The systematicity challenge to anti-representational dynamicism

After more than twenty years of representational debate in the cognitive sciences, anti-representational dynamicism may be seen as offering a rival and radically new kind of explanation of systematicity phenomena. In this paper, I argue that, on the contrary, anti-representational dynamicism must face a version of the old systematicity challenge: either it does not explain systematicity, or else, it is just an implementation of representational theories. To show this, I present a purely behavioral and representation-free account of systematicity. I then consider a case of insect sensorimotor systematic behavior: communicating behavior in honey bees. I conclude that anti-representational dynamicism fails to capture the fundamental trait of systematic behaviors qua systematic, i.e., their involving exercises of the same behavioral capacities. I suggest, finally, a collaborative strategy in pursuit of a rich and powerful account of this central phenomenon of high cognition at all levels of explanation, including the representational level

Intelligence without Representation: A Historical Perspective

This paper reflects on a seminal work in the history of AI and representation: Rodney Brooks’ 1991 paper Intelligence without Representation. Brooks advocated the removal of explicit representations and engineered environments from the domain of his robotic intelligence experimentation, in favour of an evolutionary-inspired approach using layers of reactive behaviour that operated independently of each other. Brooks criticised the current progress in AI research and believed that removing complex representation from AI would help address problematic areas in modelling the mind. His belief was that we should develop artificial intelligence by being guided by evolutionary development of our own intelligence, and that his approach mirrored how our own intelligence functions. Thus the field of behaviour-based robotics emerged. This paper offers a historical analysis of Brooks’ behaviour-based robotics approach and its impact in artificial intelligence and cognitive theory at the time, as well as in modern-day approaches to AI

The Implementation of Research Based Learning Materials on Student Learning Competency in Islamic Higher Institution

The study on research-based learning material needs to be introduced in universities in order to achieve student competence. The purpose of this study is to investigate the contribution of teaching materials for Islamic Studies courses to be internalized in order to achieve the competence of English literature study program. This research applied qualitative method using an action research approach. Data were collected using tests, observations and interviews. The data were analyzed in the form of student learning performance. Their performance included students' thinking styles, patterns of processing information, attitudes and their work. Based on Thorndike's theory of connectionism, it was found that the draft teaching materials implemented through the classroom learning process in the form of thinking styles and ways of processing information were in accordance with their competencies. The implementation of the learning process was carried out through the internalization of Islamic educational values which can be seen in the attitude of students' politeness and the work they obtained

Smell's puzzling discrepancy: Gifted discrimination, yet pitiful identification

Mind &Language, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 90-114, February 2020

Towards explanatory pluralism in cognitive science

This thesis seeks to shed light on the intricate relationships holding between the various explanatory frameworks currently used within cognitive science. The driving question of this philosophical investigation concerns the nature and structure of cognitive explanation. More specifically, I attempt to clarify whether the sort of scientific explanations proposed for various cognitive phenomena at different levels of analysis or abstraction differ in significant ways from the explanations offered in other areas of scientific inquiry, such as biology, chemistry, or even physics. Thus, what I will call the problem of cognitive explanation, asks whether there is a distinctive feature that characterises cognitive explanations and distinguishes them from the explanatory schemas utilised in other scientific domains. I argue that the explanatory pluralism encountered within the daily practice of cognitive scientists has an essential normative dimension. The task of this thesis is to demonstrate that pluralism is an appropriate standard for the general explanatory project associated with cognitive science, which further implies defending and promoting the development of multiple explanatory schemas in the empirical study of cognitive phenomena

On Paul Cilliers’ approach to complexity: post-structuralism versus model exclusivity

Paul Cilliers has developed a novel post-structural approach to complexity that has influenced several writers contributing to the current complexity literature. Concomitantly however, Cilliers advocates for modelling complex systems using connectionist neural networks (rather than analytic, rule-based models). In this paper, I argue that it is dilemmic to simultaneously hold these two positions. Cilliers’ post-structural interpretation of complexity states that models of complex systems are always contextual and provisional; there is no exclusive model of complex systems. This sentiment however appears at odds with Cilliers’ promotion of connectionist neural networks as the best way to model complex systems. The lesson is that those who currently follow Cilliers’ post-structural approach to complexity cannot also develop a preferred model of complex systems, and those who currently advocate for some preferred model of complex systems cannot adopt the post-structural approach to complexity without giving up the purported objectivity and/or superiority of their preferred model

"Consciousness". Selected Bibliography 1970 - 2001

This is a bibliography of books and articles on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience over the last 30 years. There are three main sections, devoted to monographs, edited collections of papers, and articles. The first two of these sections are each divided into three subsections containing books in each of the main areas of research. The third section is divided into 12 subsections, with 10 subject headings for philosophical articles along with two additional subsections for articles in cognitive science and neuroscience. Of course the division is somewhat arbitrary, but I hope that it makes the bibliography easier to use. This bibliography has first been compiled by Thomas Metzinger and David Chalmers to appear in print in two philosophical anthologies on conscious experience (Metzinger 1995a, b). From 1995 onwards it has been continuously updated by Thomas Metzinger, and now is freely available as a PDF-, RTF-, or HTML-file. This bibliography mainly attempts to cover the Anglo-Saxon and German debates, in a non-annotated, fully formatted way that makes it easy to "cut and paste" from the original file. To a certain degree this bibliography also contains items in other languages than English and German - all submissions in other languages are welcome. Last update of current version: July 13th, 2001

Critical data aesthetics: towards a critically reflexive practice of data aestheticisation

This thesis responds to the aesthetic representation of data in multiple cultural contexts, arguing that a critical exploration of these aesthetics is necessary and needs to be elaborated. In this thesis, this is undertaken through three works produced across the duration of this project: Breathing Mephitic Air, an installation that aestheticises air pollution data (exhibited at Somerset House, London); Ground Resistance, an installation that explored data and representation in a smart city system (exhibited at Milton Keynes International Festival 2016); and The Dark Age of Connectionism: Captivity, a sound installation that centered upon the opacity of the Amazon Echo (exhibited at Haunted Machines/Impakt Festival, Utrecht). In the first chapter, ‘Contexts’, I lay out the critical studies of data, artistic practices and dispositions which underpinned this project and informed the works produced through it. The second chapter, ‘Breathing Mephitic Air’, opens with a critique of claims to sensor objectivity using Daston and Galison’s concept of ‘mechanical objectivity’ alongside Donna Haraway’s ‘situated knowledges’, before exploring the relationship of these theories to the aesthetic decisions in the chapter’s titular work. The third chapter ‘Ground Resistance’ critiques how the promises of the ‘smart city’ relate to the aesthetic representations of it in phenomena such as the dashboard interface. These are discussed further in relation to the Ground Resistance installation, detailing how its production was both informed by and re-informed my theoretical concerns. In chapter four ‘The Dark Age of Connectionism: Captivity’ the ‘smart speaker’ field of devices is critically examined with particular focus on the opacity of these devices and their related networked infrastructures. The Dark Age of Connectionism: Captivity is then presented and assessed as a response to these conditions through critically reflexive practice. The final chapter ‘Towards a Critical Data Aesthetics’ reflects upon the works and their relationship to the concerns of the thesis, including the ethical and political considerations and their importance in a dispositional approach to critical data aesthetics work

Social and epistemological bases of technology transfer: The case of artificial intelligence

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis addresses a problem in the literature on technology transfer of understanding the local appropriation of knowledge. Based on interpretive and analytic traditions developed in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and ethnomethodology, I conceptualise technology transfer as involving communication between discursive communities. I develop the idea of 'performance of community' to argue that explanations of research and technology, and readings of those explanations, are sites for the elaboration of the identity of a discursive community. I explore this approach through a case study in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). I focus on what I call 'explanatory practices', that is practices of describing, identifying and explaining Al, and trace the differences in these practices, according to location, context and audience. The novelty of my thesis is to show the pervasiveness of performance of community within these explanatory practices, through showing the differences in the claimed identity and significance of Al, associated with different locations, contexts and audiences. I draw out some of the implications of my approach by counterposing it to a theory of technology transfer as the passing of neutral units of information, which I argue is implicit in a complaint made by Al vendors that the Al marketplace had been damaged by overselling or hype. In particular, I show that disclaimers of hype (more than the perpetration of it) had always been associated with the marketing of Al. More generally, my claim is that it is politically important to understand that neutral information is not available even as an ultimate standard, and that the local appropriation of knowledge is not an aberration to be controlled, but a component of both successful and unsuccessful communication between discursive communities

Close to the metal: Towards a material political economy of the epistemology of computation

This paper investigates the role of the materiality of computation in two domains: blockchain technologies and artificial intelligence (AI). Although historically designed as parallel computing accelerators for image rendering and videogames, graphics processing units (GPUs) have been instrumental in the explosion of both cryptoasset mining and machine learning models. The political economy associated with video games and Bitcoin and Ethereum mining provided a staggering growth in performance and energy efficiency and this, in turn, fostered a change in the epistemological understanding of AI: from rules-based or symbolic AI towards the matrix multiplications underpinning connectionism, machine learning and neural nets. Combining a material political economy of markets with a material epistemology of science, the article shows that there is no clear-cut division between software and hardware, between instructions and tools, and between frameworks of thought and the material and economic conditions of possibility of thought itself. As the microchip shortage and the growing geopolitical relevance of the hardware and semiconductor supply chain come to the fore, the paper invites social scientists to engage more closely with the materialities and hardware architectures of ‘virtual’ algorithms and software