Complexity of Mental Representation: A Cognitive Pragmatics Perspective

This article attempts to elucidate the meaning construction process, mental states and mental relations, communicative intentions, and action plans and thereby to explore the complexity of mental representations from a purely cognitive pragmatics perspective. It also attempts to reevaluate the violations of cooperative principle and maxims. Cooperation, mental states and intentionality are the three basic tools for any communication process. Mental states are either conscious or unconscious. They are emotional and cognitive which include common attention, shared belief, and consciousness. Three different types of beliefs are differentiated: individual, common and shared. Intentionality is the relationship between mental acts and the external world. Every mental phenomenon has content and it is directed at an object. Two fundamental distinct meanings are attributed to the concept of intentionality: direction and deliberateness. Intentionality can be conceived of through communicative intentions and action plans. The main concepts of communication, namely, cooperation, sharedness and intentionality are indispensable concepts to understand the process of comprehension and reconstruction of response in communication. Without rich shared knowledge, the inferential chain in non-standard communication becomes lengthy and laborious. Other possibilities arise due to the absence of the fundamental concepts, one of which is failure of communication. Any mental process can be envisaged in terms of steps starting with the expression of an act, moving through speaker meaning, to the communicative effect, then to the reaction it creates and finally the production of overt communicative response. The paper examines the scale of complexity of mental representation and shows the underlying processes required in meaning construction. Additionally, the difference between standard and non-standard communication is presented in terms of complexity of inferential processes needed for each two different cases in communication.

Spacetime in the brain: rapid brain network reorganization in visual processing and recovery

Functional connectivity networks (FCN) are the physiological basis of brain synchronization to integrating neural activity. They are not rigid but can reorganize under pathological conditions or during mental or behavioral states. However, because mental acts can be very fast, like the blink of an eye, we now used the visual system as a model to explore rapid FCN reorganization and its functional impact in normal, abnormal and post treatment vision. EEG-recordings were time-locked to visual stimulus presentation; graph analysis of neurophysiological oscillations were used to characterize millisecond FCN dynamics in healthy subjects and in patients with optic nerve damage before and after neuromodulation with alternating currents stimulation and were correlated with visual performance. We showed that rapid and transient FCN synchronization patterns in humans can evolve and dissolve in millisecond speed during visual processing. This rapid FCN reorganization is functionally relevant because disruption and recovery after treatment in optic nerve patients correlated with impaired and recovered visual performance, respectively. Because FCN hub and node interactions can evolve and dissolve in millisecond speed to manage spatial and temporal neural synchronization during visual processing and recovery, we propose “Brain Spacetime” as a fundamental principle of the human mind not only in visual cognition but also in vision restoration.

Brain–Computer Interfaces for Movement

This chapter describes differences between passive and active brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). It explains how active BCIs enable users to move a prosthetic arm or limb, or a computer cursor, and gives them a certain degree of control over these movements. There is shared control between the user and the interface, and this restores the user’s capacity for agency. In normal voluntary bodily movements, one does not have to think about performing them. In BCI-mediated movements, the user must plan how to use the system in activating and directing brain signals to the computer to perform them. There are two intentions: intending to perform an action; and intending to perform it with a BCI. There are two mental acts: activating and directing signals to the computer to produce the motor output. The fact that there are two intentions and two mental acts resulting in a physical movement could motivate a revision of moral and legal criteria of responsibility for BCI users. It could influence judgements of responsibility for actions, omissions, and their consequences.

Elements of Conceptual Thinking in Planning the Behavior of Autonomous Intelligent Agents

The expediency of using the tools of visual-effective, visual-figurative and conceptual thinking for planning the purposeful activity of autonomous intelligent agents in problem environments of various degrees of a priori uncertainty has been substantiated. The content is revealed and the role of each form of thinking is shown in the process of automatic planning of the purposeful behavior of autonomous intelligent agents in the changing conditions of functioning. The special role of conceptual thinking in the performance of complex tasks by autonomous agents and the planning of polyphasic behavior associated with it is indicated. Taking into account the complexity of the problems associated with the formalization of mental acts of conceptual thinking, possible ways of its gradual development from the initial level to the transition to higher levels of development are shown, expanding on this basis the class of tasks solved by autonomous intelligent agents. A model of knowledge representation and tools for deriving solutions of the initial level of conceptual thinking have been developed, which allow intelligent agents to break down the tasks they receive into sub-goals of behavior. Then, on this basis, plan polyphase activity by searching for solutions to the associated subtasks, which ensure the determination of the minimum length routes of movement in a prob lematic environment with obstacles and the purposeful manipulation of objects in it. The tools are synthesized allowing to establish the order of elaboration of complex actions included in the structure of the task formulated by autonomous intelligent agents. It is shown that the further development of the proposed methodological foundations for constructing intelligent problem sol vers is associated with the formalization of a higher level of mental acts of conceptual thinking, which make it possible to solve practical problems of different complexity, formulated both in procedural and declarative form of presentation in the form of various target situations of the problem environment, having a large dimension.

Consciousness and Intentionality in Franz Brentano

The paper argues against the growing tendency to interpret Brentano’s conception of inner consciousness in self-representational terms. This trend has received support from the tendency to see Brentano as a forerunner of contemporary same-order theories of consciousness and from the view that Brentano models intransitive consciousness on transitive consciousness, such that a mental state is conscious insofar as it is aware of itself as an object. However, this reading fails to take into account the Brentanian concept of object, which is ultimately derived from ancient and medieval philosophy, as well as the secondary, elusive character that Brentano attributes to inner perception. According to Brentano, we have an aspectual but transparent consciousness of transcendent objects, whereas our awareness of our own mental acts is always complete but incidental, and ultimately opaque. Reversing the relationship between intentionality and consciousness faces difficulties at the textual interpretative level, but also raises theoretical problems, for it risks treating Brentano’s theory of mind as a form of subjectivism and idealism.

Productive Thoughts

We often experience that we have ideas in our mind, which present possible things and incite us to produce some of them. But how can our ideas be intentional? And how can they give rise to actions? In his theory of exemplar causes, Suárez examines both problems and offers a comprehensive theory. The paper first discusses his solution to the intentionality problem, arguing that he subscribes to an act theory, according to which ideas are mental acts that are about something in virtue of their specific content. The paper then reconstructs his solution to the causation problem, showing that he appeals to efficient causation: ideas are powers and hence efficient causes that immediately produce other acts, thereby triggering the production of material things. The analysis of both problems sheds light on Suárez’s broader theory of cognitive activity by showing that he takes mental acts to be intrinsically intentional and productive.

Brentano and the Medieval Distinction Between First and Second Intentions

Brentano’s account of intentionality has often been traced back to its scholastic sources. This is justified by his claim that objects of thought have a specific mode of being—namely, “intentional inexistence” (intentionale Inexistenz)—and that mental acts have an “intentional relation” (intentionale Beziehung) to these objects. These technical terms in Brentano do indeed recall the medieval notions of esse intentionale, which is a mode of being, and of intentio, which is a “tending towards” (tendere in) of mental acts. However, within the lexical family of intentio there is another distinction that plays an important role in medieval philosophy—namely, the distinction between first and second intentions (intentio prima and intentio secunda), which are, roughly speaking, concepts of things and concepts of concepts respectively. What is less well-known is that Brentano explicitly borrowed this distinction as well, and used it in his account of intentionality. This paper explores this little-known chapter in the scholastic-Austrian history of intentionality by evaluating both the historical accuracy and the philosophical significance of Brentano’s borrowing of the scholastic distinction between first and second intentions.

MENTAL ACTS OF MATHEMATICALLY GIFTED STUDENTS WHEN SOLVING FRACTIONS PROBLEMS

In the classroom, we will find various types of students with their special learning needs. One group of learners who have different learning needs are gifted students. The paper will focus on the study of mathematically gifted students. This research aims to obtain a description of the mathematically gifted students’ mental acts when solving fractions problems. The respondents were two students of the 7th graders in junior high school, in the West Java Province, Indonesia. The research approach was qualitative. The data were collected through paper and pencil measure, observation, and interview. The data were analyzed by grounded theory with coding and constant comparison. The results show four types of mental acts, those are interpreting, explaining, problem-solving, and inferring. The results of this study can be made as one of didactic anticipation when teachers teach the concept of fractions to the mathematically gifted student. These findings are significant to be considered by the teacher when teaching the mathematically gifted student. Teachers should anticipate how students think when they teach gifted students. So that teachers and students can achieve optimal learning outcomes.

Reflexivity Without Noticing: Durand of Saint-Pourçain, Walter Chatton, Brentano

According to Franz Brentano, every mental act includes a representation of itself. Hence, Brentano can be described as maintaining that: (T1) reflexivity, when it occurs, is included as a part in mental acts; and (T2) reflexivity always occurs. Brentano’s way of understanding the inclusion of reflexivity in mental acts (T1) entails double intentionality in mental acts. The aim of this paper is to show that the conjunction of (T1) and (T2) is not uncommon in the history of philosophy. To that end, the theories of two medieval thinkers, namely, Walter Chatton and Durand of Saint-Pourçain, are presented. The repeated conjunction of (T1) and (T2) paves the way for a more general distinction than that between subjectivist and objectivist theories of reflexivity, namely, one between automatic theories of reflexivity (where noticing is not required for reflexivity) and apperceptive theories of reflexivity (where noticing is required for reflexivity).