 1990
Proceedings
L. B. Almeida and C. J. Wellekens (Eds.)
Springer-Verlag, 1990
The volume contains two invited papers, by Eric Baum and George
Cybenko, and the full contributions to the workshop, which were
evaluated by an international technical committee, resulting in
the acceptance of only 40% of the submissions.
Below is the table of contents. Have a good reading!
Luis B. Almeida
INESC Phone: +351-1-544607
Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843
P-1017 Lisboa Codex
Portugal
lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe)
lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe)
lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I - Invited Papers
When Are k-Nearest Neighbor and Back Propagation
Accurate for Feasible Sized Sets of Examples?
E.B. Baum
Complexity Theory of Neural Networks and
Classification Problems
G. Cybenko
PART II - Theory, Algorithms
Generalization Performance of Overtrained
Back-Propagation Networks
Y. Chauvin
Stability of the Random Neural Network Model
E. Gelenbe
Temporal Pattern Recognition Using EBPS
M. Gori, G. Soda
Markovian Spatial Properties of a Random Field
Describing a Sthochastic Neural Network: Sequential
or Parallel Implementation?
T.Herve, O. Francois, J. Demongeot
Chaos in Neural Networks
S. Renals
The "Moving Targets" Training Algorithm
R. Rohwer
Acceleration Techniques for the Backpropagation Algorithm
F.M. Silva, L.B. Almeida
Rule-Injection Hints as a Means of Improving Network
Performance and Learning Time
S.C. Suddarth, Y.L. Kergosien
Inversion in Time
S. Thrun, A. Linden
Cellular Neural Networks: Dynamic Properties and
Adaptive Learning Algorithm
L. Vandenberghe, S. Tan, J. Vandewalle
Improved Simulated Annealing, Boltzmann Machine,
and Attributed Graph Matching
L. Xu, E. Oja
PART III - Speech Processing
Artificial Dendritic Learning
T. Bell
A Neural-Net Model of Human Short-Term Memory Development
G.D.A. Brown
Large Vocabulary Speech Recogntion Using Neural-Fuzzy
and Concept Networks
N. Hataoka, A. Amano, T. Aritsuka, A. Ichikawa
Speech Feature Extraction Using Neural Networks
M. Niranjan, F. Fallside
Neural Network Based Continuous Speech Recogntion
by Combining Self Organizing Feature Maps and
Hidden Markov Modeling
G. Rigoll
PART IV - Image Processing
Ultra-Small Implementation of a Neural Halftoning Technique
T. Bernard, P. Garda, F. Devos, B. Zavidovique
Application of Self-Organizing Networks to Signal Processing
J. Kennedy, P. Morasso
A Study of Neural Network Applications to Signal Processing
S. Kollias
PART V - Implementation
Simulation Machine and Integrated Implementation of
Neural Networks: a Review of Methods,
Problems and Realizations
C. Jutten, A. Guerin, J. Herault
VLSI Implementation of an Associative Memory Based
on Distributed Storage of Information
U. Rueckert
Luis B. Almeida
INESC Phone: +351-1-544607
Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843
P-1017 Lisboa Codex
Portugal
lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe)
lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe)
lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp)
Luis B. Almeida
INESC Phone: +351-1-544607
Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843
P-1017 Lisboa Codex
Portugal
lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe)
lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe)
lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp)
Luis B. Almeida
INESC Phone: +351-1-544607
Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843
P-1017 Lisboa Codex
Portugal
lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe)
lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe)
lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp)
Luis B. Almeida
INESC Phone: +351-1-544607
Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843
P-1017 Lisboa Codex
Portugal
lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe)
lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe)
lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp)
Luis B. Almeida
INESC Phone: +351-1-544607
Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843
P-1017 Lisboa Codex
Portugal
lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe)
lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe)
lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp)
Luis B. Almeida
INESC Phone: +351-1-544607
Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843
P-1017 Lisboa Codex
Portugal
lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe)
lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe)
lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp)
------------------------------
Subject: NIPS-90 WORKSHOPS Call for Proposals
From: Steve Hanson <jose@neuron.siemens.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 90 18:28:54 -0500
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
NIPS-90 Post-Conference Workshops
November 30 and December 1, 1990
Following the regular NIPS program, workshops on current topics
on Neural Information Processing will be held on November 30 and
December 1, 1990, at a ski resort near Denver. Proposals by
qualified individuals interested in chairing on of these
workshops are solicited.
Past topics have included: Rules and Connectionist Models;
Speech; Vision; Neural Network Dynamics; Neurobiology;
Computational Complexity Issues; Fault Tolerance in Neural
Networks; Benchmarking and Comparing Neural Network Applications;
Architectural Issues; Fast Training Techniques; VLSI; Control;
Optimization, Statistical Inference, Genetic Algorithms.
The format of the workshop is informal. Beyond reporting on past
research, their goal is to provide a forum for scientists
actively working in the field to freely discuss current issues of
concern and interest. Sessions will meet in the morning and in
the afternoon of both days, with free time in between for the
ongoing individual exchange or outdoor activities. Specific open
or controversial issues are encouraged and preferred as workshop
topics. Individuals interested in chairing a workshop must
propose a topic of current interest and must be willing to accept
responsibility for their group's discussion. Discussion leaders'
responsibilities include: arrange brief informal presentations
by experts working on this topic, moderate or lead the
discussion, and report its high points, findings and conclusions
to the group during evening plenary sessions, and in a short (2
page) summary.
Submission Procedure: Interested parties should submit a short
proposal for a workshop of interest by May 17, 1990. Proposals
should include a title and a short description of what the
workshop is to address and accomplish. It should state why the
topic is of interest or controversial, why it should be discussed
and what the targeted group of participants is. In addition,
please send a brief resume of the prospective workshop chair,
list of publications and evidence of scholarship in the field of
interest.
Mail submissions to:
Dr. Alex Waibel
Attn: NIPS90 Workshops
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail net address
(if applicable) must be on all submissions.
Workshop Organizing Committee:
Alex Waibel, Carnegie-Mellon, Workshop Chairman;
Kathie Hibbard, University of Colorado, NIPS Local Arrangements;
Howard Watchel, University of Colorado, Workshop Local Arrangements;
PROPOSALS MUST BE RECEIVED BY MAY 17,1990
Please Post
------------------------------
Subject: NIPS-90 CALL For Papers
From: Steve Hanson <jose@neuron.siemens.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 90 19:32:57 -0500
CALL FOR PAPERS
IEEE Conference on
Neural Information Processing Systems
-Natural and Synthetic-
Monday, November 26 - Thursday, November 29, 1990
Denver, Colorado
This is the fourth meeting of an inter-disciplinary conference
which brings together neuroscientists, engineers, computer
scientists, cognitive scientists, physicists, and mathematicians
interested in all aspects of neural processing and computation.
Two days of focused workshops will follow at a nearby ski area
(Nov 30-Dec 1). Major categories and examples of subcategories
for paper submissions are the following;
Neuroscience: Neurobiological models of development,
cellular information processing, synaptic function, learning
and memory. Studies and analyses of neurobiological
systems.
Implementation and Simulation: Hardware implementation of
neural nets. VLSI, Optical Computing, and practical issues
for simulations and simulation tools.
Algorithms and Architectures: Description and experimental
evaluation of new net architectures or learning algorithms:
data representations, static and dynamic nets, modularity,
rapid training, learning pattern sequences, implementing
conventional algorithms.
Theory: Theoretical analysis of: learning, algorithms,
generalization, complexity, scaling, capability, stability,
dynamics, fault tolerance, sensitivity, relationship to
conventional algorithms.
Cognitive Science & AI: Cognitive models or simulations of
natural language understanding, problem solving, language
acquisition, reasoning, skill acquisition, perception, motor
control, categorization, or concept formation.
Applications: Neural Networks applied to signal processing,
speech, vision, character recognition, motor control,
robotics, adaptive systems tasks.
Technical Program: Plenary, contributed and poster sessions will
be held. There will be no parallel sessions. The full text of
presented papers will be published.
Submission Procedures: Original research contributions are
solicited, and will be carefully refereed. Authors must submit
six copies of both a 1000-word (or less) summary and six copies
of a separate single-page 50-100 word abstract clearly stating
their results by May 17, 1990. At the bottom of each abstract
page and on the first summary page indicate preference for oral
or poster presentation and specify one of the above six broad
categories and, if appropriate, sub-categories (For example:
POSTER-Applications: Speech, ORAL-Implementation: Analog VLSI).
Include addresses of all authors at the front of the summary and
the abstract and to which author correspondence should be
addressed. Submissions will not be considered that lack category
information, separate abstract sheets, the required six copies,
author addresses or are late.
Mail Submissions To: Mail Requests For Registration Material To:
John Moody Kathie Hibbard
NIPS*90 Submissions NIPS*90 Local Committee
Department of Computer Science Engineering Center
Yale University University of Colorado
P.O. Box 2158 Yale Station Campus Box 425
New Haven, Conn. 06520 Boulder, CO 80309-0425
Organizing Committee:
General Chair: Richard Lippmann, MIT Lincoln Labs; Program Chair:
John Moody, Yale; Neurobiology Co-Chair: Terry Sejnowski, Salk;
Theory Co-Chair: Gerry Tesauro, IBM; Implementation Co-Chair:
Josh Alspector, Bellcore; Cognitive Science and AI Co-Chair:
Stephen Hanson, Siemens; Architectures Co-Chair: Yann Le Cun, ATT
Bell Labs; Applications Co-Chair: Lee Giles, NEC; Workshop Chair:
Alex Waibel, CMU; Workshop Local Arrangements, Howard Wachtel, U.
Colorado; Local Arrangements, Kathie Hibbard, U. Colorado;
Publicity: Stephen Hanson, Siemens; Publications: David
Touretzky, CMU; Neurosciences Liaison: James Bower, Caltech; IEEE
Liaison: Edward Posner, Caltech; APS Liaison: Larry Jackel, ATT
Bell Labs; Treasurer: Kristina Johnson, U. Colorado;
DEADLINE FOR SUMMARIES & ABSTRACTS IS MAY 17, 1990
please post
------------------------------
Subject: connectionism & AI conf.
From: ai-vie!georg@relay.EU.net (Georg Dorffner)
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 90 17:21:28 -0100
Announcement and Call for Papers
Sixth Austrian Artificial Intelligence Conference
---------------------------------------------------------------
Connectionism in Artificial Intelligence
and Cognitive Science
---------------------------------------------------------------
organized by the Austrian Society for
Artificial Intelligence (OeGAI)
in cooperation with the Gesellschaft fuer Informatik
(GI, German Society for Computer Science),
Section for Connectionism
Sep 18 - 21, 1990
Salzburg, Austria
Conference chair: Georg Dorffner (Univ. of Vienna, Austria)
Program committee: J. Diederich (GMD St. Augustin, Germany)
C. Freksa (Techn. Univ. Munich, Germany)
Ch. Lischka (GMD St.Augustin, Germany)
A. Kobsa (Univ. of Saarland, Germany)
M. Koehle (Techn. Univ. Vienna, Austria)
B. Neumann (Univ. Hamburg, Germany)
H. Schnelle (Univ. Bochum, Germany)
Z. Schreter (Univ. Zurich, Switzerland)
Recently, connectionism is becoming more and more influential as
a basic paradigm and method for artificial intelligence and
cognitive science. Although there is an abundance of conferences
on artificial neural networks - the basis of connectionism -
only few meetings are devoted to modeling cognitive processes
and building AI models with the novel approach. This conference
is designed to fill this space. It will bring together works in
the field of neural networks for AI problems, but also basic
aspects of massive parallelism and theoretical implications of
the new paradigm. The program will consist of submitted papers,
workshops, invited talks and panels.
IMPORTANT! The conference languages are German and English. Most
of the conference will be held in German, though, but papers in
English are welcome!
Scientific program: papers on the following topics, among
others, are solicited:
- networks in practical AI applications
- connectionist "expert systems"
- localist (structured) networks
- localist and self-organizing approaches
- explanation and interpretation of network behavior
- hybrid systems
- knowledge representation in neural networks
- representation vs. behavior
- validity of learning mechanisms
- parallelism in humans and machines
- associative inferences
- connectionism and language processing
- connectionism and pattern recognition
- network simulation software as AI tool
- neural networks and genetic algorithms
- philosophical and epistemological implications
- neural networks and robotics
Workshops:
- massive parallelism and cognition (Ch. Lischka)
- structured (localist) network models (J. Diederich)
- connectionism in language processing
The workshops consist of short persentations and intensive
discussions on the specialized topic. Presentations are usually
invited, but can also be submitted. They will be open to all
participants at the conference.
Panel: Explanation and transparency of connectionist systems
-------------------------------------------------------------
All submissions for the scientific program should consist of no
more than 10 pages, for the workshops of no more than 5 pages.
Languages - as mentioned above - are German and English. All
accepted papers will be printed in a proceedings volume. Send
all submissions to:
Georg Dorffner
Dept. of Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence
University of Vienna
Freyung 6/2
A-1010 Vienna, Austria
Deadlines:
complete submission postmarked no later than March 15, 1990
April 30, 1990: Notification of acceptance / rejection
June 1, 1990: Deadline for camera-ready paper
System demonstrations are possible, if the conference chair is
notified early.
------------------------------
Subject: Searle/Pinker: BBS Call for Commentators
From: harnad@Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad)
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 90 20:07:30 -0500
Below are the abstracts of two forthcoming target articles [Searle on
consciousness, Pinker & Bloom on language] that are about to be
circulated for commentary by Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an
international, interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer
Commentary on important and controversial current research in the
biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS
Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a
commentator on one of these articles (please specify which), or to
suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to
become a BBS Associate, please send email to:
harnad@clarity.princeton.edu or harnad@pucc.bitnet or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771]
____________________________________________________________________
(1) Searle: Consciousness & Explanation
(2) Pinker & Bloom: Language Evolution
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) CONSCIOUSNESS, EXPLANATORY INVERSION AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE
by John R. Searle
Department of Philosophy
University of Californai
Berkeley CA
Cognitive science typically postulates unconscious mental phenomena,
computational or otherwise, to explain cognitive capacities. The mental
phenomena in question are supposed to be inaccessible in principle to
consciousness. I try to show that this is a mistake, because all
unconscious intentionality must be accessible in principle to
consciousness; we have no notion of intrinsic intentionality except in
terms of its accessibility to consciousness. I call this claim the
Connection Principle. The argument for it proceeds in six steps. The
essential point is that intrinsic intentionality has aspectual shape: our
mental representations represent the world under specific aspects, and
these aspectual features are essential to a mental state's being the
state that it is.
Once we recognize the Connection Principle, we see that it is necessary
to perform an inversion on the explanatory models of cognitive science,
an inversion analogous to the one evolutionary biology imposes on
pre-Darwinian animistic modes of explanation. In place of the original
intentionalistic explanations we have a combination of hardware and
functional explanations. This radically alters the structure of
explanation, because instead of a mental representation (such as a rule)
causing the pattern of behavior it represents (such as rule governed
behavior), there is a neurophysiological cause of a pattern (such as a
pattern of behavior), and the pattern plays a functional role in the life
of the organism. What we mistakenly thought were descriptions of
underlying mental principles in, for example, theories of vision and
language, were in fact descriptions of functional aspects of systems,
which will have to be explained by underlying neurophysiological
mechanisms. In such cases what looks like mentalistic psychology is
sometimes better construed as speculative neurophysiology. The moral is
that the big mistake in cognitive science is not the overestimation of
the computer metaphor (though that is indeed a mistake) but the neglect
of consciousness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(2) NATURAL LANGUAGE AND NATURAL SELECTION
Steven Pinker
and
Paul Bloom
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Many have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot
be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have
suggested that language may have evolved as the byproduct of selection
for other abilities or as a consequence of unknown laws of growth and
form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is
incompatible with Darwinian theory: Grammar shows no genetic variation,
could not exist in any intermediate forms, confers no selective
advantage, and would require more time and genomic space to evolve than
is available. We show that these arguments depend on inaccurate
assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers
a clear criterion for attributing a trait to natural selection: complex
design for a function with no alternative processes to explain the
complexity. Human language meets this criterion: Grammar is a complex
mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures
through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical
phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the claim that language
is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: Communication protocols
depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are
shared. Consequently, the child's acquisition of language should differ
systematically from language evolution in the species; attempts to make
analogies between them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and
data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a
specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian
process.
------------------------------
End of Neuron Digest [Volume 6 Issue 11]
****************************************
