A Formal Analysis of the Concept of Behavioral Individuation of Mental States in the Functionalist Framework

The functionalist theory of mind proposes to analyze mental states in terms of internal states of Turing machine, and states of the machine’s tape and head. In the paper, I perform a formal analysis of this approach. I define the concepts of behavioral equivalence of Turing machines, and of behavioral individuation of internal states. I prove a theorem saying that for every Turing machine T there exists a Turing machine T’ which is behaviorally equivalent to T, and all of whose internal states of T’ can be behaviorally individuated. Finally, I discuss some applications of this theorem to computational theories of mind.

Reconceptualizing mind wandering from a switching perspective

Mind wandering is a universal phenomenon in which our attention shifts away from the task at hand toward task-unrelated thoughts. Despite it inherently involving a shift in mental set, little is known about the role of cognitive flexibility in mind wandering. In this article we consider the potential of cognitive flexibility as a mechanism for mediating and/or regulating the occurrence of mind wandering. Our review begins with a brief introduction to the prominent theories of mind wandering—the executive failure hypothesis, the decoupling hypothesis, the process-occurrence framework, and the resource-control account of sustained attention. Then, after discussing their respective merits and weaknesses, we put forward a new perspective of mind wandering focused on cognitive flexibility, which provides an account more in line with the data to date, including why older populations experience a reduction in mind wandering. After summarizing initial evidence prompting this new perspective, drawn from several mind-wandering and task-switching studies, we recommend avenues for future research aimed at further understanding the importance of cognitive flexibility in mind wandering.

Human as machine. On the transformations of an enduring metaphor

Modern anatomy, medicine, theories of mind-as-computer and even the history of capitalist industrial and corporate management could not exist without the mechanical models of the human body. From Descartes' view of the body as machine assembly to Dennett's conception of the brain as a computer, our understanding of the human body is permeated with mechanical metaphors. Due to the peaking evidence of the failure to explain the complexity of the human phenomena through mechanical models, it seems reasonable to abandon the metaphors of the body as machine. However, as this metaphor supports the very foundations of large scale economies that profit from stable and predictable human functioning, the body machine metaphor will certainly not disappear without significant struggle.

Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary)

The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary) is a pivotal treatise on early Buddhist thought composed around the 4th or 5th century by the Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu. This work elucidates the buddha’s teachings as synthesized and interpreted by the early Buddhist Sarvāstivāda school (“the theory that all [factors] exist”), while recording the major doctrinal polemics that developed around them, primarily those points of contention with the Sautrāntika system of thought (“followers of the scriptures”). Employing the methodology and terminology of the Buddhist Abhidharma system, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya offers a detailed analysis of fundamental doctrines, such as early Buddhist theories of mind, cosmology, the workings of karman, meditative states and practices, and the metaphysics of the self. One of its unique features is the way it presents the opinions of a variety of Buddhist and Brahminical schools that were active in classical India in Vasubandhu’s time. The work contains nine chapters (the last of which is considered to have been appended to the first eight), which proceed from a description of the unawakened world via the path and practices that are conducive to awakening and ultimately to the final spiritual attainments which constitute the state of awakening. In its analysis of the unawakened situation, it thus covers the elements which make up the material and mental world of sentient beings, the wholesome and unwholesome mental states that arise in their minds, the structure of the cosmos, the metaphysics of action (karman) and the way it comes into being, and the nature of dispositional attitudes and dormant mental afflictions. In its treatment of the path and practices that lead to awakening, the treatise outlines the Sarvāstivāda understanding of the methods of removing defilements through the realization of the four noble truths and the stages of spiritual cultivation. With respect to the awakened state, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya gives a detailed description of the different types of knowledge and meditational states attained by practitioners who reach the highest stages of the path.

Curriculum Influences: William James and Michel Foucault

William James (1841–1910), working primarily out of the United States, and Michel Foucault (1926–1984), working primarily out of France, are two very different figures who both made an impact on current theories of education. Even if the primary focus of their work is not education, their ideas challenge what it is that makes education recognizable as education and takes issue with its very identity as a discipline. William James, who began publishing in the 1870s, is generally described as a philosopher and psychologist. He remains well-known for his work on pragmatism in the wake of Charles Sanders Peirce’s pragmaticism and for his work on religion, ethics, and mind theory, but he also devoted considerable time to the study of parapsychology and gave some attention to teacher education. Foucault has been variously described as a philosopher, historian, historian of ideas, and a social and political theorist. His work addressed an impressive array of fields across the sciences, literature, art, ethics, and institutional, political, and social history, and spanned a wide range of historical periods mainly in European and French history from the 13th century to the 20th century with later excursions into the Ancient Greek and early Christian eras. Foucault’s work has been widely, but selectively, deployed within education studies across the globe, with a strong focus on his notions of power, governmentality, surveillance, subjectivity, discourse, and ethics in their various iterations. James’s work has been relatively less deployed, with emphasis on the application of his version of pragmatism, theories of mind, and talks to teachers. The work of the two thinkers may be considered to overlap in two important ways: first, in their respective approaches to the notion of practice, namely the idea of philosophy as strategic and located in day-to-day concrete experience rather than occupying the rarefied realms of abstraction; and second, their interest in the margins of knowledge – knowledge that has been excluded by mainstream science and accepted ways of thinking. In the case of James, this interest manifests in his long-term studies in the field of parapsychology and in the case of Foucault in his interest in the meandering byways and monstrosities of the history of ideas, of long-forgotten knowledge rejected by the scientific mainstream or formulated on the margins of society.

Autism and Hidden Imagination: Raising and Educating Children Who Cannot Express Their Minds

This is a reflection on an article written in 2007, entitled Autism and the Artistic Imagination: The Link between Visual Thinking and Intelligence. The author is a parent of a 6-year-old with autism who is now 19 and is non-verbal who has trouble expressing his thoughts, feelings and desires, and discusses some theories behind autism spectrum communication disorders and seeks to understand why there is so much difficulty with communication with some on the spectrum. The 2007 article employed Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory as a framework to discuss the visual and spatial learning abilities of kids with autism, and this update posits that the nonspeaking population of the autism community do indeed have different ways of understanding the world, theories of mind and awareness enough to be able to communicate if only the proper links and opportunities are provided. The lack of communication is not due to a lack of a sense of self, but of a lack of understanding of the neuro-typical community that people with autism are speaking a second language, and need help with the translation.

Human Mind and Its Carriers: Is It Possible to Transform Ourselves into Robots?

In this paper I discuss some aspects of the problem of carriers of human mind and person. The main emphasis is placed on the origin of our idea of the identi­cal self in the stream of perceptions, the need for a physical carrier of our self and person, and on possibility of replacing the biological carriers of self and per­son with artificial analogues. I argue that the idea of identical self is constructed by reflection on memories, that its truth is guaranteed by continuous stream of perceptions kept in memories, and that the stream of perceptions presupposes the presence of a normally functioning brain, which can be considered as a car­rier of our mind and person. Therefore, personal identity turns out to be depen­dent on the identity of the brain in time. An attempt to copy the structures of mind and person onto other possible carriers can thus only lead to creation of duplicates of the original person, but not to the continuation of its existence on another carrier. I argue that the gradual replacement of their components with artificial analogues is a more promising way of transforming the biological carri­ers of human person. To access the possible consequences of such a replacement I analyze arguments of John Searle and David Chalmers, designed to show, re­spectively, the disappearance of consciousness and person with such a replace­ment and, on the contrary, their preservation in a previous state. I explain why Searle’s arguments are unconvincing, and demonstrate that Chalmers’ arguments are based on a hidden premise, the confirmation of which is possible in the con­text of dubious theories of mind-body identity, epiphenomenalism or panpsy­chism only. I conclude that in the current situation it is impossible to predict which consequences for our person would follow such a replacement.

What does the silent planet tell us? The analysis of selected philosophical themes found in Stanisław Lem’s Solaris

The paper analyses selected philosophical aspects of Stanisław Lem’s Solaris. I argue that there is an interesting similarity between the history of “Solarist studies” –the fictional scientific discipline depicted by Lem and cognitive science. I show that both disciplines go through similar stages as they try to describe their main subject (the planet Solaris and human consciousness respectively). In the further part of the paper, I focus on two problems identified in cognitive science that can be directly related to the themes found in Solaris: the problem of the detection of intelligence and the problem of the notion of mental representations. I finish the paper by looking at the mysterious guests that stalk the main protagonists and show that they can be understood as heuristic models that are taken into account in the theories of mind uploading.

Rethinking Knowledge-that and Knowledge-how: Performance, Information and Feedback

"This work approaches the distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that in terms of two complementary concepts: performance and information. In order to do so, I formulate Ryle’s argument of infinite regress in terms of performance in order to show that Stanley and Williamson’s counterargument has no real object: both reject the view that the exercise of knowledge-that necessarily requires the previous consideration of propositions. Next, using the concept of feedback, I argue that Stanley and Williamson’s positive account of knowledge-how in terms of knowledge-that corresponds to the output of the comparison between an intention of action and the perceived outcome of performance. Then, I expound other theories of mind and cognition in which feedback and prediction play a fundamental role in order to explain other ways in which information intervenes in performance—i.e., information is construed as knowledge-that available at subject level that guides performance. Finally, I present some reflections on the impact of the concept of knowledge-how, and possible routes to continue our enquiry on the nature of knowledge. Keywords: knowledge-how, knowledge-that, information, performance, feedback. "