Selfless Minds

Author(s):  
Francisco J. Varela ◽  
Evan Thompson ◽  
Eleanor Rosch

This chapter looks at Marvin Minsky's and Seymour Papert's recent proposal to study the mind as a society, which takes the patchwork architecture of cognition as a central element. Minsky and Papert present a view in which minds consist of many “agents” whose abilities are quite circumscribed: each agent taken individually operates only in a microworld of small-scale or “toy” problems. This model of the mind as a society of numerous agents is intended to encompass a multiplicity of approaches to the study of cognition, ranging from distributed, self-organizing networks to the classical, cognitivist conception of localized, serial symbolic processing. The society of mind purports to be, then, something of a middle way in present cognitive science. This middle way challenges a homogenous model of the mind, whether in the form of distributed networks at one extreme or symbolic processers at the other extreme.

Author(s):  
Sebastian Löbner ◽  
Thomas Gamerschlag ◽  
Tobias Kalenscher ◽  
Markus Schrenk ◽  
Henk Zeevat

AbstractIn order to help to explain cognition, cognitive structures are assumed to be present in the mind/brain. While the empirical investigation of such structures is the task of cognitive psychology, the other cognitive science disciplines like linguistics, philosophy and artificial intelligence have an important role in suggesting hypotheses. Researchers in these disciplines increasingly test such hypotheses by empirical means themselves. In philosophy, the traditional way of referring to such structures is via concepts, i.e. those mental entities by which we conceive reality and with the help of which we reason and plan. Linguists traditionally refer to the cognitive structures as meanings—at least those linguists with a mentalistic concept of meaning do who do not think of meaning as extra-mental entities.


Author(s):  
Francisco J. Varela ◽  
Evan Thompson ◽  
Eleanor Rosch

This chapter describes cognitive science. In its widest sense, the term cognitive science is used to indicate that the study of mind is in itself a worthy scientific pursuit. At this time, cognitive science is not yet established as a mature science. It does not have a clearly agreed upon sense of direction and a large number of researchers constituting a community. Rather, it is really more of a loose affiliation of disciplines than a discipline of its own. Interestingly, an important pole is occupied by artificial intelligence—thus, the computer model of the mind is a dominant aspect of the entire field. The other affiliated disciplines are generally taken to consist of linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, sometimes anthropology, and the philosophy of mind. Each discipline would give a somewhat different answer to the question of what is mind or cognition, an answer that would reflect its own specific concerns.


Author(s):  
Jonardon Ganeri

That the two kinds of description are distinct is evident. There is no obvious way to translate the terms of either account into those of the other or in any other way to achieve a nomological reduction of one account to the other. The ambitions of the two accounts are different: one seeks to describe what consciousness must be if mind is able intentionally to ‘bend onto’ world; the other attempts to describe how the mind departs from its natural state of rest and instead consciously to take up some aspect of the world about it. A distinction popular in cognitive science, the endogenous/exogenous distinction, is rejected. A conception of reality is defended according to which the world is not normatively inert.


2005 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-427
Author(s):  
Csaba Pléh

Ádám György: A rejtozködo elme. Egy fiziológus széljegyzetei Carpendale, J. I. M. és Müller, U. (eds): Social interaction and the development of knowledge Cloninger, R. C.: Feeling good. The science of well being Dunbar, Robin, Barrett, Louise, Lycett, John: Evolutionary psychology Dunbar, Robin: The human story. A new history of makind's evolution Geary, D. C.: The origin of mind. Evolution of brain, cognition and general intelligence Gedeon Péter, Pál Eszter, Sárkány Mihály, Somlai Péter: Az evolúció elméletei és metaforái a társadalomtudományokban Harré, Rom: Cognitive science: A philosophical introduction Horváth György: Pedagógiai pszichológia Marcus, G.: The birth of the mind. How a tiny number of genes creates the complexities of human thought Solso, R. D.: The psychology of art and the evolution of the conscious brain Wray, A. (ed.): The transition to language


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Kazuhiro Aruga

In this study, two operational methodologies to extract thinned woods were investigated in the Nasunogahara area, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. Methodology one included manual extraction and light truck transportation. Methodology two included mini-forwarder forwarding and four-ton truck transportation. Furthermore, a newly introduced chipper was investigated. As a result, costs of manual extractions within 10 m and 20 m were JPY942/m3 and JPY1040/m3, respectively. On the other hand, the forwarding cost of the mini-forwarder was JPY499/m3, which was significantly lower than the cost of manual extractions. Transportation costs with light trucks and four-ton trucks were JPY7224/m3 and JPY1298/m3, respectively, with 28 km transportation distances. Chipping operation costs were JPY1036/m3 and JPY1160/m3 with three and two persons, respectively. Finally, the total costs of methodologies one and two from extraction within 20 m to chipping were estimated as JPY9300/m3 and JPY2833/m3, respectively, with 28 km transportation distances and three-person chipping operations (EUR1 = JPY126, as of 12 August 2020).


1859 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 381-457 ◽  

The necessity of discussing so great a subject as the Theory of the Vertebrate Skull in the small space of time allotted by custom to a lecture, has its advantages as well as its drawbacks. As, on the present occasion, I shall suffer greatly from the disadvantages of the limitation, I will, with your permission, avail myself to the uttermost of its benefits. It will be necessary for me to assume much that I would rather demonstrate, to suppose known much that I would rather set forth and explain at length; but on the other hand, I may consider myself excused from entering largely either into the history of the subject, or into lengthy and controversial criticisms upon the views which are, or have been, held by others. The biological science of the last half-century is honourably distinguished from that of preceding epochs, by the constantly increasing prominence of the idea, that a community of plan is discernible amidst the manifold diversities of organic structure. That there is nothing really aberrant in nature; that the most widely different organisms are connected by a hidden bond; that an apparently new and isolated structure will prove, when its characters are thoroughly sifted, to be only a modification of something which existed before,—are propositions which are gradually assuming the position of articles of faith in the mind of the investigators of animated nature, and are directly, or by implication, admitted among the axioms of natural history.


Philosophy ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 66 (258) ◽  
pp. 517-521
Author(s):  
Katherin A. Rogers

According to David Hume our idea of a necessary connection between what we call cause and effect is produced when repeated observation of the conjunction of two events determines the mind to consider one upon the appearance of the other. No matter how we interpret Hume's theory of causation this explanation of the genesis of the idea of necessity is fraught with difficulty. I hope to show, looking at the three major interpretations of Hume's causal theory, that his account is contradictory, plainly wrong, or (at best) inherently impossible to verify.


Philosophy ◽  
1950 ◽  
Vol 25 (94) ◽  
pp. 225-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Emmet
Keyword(s):  

It is a sobering experience to be giving my first Sir Samuel Hall Oration in the line of succession of Samuel Alexander. Some of his Sir Samuel Hall Orations have been published in his book on Beauty and the Other Forms of Value and the Philosophical and Literary Pieces, and they must indeed have been a joy to his audiences. I think it is fitting that I should devote this first lecture to Samuel Alexander, taking one of the central ideas of his philosophy and considering it. If some of what I have to say is critical, I think he would have thought that was all in order. “Pitch into me,” he used to say. After all, the best tribute one can pay to a philosopher is to try to go on with one's own thinking helped by the stimulus of his ideas, and often not least helped by finding oneself impelled to criticize them.


2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Jeroen de Ridder

Much of Alvin Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies(2011) will contain few surprises for those who have been following his work over the past decades. This —I hasten to add — is nothing against the book. The fact alone that his ideas on various topics, which have appeared scattered throughout the literature, are now actualized, applied to the debate about the (alleged) conflict between science and religion, and organized into an overarching argument with a single focus makes this book worthwhile. Moreover, I see this book making significant progress on two opposite ends of the spectrum of views about science and religion. On the one end, we find the so-called new atheists and other conflict-mongers. Compared to the overheated rhetoric that oozes from their writings, this book is a breath of fresh air. Plantinga cuts right to the chase and soberly exposes the bare bones of the new atheists’ arguments. It immediately becomes clear how embarrassingly bare these bones really are. On the other end of the spectrum are theologians and scientists who envisage harmony and concord between science and religion.


2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Eunice Quilici Gonzalez

The impact of new advanced technology on issues that concern meaningful information and its relation to studies of intelligence constitutes the main topic of the present paper. The advantages, disadvantages and implications of the synthetic methodology developed by cognitive scientists, according to which mechanical models of the mind, such as computer simulations or self-organizing robots, may provide good explanatory tools to investigate cognition, are discussed. A difficulty with this methodology is pointed out, namely the use of meaningless information to explain intelligent behavior that incorporates meaningful information. In this context, it is inquired what are the contributions of cognitive science to contemporary studies of intelligent behavior and how technology may play a role in the analysis of the relationships established by organisms in their natural and social environments.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document