Download or read book Physical Computation and Cognitive Science written by Nir Fresco and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-10-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a study of digital computation in contemporary cognitive science. Digital computation is a highly ambiguous concept, as there is no common core definition for it in cognitive science. Since this concept plays a central role in cognitive theory, an adequate cognitive explanation requires an explicit account of digital computation. More specifically, it requires an account of how digital computation is implemented in physical systems. The main challenge is to deliver an account encompassing the multiple types of existing models of computation without ending up in pancomputationalism, that is, the view that every physical system is a digital computing system. This book shows that only two accounts, among the ones examined by the author, are adequate for explaining physical computation. One of them is the instructional information processing account, which is developed here for the first time. "This book provides a thorough and timely analysis of differing accounts of computation while advancing the important role that information plays in understanding computation. Fresco’s two-pronged approach will appeal to philosophically inclined computer scientists who want to better understand common theoretical claims in cognitive science.” Marty J. Wolf, Professor of Computer Science, Bemidji State University “An original and admirably clear discussion of central issues in the foundations of contemporary cognitive science.” Frances Egan, Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Download or read book Computation and Cognition written by Zenon W. Pylyshyn and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 1986-02-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question, "What is Cognitive Science?" is often asked but seldom answered to anyone's satisfaction. Until now, most of the answers have come from the new breed of philosophers of mind. This book, however, is written by a distinguished psychologist and computer scientist who is well-known for his work on the conceptual foundations of cognitive science, and especially for his research on mental imagery, representation, and perception. In Computation and Cognition, Pylyshyn argues that computation must not be viewed as just a convenient metaphor for mental activity, but as a literal empirical hypothesis. Such a view must face a number of serious challenges. For example, it must address the question of "strong equivalents" of processes, and must empirically distinguish between phenomena which reveal what knowledge the organism has, phenomena which reveal properties of the biologically determined "functional architecture" of the mind. The principles and ideas Pylyshyn develops are applied to a number of contentious areas of cognitive science, including theories of vision and mental imagery. In illuminating such timely theoretical problems, he draws on insights from psychology, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, and psychology of mind. A Bradford Book
Download or read book Physical Computation written by Gualtiero Piccinini and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computation permeates our world, but a satisfactory philosophical theory of what it is has been lacking. Gualtiero Piccinini presents a mechanistic account of what makes a physical system a computing system. He argues that computation does not entail representation or information-processing, although information-processing entails computation.
Download or read book The Nature of Physical Computation written by Oron Shagrir and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computing systems are ubiquitous in contemporary life. Even the brain is thought to be a computing system of sorts. But what does it mean to say that a given organ or system "computes"? What is it about laptops, smartphones, and nervous systems that they are deemed to compute - and why does itseldom occur to us to describe stomachs, hurricanes, rocks, or chairs that way? These questions are key to laying the conceptual foundations of computational sciences, including computer science and engineering, and the cognitive and neural sciences.Oron Shagrir here provides an extended argument for the semantic view of computation, which states that semantic properties are involved in the nature of computing systems. The first part of the book provides general background. Although different in scope, these chapters have a common theme-namely,that the linkage between the mathematical theory of computability and the notion of physical computation is weak. The second part of the book reviews existing non-semantic accounts of physical computation. Shagrir analyze three influential accounts in greater depth and argues that none of theseaccounts is satisfactory, but each of them highlights certain key features of physical computation that he eventually adopts in his own semantic account of physical computation - a view that rests on a phenomenon known as simultaneous implementation (or "indeterminacy of computation"). Shagrircompletes the characterization of his account of computation and highlights the distinctive feature of computational explanations.
Download or read book Neurocognitive Mechanisms written by Gualtiero Piccinini and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gualtiero Piccinini presents a systematic and rigorous philosophical defence of the computational theory of cognition. His view posits that cognition involves neural computation within multilevel neurocognitive mechanisms, and includes novel ideas about ontology, functions, neural representation, neural computation, and consciousness.
Download or read book Physical Computation written by Gualtiero Piccinini and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gualtiero Piccinini articulates and defends a mechanistic account of concrete, or physical, computation. A physical system is a computing system just in case it is a mechanism one of whose functions is to manipulate vehicles based solely on differences between different portions of the vehicles according to a rule defined over the vehicles. The Nature of Computation discusses previous accounts of computation and argues that the mechanistic account is better. Many kinds of computation are explicated, such as digital vs. analog, serial vs. parallel, neural network computation, program-controlled computation, and more. Piccinini argues that computation does not entail representation or information processing although information processing entails computation. Pancomputationalism, according to which every physical system is computational, is rejected. A modest version of the physical Church-Turing thesis, according to which any function that is physically computable is computable by Turing machines, is defended.
Download or read book Computationalism written by Matthias Scheutz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new computationalist view of the mind that takes into account real-world issues of embodiment, interaction, physical implementation, and semantics.
Download or read book Explaining the Computational Mind written by Marcin Milkowski and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-03-29 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A defense of the computational explanation of cognition that relies on mechanistic philosophy of science and advocates for explanatory pluralism. In this book, Marcin Milkowski argues that the mind can be explained computationally because it is itself computational—whether it engages in mental arithmetic, parses natural language, or processes the auditory signals that allow us to experience music. Defending the computational explanation against objections to it—from John Searle and Hilary Putnam in particular—Milkowski writes that computationalism is here to stay but is not what many have taken it to be. It does not, for example, rely on a Cartesian gulf between software and hardware, or mind and brain. Milkowski's mechanistic construal of computation allows him to show that no purely computational explanation of a physical process will ever be complete. Computationalism is only plausible, he argues, if you also accept explanatory pluralism. Milkowski sketches a mechanistic theory of implementation of computation against a background of extant conceptions, describing four dissimilar computational models of cognition. He reviews other philosophical accounts of implementation and computational explanation and defends a notion of representation that is compatible with his mechanistic account and adequate vis à vis the four models discussed earlier. Instead of arguing that there is no computation without representation, he inverts the slogan and shows that there is no representation without computation—but explains that representation goes beyond purely computational considerations. Milkowski's arguments succeed in vindicating computational explanation in a novel way by relying on mechanistic theory of science and interventionist theory of causation.
Download or read book Computation Cognition and Pylyshyn written by Don Dedrick and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zenon Pylyshyn is a towering figure in cognitive science; his book "Computation and Cognition" (MIT Press, 1984) is a foundational presentation of the relationship between cognition and computation. His recent work on vision and its preconceptual mechanism has been influential and controversial. In this book, leading cognitive scientists address major topics in Pylyshyn's work and discuss his contributions to the cognitive sciences. Contributors discuss vision, considering such topics as multiple-object tracking, action, molecular and cellular cognition, and inhibition of return; and foundational issues, including connectionism, modularity, the evolution of the perception of number, computation, cognitive architecture, location, and visual sensory representations of objects.
Download or read book After Digital written by James A. Anderson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Digital looks at where the field of computation began and where it might be headed, and offers predictions about a collaborative future relationship between human cognition and mechanical computation.
Download or read book Cognitive Science and Technology written by Ella Hunter and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cognitive science is an important tool to understand all the cognitive processes of the human brain, such as memory, attention, reasoning, etc. This book on cognitive science explores the scope of this field, which includes cognitive psychology, cognitive pedagogics, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, educational technology, etc. Researches and studies performed by experts across the globe have been presented in this book in a coherent manner. It will serve as a valuable source of reference for graduate and post graduate students and will provide them innovative insights into this discipline.
Download or read book Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience written by Randall C. O'Reilly and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000-08-28 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main ideas in the computational cognitive neuroscience. The goal of computational cognitive neuroscience is to understand how the brain embodies the mind by using biologically based computational models comprising networks of neuronlike units. This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main ideas in the field. The neural units in the simulations use equations based directly on the ion channels that govern the behavior of real neurons, and the neural networks incorporate anatomical and physiological properties of the neocortex. Thus the text provides the student with knowledge of the basic biology of the brain as well as the computational skills needed to simulate large-scale cognitive phenomena. The text consists of two parts. The first part covers basic neural computation mechanisms: individual neurons, neural networks, and learning mechanisms. The second part covers large-scale brain area organization and cognitive phenomena: perception and attention, memory, language, and higher-level cognition. The second part is relatively self-contained and can be used separately for mechanistically oriented cognitive neuroscience courses. Integrated throughout the text are more than forty different simulation models, many of them full-scale research-grade models, with friendly interfaces and accompanying exercises. The simulation software (PDP++, available for all major platforms) and simulations can be downloaded free of charge from the Web. Exercise solutions are available, and the text includes full information on the software.
Download or read book How the Mind Comes into Being written by Martin V. Butz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 2000 years ago Greek philosophers were pondering the puzzling dichotomy between our physical bodies and our seemingly non-physical minds. Yet even today, it remains puzzling how our mind controls our body, and vice versa, how our body shapes our mind. How is it that we can think highly abstract thoughts, seemingly fully detached from the actual, physical reality? This book offers an interdisciplinary introduction to embodied cognitive science, addressing the question of how the mind comes into being while actively interacting with and learning from the environment by means of the own body. By pursuing a functional and computational perspective, concrete answers are provided about the fundamental mechanisms and developing structures that must bring the mind about, taking into account insights from biology, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy as well as from computer science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. The book provides introductions to the most important challenges and available computational approaches on how the mind comes into being. The book includes exercises, helping the reader to grasp the material and understand it in a broader context. References to further studies, methodological details, and current developments support more advanced studies beyond the covered material. While the book is written in advanced textbook style with the primary target group being undergraduates in cognitive science and related disciplines, readers with a basic scientific background and a strong interest in how the mind works will find this book intriguing and revealing.
Download or read book Neurocognitive Mechanisms written by Gualtiero Piccinini and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Neurocognitive Mechanisms Gualtiero Piccinini presents the most systematic, rigorous, and comprehensive philosophical defence to date of the computational theory of cognition. His view posits that cognition involves neural computation within multilevel neurocognitive mechanisms, and includes novel ideas about ontology, functions, neural representation, neural computation, and consciousness. He begins by defending an ontologically egalitarian account of composition and realization, according to which all levels are equally real. He then explicates multiple realizability and mechanisms within this ontologically egalitarian framework, defends a goal-contribution account of teleological functions, and defends a mechanistic version of functionalism. This provides the foundation for a mechanistic account of computation, which in turn clarifies the ways in which the computational theory of cognition is a multilevel mechanistic theory supported by contemporary cognitive neuroscience. Piccinini argues that cognition is computational at least in a generic sense. He defends the computational theory of cognition from standard objections, yet also rebuts putative a priori arguments. He contends that the typical vehicles of neural computations are representations, and that, contrary to the received view, the representations posited by the computational theory of cognition are observable and manipulatable in the laboratory. He also contends that neural computations are neither digital nor analog; instead, neural computations are sui generis. He concludes by investigating the relation between computation and consciousness, suggesting that consciousness may be a functional phenomenon without being computational in nature. This book will be of interest to philosophers of cognitive science as well as neuroscientists.
Download or read book Computation and Human Experience written by Philip Agre and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-28 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By paying close attention to the metaphors of artificial intelligence and their consequences for the field's patterns of success and failure, this text argues for a reorientation of the field away from thought and toward activity. It offers a critical reconstruction of AI research.
Download or read book Computational Philosophy of Science written by Paul Thagard and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By applying research in artificial intelligence to problems in the philosophy of science, Paul Thagard develops an exciting new approach to the study of scientific reasoning. This approach uses computational ideas to shed light on how scientific theories are discovered, evaluated, and used in explanations. Thagard describes a detailed computational model of problem solving and discovery that provides a conceptually rich yet rigorous alternative to accounts of scientific knowledge based on formal logic, and he uses it to illuminate such topics as the nature of concepts, hypothesis formation, analogy, and theory justification.
Download or read book Cognition in the Wild written by Edwin Hutchins and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996-08-26 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild." Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system. Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations. A Bradford Book
