Minds, Brains and Programs

This article can be viewed as an attempt to explore the consequences of two propositions. (1) Intentionality in human beings (and animals) is a product of causal features of the brain I assume this is an empirical fact about the actual causal relations between mental processes and brains It says simply that certain brain processes are sufficient for intentionality. (2) Instantiating a computer program is never by itself a sufficient condition of intentionality The main argument of this paper is directed at establishing this claim The form of the argument is to show how a human agent could instantiate the program and still not have the relevant intentionality. These two propositions have the following consequences (3) The explanation of how the brain produces intentionality cannot be that it does it by instantiating a computer program. This is a strict logical consequence of 1 and 2. (4) Any mechanism capable of producing intentionality must have causal powers equal to those of the brain. This is meant to be a trivial consequence of 1. (5) Any attempt literally to create intentionality artificially (strong AI) could not succeed just by designing programs but would have to duplicate the causal powers of the human brain. This follows from 2 and 4

Mental Imagery, Psychology, and Rhetoric: An Examination of Recurring Problems

The parallel debates on mental imagery in contemporary psychology and classical rhetoric have led to its marginal status in composition studies

Representing Complex Physical Objects in Memory

Researchers an artificial intelligence have proposed and implemented several representation systems for use in computer programs that "understand" natural language input. Noticeably lacking from these systems is a robust and concise method of representing complex physical objects. This paper describes a language independent scheme for encoding real-world objects in a manner that captures elements of how people describe them. Two major groups of objects are distinguished: ''unitary'' objects that are described by a single "shape-descriptor"; and "composite" objects that are represented by a frame-based system that focuses on the physical relations that exist among obiects. The heart of this scheme is a primitive-based framework that classifies physical relations into three fundamental categories with five possible properties. Our current work on RESEARCHER, a program that employs this scheme while reading patent abstracts, is also discussed

The unbidden gaze: imagery and its relation to hypnosis

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between subjects\u27 mental imaging ability, as assessed by self-report and computer measures, and hypnotic susceptibility 108 undergraduate students completed the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (Marks, 1973), and a modified form of the computerized Harvard Imagery Battery (Berardi et al, 1998). A subsequent 86 of these students had their hypnotic susceptibility assessed using the Waterloo-Stanford Group C measure of hypnotizability (Bowers, 1993). A correlation matrix of subjects\u27 Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire scores. Harvard Imagery Battery error rates, response times, responses times adjusted for simple reaction times and Waterloo-Stanford Group C hypnotizability scores failed to indicate any significant relationship between mental imagery ability and hypnotizability. Further analysis failed to indicate either a significant nonlinear relationship between hypnotizability and imagery ability or gender differences in the relationship

Proposal For a Study of Commonsense Physical Reasoning

This report describes research done at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Support for the laboratory's artificial intelligence research is provided in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under Office of Naval Research contract N00014-80-C-0505.Our common sense views of physics are the first coin in our intellectual capital; understanding precisely what they contain could be very important both for understanding ourselves and for making machines more like us. This proposal describes a domain that has been designed for studying reasoning about constrained motion and describes my theories about performing such reasoning. The issues examined include qualitative reasoning about shape and physical processes, as well as ways of using knowledge about motion other than "envisioning". Being a proposal, the treatment of these issues is necessarily cursory and incomplete.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agenc

On the need for embodied and dis-embodied cognition

This essay proposes and defends a pluralistic theory of conceptual embodiment. Our concepts are represented in at least two ways: (i) through sensorimotor simulations of our interactions with objects and events and (ii) through sensorimotor simulations of natural language processing. Linguistic representations are “dis-embodied” in the sense that they are dynamic and multimodal but, in contrast to other forms of embodied cognition, do not inherit semantic content from this embodiment. The capacity to store information in the associations and inferential relationships among linguistic representations extends our cognitive reach and provides an explanation of our ability to abstract and generalize. This theory is supported by a number of empirical considerations, including the large body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology supporting a multiple semantic code explanation of imageability effects

On the need for Embodied and Dis-Embodied Cognition

This essay proposes and defends a pluralistic theory of conceptual embodiment. Our concepts are represented in at least two ways: (i) through sensorimotor simulations of our interactions with objects and events and (ii) through sensorimotor simulations of natural language processing. Linguistic representations are “dis-embodied” in the sense that they are dynamic and multimodal but, in contrast to other forms of embodied cognition, do not inherit semantic content from this embodiment. The capacity to store information in the associations and inferential relationships among linguistic representations extends our cognitive reach and provides an explanation of our ability to abstract and generalize. This theory is supported by a number of empirical considerations, including the large body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology supporting a multiple semantic code explanation of imageability effects

Transformation of Mind's Eye Location and Visual Image Orientation in Perceiving Cutaneous Drawings

Imagery is an important area of study for a number of reasons. First, many issues regarding the structure and function of images have yet to be clarified. Second, studying the nature of imagery can provide information on the structure of memory, attention, and other more broad aspects of cognitive psychology. Third, understanding the processes underlying imagery provides important information concerning how people solve practical problems in everyday living. This thesis deals with the question of how images are rotated and how a person's mental point of reference is transformed. The processes underlying such behavior have hopefully received at least some clarification.Psycholog