133,958 research outputs found
Mind the Gap: Another look at the problem of the semantic gap in image retrieval
This paper attempts to review and characterise the problem of the semantic gap in image retrieval and the attempts being made to bridge it. In particular, we draw from our own experience in user queries, automatic annotation and ontological techniques. The first section of the paper describes a characterisation of the semantic gap as a hierarchy between the raw media and full semantic understanding of the media's content. The second section discusses real users' queries with respect to the semantic gap. The final sections of the paper describe our own experience in attempting to bridge the semantic gap. In particular we discuss our work on auto-annotation and semantic-space models of image retrieval in order to bridge the gap from the bottom up, and the use of ontologies, which capture more semantics than keyword object labels alone, as a technique for bridging the gap from the top down
Le fossĂ© dans lâexplication nâest pas Ă©pistĂ©mologique mais sĂ©mantique
Cet article explore une solution de rechange au physicalisme qui nâest ni le dĂ©fi mĂ©taphysique de Jackson et de Kripke, ni le dĂ©fi Ă©pistĂ©mologique de Nagel, Levine et McGinn. DâaprĂšs cette autre thĂšse, le fossĂ© entre lâesprit et le corps nâest ni ontologique ni Ă©pistĂ©mologique, mais sĂ©mantique. Je soutiens que câest parce que le fossĂ© est sĂ©mantique que le problĂšme corps-esprit (mind-body problem) est par essence un problĂšme philosophique qui ne disparaĂźtra vraisemblablement pas avec le progrĂšs de nos connaissances en sciences naturelles.This paper explores an alternative to the metaphysical challenge to physicalism posed by Jackson and Kripke and to the epistemological one exemplified by the positions of Nagel, Levine and Mcginn. On this alternative the mind-body gap is neither ontological nor epistemological, but semantic. I claim that it is because the gap is semantic that the mind body-problem is a quintessentially philosophical problem that is not likely to wither away as our natural scientific knowledge advances
The Cradle of Humanity: A Psychological and Phenomenological Perspective
We present an account of the evolutionary development of the experiences of empathy that marked the beginning of morality and art. We argue that aesthetic and moral capacities provided an important foundation for later epistemic developments. The distinction between phenomenal consciousness and attention is discussed, and a role for phenomenology in cognitive archeology is justified-critical sources of evidence used in our analysis are based on the archeological record. We claim that what made our species unique was a form of meditative and empathic thinking that made large-scale human cooperation possible through pre-linguistic, empathic communication. A critical aspect of this proposal is that the transformation that led to the dawn of our species was not initially driven by semantic or epistemic factors, although clearly, these factors increased the gap between us and other species dramatically later on. Our proposal suggests that recent philosophy of mind and psychology might have "epistemicized" phenomenal consciousness too much by construing it in terms of semantic content rather than by describing it in terms of empathic and meditative thinking. Instead of the prevailing approach, we favor the type of subjectivity that is fundamentally "other-involving" as essential, because on our account, a necessary condition for subjectivity is the empathic understanding of other individuals' psychology, not through inference or judgment, but through immediate conscious engagement
Phenomenal, Normative, and Other Explanatory Gaps: A General Diagnosis
I assume that there exists a general phenomenon, the phenomenon of the explanatory gap, surrounding consciousness, normativity, intentionality, and more. Explanatory gaps are often thought to foreclose reductive possibilities wherever they appear. In response, reductivists who grant the existence of these gaps have offered countless local solutions. But typically such reductivist responses have had a serious shortcoming: because they appeal to essentially domain-specific features, they cannot be fully generalized, and in this sense these responses have been not just local but parochial. Here I do better. Taking for granted that the explanatory gap is a genuine phenomenon, I offer a fully general diagnosis that unifies these previously fragmented reductivist responses
Rule-Following Made Easy
I wish to argue that the problem of rule-following rests on
semantic internalism and that semantic externalism makes
the problem evaporate. Given that the rule-following problem
is a version of the general problem that the reference
of an intentional phenomenon is underdetermined by its
meaning, semantic externalism solves the problem by
reducing meaning to reference. Since both Kripke and
Wittgenstein are proponents of semantic externalism, the
problem of rule-following is not a problem for either Kripke
or Wittgenstein, but only for Wittgenstein"s internalist interlocutor
Mapping Big Data into Knowledge Space with Cognitive Cyber-Infrastructure
Big data research has attracted great attention in science, technology,
industry and society. It is developing with the evolving scientific paradigm,
the fourth industrial revolution, and the transformational innovation of
technologies. However, its nature and fundamental challenge have not been
recognized, and its own methodology has not been formed. This paper explores
and answers the following questions: What is big data? What are the basic
methods for representing, managing and analyzing big data? What is the
relationship between big data and knowledge? Can we find a mapping from big
data into knowledge space? What kind of infrastructure is required to support
not only big data management and analysis but also knowledge discovery, sharing
and management? What is the relationship between big data and science paradigm?
What is the nature and fundamental challenge of big data computing? A
multi-dimensional perspective is presented toward a methodology of big data
computing.Comment: 59 page
Cognitive Architecture, Concepts, and Introspection: An Information-Theoretic Solution to the Problem of Phenomenal Consciousness
This essay is a sustained attempt to bring new light to some of the perennial problems in philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection through developing an account of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Building on the information-theoretic framework of Dretske (1981), we present an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call sensory concepts, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call phenomenal concepts: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, such as the concept of red. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them
Living with the Semantic Gap: Experiences and remedies in the context of medical imaging
Semantic annotation of images is a key concern for the newly emerged applications of semantic multimedia. Machine processable descriptions of images make it possible to automate a variety of tasks from search and discovery to composition and collage of image data bases. However, the ever occurring problem of the semantic gap between the low level descriptors and the high level interpretation of an image poses new challenges and needs to be addressed before the full potential of semantic multimedia can be realised. We explore the possibilities and lessons learnt with applied semantic multimedia from our engagement with medical imaging where we deployed ontologies and a novel distributed architecture to provide semantic annotation, decision support and methods for tackling the semantic gap problem
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