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Generative Models, Structural Similarity, and Mental Representation
The Mind as a Predictive Modelling Engine: Generative Models, Structural Similarity, and Mental Representation Daniel George Williams Trinity Hall College University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 The Mind as a Predictive Modelling Engine: Generative Models, Structural Similarity, and Mental Representation Daniel Williams Abstract I outline and defend a theory of mental representation based on three ideas that I extract from the work of the mid-twentieth century philosopher, psychologist, and cybernetician Kenneth Craik: first, an account of mental representation in terms of idealised models that capitalize on structural similarity to their targets; second, an appreciation of prediction as the core function of such models; and third, a regulatory understanding of brain function. I clarify and elaborate on each of these ideas, relate them to contemporary advances in neuroscience and machine learning, and favourably contrast a predictive model-based theory of mental representation with other prominent accounts of the nature, importance, and functions of mental representations in cognitive science and philosophy. For Marcella Montagnese Preface Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. -
The Artist's Emergent Journey the Metaphysics of Henri Bergson, and Also Those by Eric Voegelin Against Gnosticism2
Vol 1 No 2 (Autumn 2020) Online: jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/nexj Visit our WebBlog: newexplorations.net The Artist’s Emergent Journey Clinton Ignatov—The McLuhan Institute—[email protected] To examine computers as a medium in the style of Marshall McLuhan, we must understand the origins of his own perceptions on the nature of media and his deep-seated religious impetus for their development. First we will uncover McLuhan’s reasoning in his description of the artist and the occult origins of his categories of hot and cool media. This will prepare us to recognize these categories when they are reformulated by cyberneticist Norbert Wiener and ethnographer Sherry Turkle. Then, as we consider the roles “black boxes” play in contemporary art and theory, many ways of bringing McLuhan’s insights on space perception and the role of the artist up to date for the work of defining and explaining cyberspace will be demonstrated. Through this work the paradoxical morality of McLuhan’s decision to not make moral value judgments will have been made clear. Introduction In order to bring Marshall McLuhan into the 21st century it is insufficient to retrieve his public persona. This particular character, performed in the ‘60s and ‘70s on the global theater’s world stage, was tailored to the audiences of its time. For our purposes today, we’ve no option but an audacious attempt to retrieve, as best we can, the whole man. To these ends, while examining the media of our time, we will strive to delicately reconstruct the human-scale McLuhan from what has been left in both his public and private written corpus. -
Downloaded” to a Computer Than to Answer Questions About Emotions, Which Will Organize Their World
Between an Animal and a Machine MODERNITY IN QUESTION STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF IDEAS Edited by Małgorzata Kowalska VOLUME 10 Paweł Majewski Between an Animal and a Machine Stanisław Lem’s Technological Utopia Translation from Polish by Olga Kaczmarek Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. The Publication is founded by Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland as a part of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Ministry cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. ISSN 2193-3421 E-ISBN 978-3-653-06830-6 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71024-1 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71025-8 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-06830-6 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ © Paweł Majewski, 2018 . Peter Lang – Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................ 9 Lemology Pure and Applied ............................................................................. 9 Part One Dialogues – Cybernetics as an Anthropology ........................................ -
Cg 2014 Alexander D. Morgan ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
c 2014 Alexander D. Morgan ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ON THE MATTER OF MEMORY: NEURAL COMPUTATION AND THE MECHANISMS OF INTENTIONAL AGENCY by ALEXANDER D. MORGAN A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Philosophy written under the direction of Frances Egan and Robert Matthews and approved by New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION On the Matter of Memory: Neural Computation and the Mechanisms of Intentional Agency by ALEXANDER D. MORGAN Dissertation Directors: Frances Egan & Robert Matthews Humans and other animals are intentional agents; they are capable of acting in ways that are caused and explained by their reasons. Reasons are widely held to be medi- ated by mental representations, but it is notoriously difficult to understand how the intentional content of mental representations could causally explain action. Thus there is a puzzle about how to `naturalize' intentional agency. The present work is motivated by the conviction that this puzzle will be solved by elucidating the neural mechanisms that mediate the cognitive capacities that are distinctive of intentional agency. Two main obstacles stand in the way of developing such a project, which are both manifestations of a widespread sentiment that, as Jerry Fodor once put it, \notions like computational state and representation aren't accessible in the language of neu- roscience". First, C. Randy Gallistel has argued extensively that the mechanisms posited by neuroscientists cannot function as representations in an engineering sense, since they allegedly cannot be manipulated by the computational operations required to generate structurally complex representations. -
Interview: Watching the Spiderweb
Watching the spiderweb: Enrique Rivera. V!RUS HOW TO QUOTE THIS DOCUMENT: V!RUS Watching the spiderweb: Enrique Rivera. Interview. In V!RUS. N. 3. Sao Carlos: Nomads.usp, 2010. Available at: http://www.nomads.usp.br/virus/virus03/interview/layout.php?item=1&lang=en. The Chilean Enrique Rivera (Santiago, 1977) works on the convergence between art and digital media, from a social and political perspective since the beginning of his career. Researcher in art and cultural manager, Rivera refers the conception of his work on principles of second-order cybernetics, which includes the observer in the observed system and accepts that, from external stimuli to the system, new, non- planned interactions work to expand and enable it to overcome the limits of art. His work Cybersyn, 2006, was exhibited at the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany, at the Cultural Center of La Moneda Palace, Chile, and at the SantralIstanbul, Turkey. It retrieves the Cybersyn Project, 1971, commissioned by the government of Salvador Allende to interconnect Chilean public industries by a telex network controlled by a central computer so as to expedite the resolution of common problems. Cybersyn or Synco was a foreshadowing of what would be the Internet two decades later, created with the English cyberneticist Stafford Beer, who was invited by Allende to design and implement the network in the country. The high degree of the project's involvement with public interests and its democratic character of establishing direct links between the various nodes of the network - from bottom to top - explain Rivera's interest in looking for reconstruct its records and submit it to the world as a locus where the being and the becoming collide and recombine, to be continually revisited. -
COUPLING COMPLEXITY Ecological Cybernetics As a Resource for Auq33 Nonrepresentational Moves to Action
14 COUPLING COMPLEXITY Ecological Cybernetics as a Resource for AuQ33 Nonrepresentational Moves to Action Erica Robles-Anderson and Max Liboiron We live in an era of ecological crisis. Climate change, plastic pollution, radiation drift—our most pressing environmental concerns are on a planetary scale. They are experienced everywhere and yet they are difficult, if not impossible, to see. An extraordinary amount of resources devoted to addressing ecological crises are spent simply trying to depict these crises and trying to teach people how to properly interpret the representations. The hope is that if only the general public and policy makers could see what is happening, they would better understand, and this understanding would lead to action. Scientists, activists, and policy mak- ers advocate for higher resolution climate models and more complete descriptions of the locations and effects of ocean plastics, or radiation drift from Fukushima, or extreme weather. Bigger, better, clearer pictures are the key to informed action. They account for more variables, simulate more mechanisms, and inform the construction of better models that reflect our total understanding. This pursuit of representational fidelity aligns with the long-standing technoc- ractic legacy of what historian Paul Edwards calls “the closed world,” or “global surveillance and control through high-technology military power.”1 With the detonation of atomic bombs at the end of World War II and subsequent threats of planetary nuclear annihilation during the Cold War, it became increasingly pos- sible to imagine that humans could act at planetary scale. Such action required global infrastructures like computing networks for gathering information about everywhere. -
Cybernetics Forum the Publication Oftheamerican Society for Cybernetics
CYBERNETICS FORUM THE PUBLICATION OFTHEAMERICAN SOCIETY FOR CYBERNETICS FALL 1979 VOLUME IX NO. 3 A SPECIAL ISSUE HONORING DR. HEINZ VON FOERSTER ON THE OCCASION OF HIS RETIREMENT IN THIS ISSUE: Heinz Von Foerster: A Second Order Cybernetician, Stuart Umpleby. 3 An Open Letter to Dr. Von Foerster, Stafford Beer . 13 The lmportance of Being Magie, Gordon Pask . ...... ........ ....... ... .. ........ ... ...... 17 The Wholeness of the Unity: Conversations with Heinz Von Foerster, Humberto R. Maturana . 20 Creative Cybernetics, Lars LÖfgren . 27 With Heinz Von Foerster, Edwin Schlossberg . 28 Heinz Von Foerster's Gontributions to the Development of Cybernetics, Kenneth L. Wilson ........ .. .. 30 List of Publications of Heinz Von Foerster . 33 The Work of Visiting Cyberneticians in the Biological Computer Laboratory, Kenneth L. Wilson . 36 About the Autho ~$. 40 © 1979 American Society for Cybernetics BOARD OF EDITORS Editor Charles H. Dym Frederick Kile V.G. DROZIN Dym, Frank & Company Aid Assoe/ation for Lutherans Department of Physics 2511 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W. Appleton, Wl 54911 Buckne/1 University Washington, DC 20008 Lewisburg, PA 17837 Mark N. Ozer TECHNICAL EDITOR Gertrude Herrmann The George Washington University Kenneth W. Gaul School of Medicine and Conference Calendar Editor 111 0/in Science Building Health Seiences Buckne/1 University 1131 Unlversity Boulevard West, 12122 3000 Connecticut AvenueN. W. Lewisburg, PA 17837 Washington, DC 20008 Si/ver Spring, MD 20902 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Charles I. Bartfeld Doreen Ray Steg School of Business Administration, Harold K. Hughes Department of Human Behavior & The State University College American University Development, Potsdam, NY 13.767 Mass. & Nebraska Aves. N. W. Drexel University Washington, DC 20016 Philadelphia, PA 19104 N.A. -
Heinz Von Foerster
Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition Heinz von Foerster Springer UECPR 11/9/02 12:11 PM Page i Understanding Understanding UECPR 11/9/02 12:11 PM Page ii Springer New York Berlin Heidelberg Hong Kong London Milan Paris Tokyo UECPR 11/9/02 12:11 PM Page iii Heinz von Foerster Understanding Understanding Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition With 122 Illustrations 1 3 UECPR 11/9/02 12:11 PM Page iv Heinz von Foerster Biological Computer Laboratory, Emeritus University of Illinois Urbana, IL 61801 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data von Foerster, Heinz, 1911– Understanding understanding: essays on cybernetics and cognition / Heinz von Foerster. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-387-95392-2 (acid-free paper) 1. Cybernetics. 2. Cognition. I. Title. Q315.5 .V64 2002 003¢.5—dc21 2001057676 ISBN 0-387-95392-2 Printed on acid-free paper. © 2003 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analy- sis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adapta- tion, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. -
Cybernetic Aspects in the Agile Process Model Scrum
ICSEA 2014 : The Ninth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances Cybernetic Aspects in the Agile Process Model Scrum Michael Bogner, Maria Hronek, Andreas Hofer, Franz Wiesinger University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria Department of Embedded Systems Engineering Hagenberg, Austria Email: [michael.bogner, maria.hronek, andreas.hofer, franz.wiesinger]@fh-hagenberg.at Abstract—Agile process models provide guidelines for modern It comprises various theories, primarily the theories of infor- software development. As one of their main purposes is to mation and communication, and the theory of regulation and complete projects under external influences as successfully as control. Without the laws of cybernetics, almost nothing would possible, the question arises as to how reliably and routinely work - no aircraft, no computer, no large city and no organism given project goals can be achieved by means of such process [4]. As one of the most fundamental and powerful sciences, models. This is all the more relevant as today, unfinished software cybernetics incorporates the essential mechanisms in order to projects frequently lack certain functionality, or missed project deadlines are still on the daily agenda in software development. cope with complexity: self-control, self-regulation and self- Therefore, research has been done to identify the coherences organization. In our world of increasing complexity, cyber- between agile process models and cybernetics. Cybernetics is a netics provides the invariant laws of functioning. This holds natural science based on biocybernetics which forms the basis true for biological, technical, physical, social and economic for well-functioning processes. It was analysed how it helps to systems, but most people are not aware of that [5] [6]. -
Cognitive Systems
Cognitive Systems a cybernetic perspective on the new science of the mind Francis Heylighen Lecture Notes 2012-2013 ECCO: Evolution, Complexity and Cognition - Vrije Universiteit Brussel TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................4 What is cognition? ................................................................................................................................................4 The naive view of cognition..................................................................................................................................5 The need for a systems view ...............................................................................................................................10 CLASSICAL APPROACHES TO COGNITION ........................................................................................................11 A brief history of epistemology ..........................................................................................................................11 From behaviorism to cognitive psychology.......................................................................................................14 Problem solving ..................................................................................................................................................19 Symbolic Artificial Intelligence..........................................................................................................................25 -
Cyborgs and Space
Cyborgs and space Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extrater- restrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space . Artifact-organism systems which would extend man’s unconscious, self-regulatory controls are one possibility By Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline ROCKLAND STATE HOSPITAL, ORANGEBURG, N. Y. SPACEtravel challenges mankind not only technologically but also spiritually, in that it invites man to take an active part in his own biological evolution. Scientific advances of the future may thus be utilized to permit man’s existence in environments which differ radically from those provided by nature as we know it. The task of adapting man’s body to any environment he may choose will be made easier by increased knowledge of homeo- static functioning, the cybernetic aspects of which are just begin- Clynes Kline ning to be understood and investigated. In the past evolution brought about the altering of bodily functions to suit different Manfred E. Clynes has since 1956 been chief research scientist at Rockland State, environments. Starting as of now, it will be possible to achieve in charge of the Dynamic Simulation Lab. this to some degree without alteration of heredity by suitable bio- A graduate of the Univ. of Melbourne, chemical, physiological, and electronic modifications of man’s Australia, and holder of an M.S. from Juilliard School, he has for the past 10 existing modus vivendi. years been engaged in the design and Homeostatic mechanisms found in organisms are designed to development of physiological instrumen- provide stable operation in the particular environment of the or- tation and apparatus, ultrasonic trans- ducers, and electronic data-processing ganism, Examples of three successful alternate solutions pro- systems. -
Becoming Eco-Logical with Second-Order Systems Theory: Sustainability in Re-Organization of Economies and Food Systems Skyler Knox Perkins University of Vermont
University of Vermont ScholarWorks @ UVM Graduate College Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 2018 Becoming Eco-Logical With Second-Order Systems Theory: Sustainability In Re-Organization Of Economies And Food Systems Skyler Knox Perkins University of Vermont Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis Part of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, and the Economics Commons Recommended Citation Perkins, Skyler Knox, "Becoming Eco-Logical With Second-Order Systems Theory: Sustainability In Re-Organization Of Economies And Food Systems" (2018). Graduate College Dissertations and Theses. 869. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/869 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate College Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BECOMING ECO-LOGICAL WITH SECOND-ORDER SYSTEMS THEORY: SUSTAINABILITY IN RE-ORGANIZATION OF ECONOMIES AND FOOD SYSTEMS A Thesis Presented by Skyler Perkins to The Faculty of the Graduate College of The University of Vermont In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science Specializing in Community Development and Applied Economics January, 2018 Defense Date: November 7, 2017 Thesis Examination Committee: Josh Farley, Ph.D., Advisor Jon Erickson, Ph.D., Chairperson Chris Koliba, Ph.D. Cynthia J. Forehand, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate College ABSTRACT Ecological Economics has emerged across disciplines, and has begun to disentangle, not only the relationship between biophysical earth systems and economic activity, but also, fundamental relationships between objectivity, power, value, ethics, perspective and purpose.