Syntax

1. Syntax Linguistics: Syntax is the study of the rules, or "patterned relations", that govern the way the words in a sentence come together (Wikipedia) Computer Science: The set of allowed reserved words and their parameters and the correct word order in the expression is called the syntax of the language (Wikipedia)

2. Syntax cont. Philosophy: Semantic properties are the “meaning-involving” properties of words, sentences and internal representation. Syntactic properties are the nonsemantic properties (Clark)

3. Andy Clark Chapters 1-3

4. Propositional Attitude Psychology (PAP) Folk Psychology (FP) Pairs mental attitudes (believing, hoping, fearing, etc.) with propositions (that it is raining) to explain intelligent behavior.

5. Why did Cindy bring her umbrella with her when she went out? • Cindy believed that it was raining • Cindy believed that an umbrella would protect her from the rain • Cindy wanted to be protected from the rain

6. Questions • What are mental states? • Are mental states explicitly represented in the mind?

7. First Answer Mental states are identical to Brain States (J. J. C. Smart) Problem – Leibniz’s Law If A=B, then x(AxBx)

8. Simple Objection P1) Mental states are accessible to introspection. P2) Brain states are not accessible to introspection C) Therefore, by Leibniz’s Law, mental states  brain states

9. Better Objection Mental states are multiply realizable. For example, pain can be realized differently in humans, mollusks, and Martians. Don’t look at the specific neurons and wetware, nor to the surface behavior, but to the inner organization of the system.

10. Argument P1) Both mollusks and Martians can be in pain P2) Neither mollusks nor Martians can be in brain state B. C) Therefore, pain  brain state B

11. Types vs. Tokens Token – A non-repeatable concrete occurrence. Type – A kind; something that is repeatable. 4 4 4

12. Second Answer Mental states are functional states (specified by inputs and outputs to some system) Minds are the operation of a formal, computational system implemented in the meatware of the brain. Cognition is a program-level thing.

13. Why Program Level? Zenon Pylyshyn’s Car Crash – Someone witnesses a crash and runs to the phone to dial 911. The neural story doesn’t tell the truth. Daniel Dennett’s Stockbroker – The physical story doesn’t explain that the stock transaction could have occurred by fax or e-mail.

14. Turing Machines Imaginary device consisting of an infinite tape, a simple processor (a finite state machine) and a read/write head.

15. Tape – Data storage Processor (finite state automaton) – Remembers what state the computer is in and what symbol was just put in. Read/Write Head - Read a symbol off the tape, move itself one square forward or one square backward, and write on the tape

16. Stuff Concepts vs. Functional Concepts Stuff Concept Water – H2O Gold – Element with atomic number 79 Functional Concepts Money – Has to function as currency in an economy Mouse Trap – Has to be designed for, or used to, catch mice.

17. Distinctions Function, Role – Abstract specification Occupier, Realizer – Concrete entity or process

18. 4 Types of Functionalism • Machine Functionalism • Psycho-functionalism • Analytic functionalism • Homuncular functionalism

19. Machine Functionalism There are web of links between possible inputs, inner computational states, and outputs (actions, speech). To be in such and such a mental state is simple to be a physical device (of whatever composition) that satisfies a specific formal description. • `

20. Machine State Functionalism cont. If the machine is in state Si, and receives input Ij, it will go into state Sk and produce output Ol Mental States = Machine Table States.

21. Problems with Machine Functionalism Mental states are defined as functional states of the whole system (but mental states are more modular than that) No two systems can have same states unless they have all their states in common. If outputs are different the states are different.

22. Psycho-functionalism Mental states and processes are defined by their role in a cognitive psychological theory (Fodor) Mental states are those entities with those properties postulated by the best scientific explanation of human behavior.

23. General Concern about Functionalism Don’t want to be too liberal or too chauvinistic in our attributions of mental states.

24. Analytic Functionalism Goal is to provide translations or analyses of our ordinary mental state terms or concepts. (Do this a priori)

25. Benefits of Functionalism Minds are ghostly enough to float fairly free of the gory neuroscientific details, but not so ghostly to escape the nets of more abstract (formal, computational) scientific investigation.

26. General Problems • No relationship to real-world timing. • There are lots of computational stories about the same physical device. • Consciousness

27. Functionalism Being in a mental state is identical with being in an abstract functional state (where a functional state is just some pattern of inputs, outputs, and internal state transactions taken to be characteristic of the state in question).

28. Summary of Problems with Functionalism • Mental states are defined as functional states of the whole system (but mental states are more modular than that) • No two systems can have same states unless they have all their states in common. • If outputs are different then the states are different as well.

29. Summary of Problems with Functionalism cont. • Hard to avoid being either too liberal or too chauvinistic in our attributions of mental states. • No relationship to real-world timing. • There are lots of computational stories about the same physical device. • Consciousness

30. Stuff or Information? Stuff Concept Water – H2O Gold – Element with atomic number 79 Functional Concepts Money – Has to function as currency in an economy Mouse Trap – Has to be designed for, or used to, catch mice.

31. Question Is meeting certain abstract computational specification enough to guarantee conscious awareness? A good simulation of a calculator is a calculator A good simulation of a pizza is not a pizza

32. Pizza or Calculator Is the mind more like a calculator or more like a pizza? Is simulation sufficient for instantiation? Clark – Yes if fine enough grain (microfunctionalism)

33. Physical Symbol System A physical device that contains a set of interpretable and combinable items (symbols) and a set of processes that can operate on the items.

34. Commitment to Symbols Commitment to the existence of a computational symbol-manipulating regime at the level of description most appropriate to understanding the device as a cognitive engine.

35. Physical Symbol Hypotheses A physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action. Being a physical-symbol system (PSS) is sufficient and necessary for intelligence.

36. SOAR v   Stores long-term knowledge symbolically v   Depicts intelligence as the ability to search a symbolic problem-space. v   Intelligence resides at or close to level of deliberative thought. Intelligence consists in the retrieval of symbolically stored information and its use in the process of search.

37. Problems with PSH Consciousness - Searle’s brain replacement - Searle’s Chinese room argument- Block’s population of China example Fast, fluid, everyday coping activity.

38. Searle’s Brain Replacement Suppose your brain were gradually replaced with silicone chips. The input-output function is preserved. Would your conscious experience gradually shrink?

39. Ned Block’s Pop. Of China Get whole population of china to implement the functional profile of a given mental state by passing around formal symbols. Such an instantiation of the symbol-trading properties will not possess the target mental properties. So functional identity cannot guarantee full-blown qualia involving mental identity.

40. Obvious Criticism Population of China – 1.3 Billion Neurons in the Human Brain – 100 Billion

41. Clark’s Claim Discomfort stems from nagging suspicion that the formal structure implemented will be too shallow. But what about fine-grained formal description. Microfunctionalism fixes the fine detail of the internal state-transitions as, for example, a web of complex mathematical relations between simple processing units.

42. Dryfus’s Criticism Our everday skills are a kind of expert engagement with the practical world. They depend on a foundation of holistic similarity recognition and bodily, lived experience. No amount of symbolically couched knowledge or inference can possibly reproduce the required thickness of understanding, since the thickness flows not from our knowledge of fact or our inferential capacities but from a kind of pattern-recognition honed by extensive bodily and real-world experiences.

44. Multiple Realization Multiple Hardware Realizability – Mind is a formal system and we should focus on structure not stuff. Multiple Software Realizability – Different algorithms can sort numbers or letters. Perhaps different algorithms can support the mental state of believing it is raining.

45. Mind as a Swiss Army Knife Abandon the idea that intelligent activity is mediated by the sequential, serial retrieval of symbol structures from some functionally homogeneous inner store. Instead believe that there are multiple representational types and processes, operating in parallel and communicating in a wide range of different ways.

46. Subagencies Mind is an assortment of subagencies. Some of which deploy special-purpose routines and knowledge stores. (Minsky)

47. Clark Chapter 3

48. Fodor’s Representational Theory of the Mind • Propositional attitudes pick out computational relations to internal representations • Mental processes are causal processes that involve transitions between internal representations

49. Folk Psychological Explanation • Mary believes that it is raining • Mary wants to stay dry • Mary believes that using an umbrella when it rains helps her stay dry

50. Fodor’s Explanation for FP’s Success Folk Psychology (FP) is successful because it tracks real, causally potent inner states whose contents matches the contents specified by the that clauses (semantic transparency) Claim is that mental contents and inner causally potent states march closely in step.