17,757 research outputs found
A Connectionist Theory of Phenomenal Experience
When cognitive scientists apply computational theory to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, as
many of them have been doing recently, there are two fundamentally distinct approaches available. Either
consciousness is to be explained in terms of the nature of the representational vehicles the brain deploys; or
it is to be explained in terms of the computational processes defined over these vehicles. We call versions of
these two approaches vehicle and process theories of consciousness, respectively. However, while there may
be space for vehicle theories of consciousness in cognitive science, they are relatively rare. This is because
of the influence exerted, on the one hand, by a large body of research which purports to show that the
explicit representation of information in the brain and conscious experience are dissociable, and on the
other, by the classical computational theory of mind – the theory that takes human cognition to be a species
of symbol manipulation. But two recent developments in cognitive science combine to suggest that a
reappraisal of this situation is in order. First, a number of theorists have recently been highly critical of the
experimental methodologies employed in the dissociation studies – so critical, in fact, it’s no longer
reasonable to assume that the dissociability of conscious experience and explicit representation has been
adequately demonstrated. Second, classicism, as a theory of human cognition, is no longer as dominant in
cognitive science as it once was. It now has a lively competitor in the form of connectionism; and
connectionism, unlike classicism, does have the computational resources to support a robust vehicle theory
of consciousness. In this paper we develop and defend this connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness. It
takes the form of the following simple empirical hypothesis: phenomenal experience consists in the explicit
representation of information in neurally realized PDP networks. This hypothesis leads us to re-assess some
common wisdom about consciousness, but, we will argue, in fruitful and ultimately plausible ways
Technology and the economy
Overview of economics of innovatio
Dismantling Lamarckism: why descriptions of socio-economic evolution as Lamarckian are misleading
“The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright Springer.This paper addresses the widespread tendency to describe socio-economic evolution as Lamarckian. The difference between Lamarckian and Darwinian replication is clarified. It is shown that a phenotype-genotype distinction must first be established before we can identify Lamarckian transmission. To qualify as Lamarckian inheritance, acquired properties at the phenotypic level must be encoded in a genotype that is passed on to the next generation. Some possible social replicators (or genotypes) are identified, with a view to exploring possible distinctions between genotype and phenotype at the social level. It is concluded that the Lamarckian label does not readily transfer to socio-economic evolution, despite the fact that social genotypes (such as routines) may adapt within any given phenotype (such as an organisation). By contrast, no such problems exist with the description of socio-economic evolution as Darwinian.Peer reviewe
Enactive manufacturing through cyber-physical systems: a step beyond cognitive manufacturing
Cognitive manufacturing, as a paradigm for providing intelligence to manufacturing
systems and enabling interaction with operators presents limitations. Manufacturing system
requires to be adaptive to machine tools, manufacturing environments and operators. In this line,
the enactive approach to cognitive science provides a paradigm for the design of new biologically
inspired cognitive architectures. Likewise, the advantages of Key Enabling Technologies and
the concept of Industry 4.0 reveal new opportunities for increasing industrial innovation and
developing sustainable industrial environments. These technologies are appropriated to
overcome the limitations of cognitive manufacturing, because they can achieve the integration
of physical and digital systems focused on cyber-physical systems. In this work, an architecture
for the sustainable development of enactive manufacturing systems based on holonic paradigm
is proposed and its main associated informational model is described
Construals as a complement to intelligent tutoring systems in medical education
This is a preliminary version of a report prepared by Meurig and Will Beynon in conjunction with a poster paper "Mediating Intelligence through Observation, Dependency and Agency in Making Construals of Malaria" at the 11th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2012) and a paper "Construals to Support Exploratory and Collaborative Learning in Medicine" at the associated workshop on Intelligent Support for Exploratory Environments (ISEE 2012). A final version of the report will be published at a later stage after feedback from presentations at these events has been taken into account, and the experimental versions of the JS-EDEN interpreter used in making construals have been developed to a more mature and stable form
Exploring Evolutionary Economic Geographies
Evolutionary approaches in economics have gathered increasing support over the last 25 years. Despite an impressive body of literature, economists are still far from formulating a coherent research paradigm. The multitude of approaches in evolutionary economics poses problems for the development of an evolutionary economic geography. For the most part, evolutionary economic geography imports selective concepts from evolutionary biology and economics and applies those concepts to specific problems within economic geography. We discuss a number of problems with this approach and suggest that a more powerful and appealing alternative requires the development of theoretically consistent models of evolutionary processes. This paper outlines the contours of an evolutionary model of economic dynamics where economic agents are located in different geographical spaces. We seek to show how competition between those agents, based on the core evolutionary principles of variety, selection and retention, may produce distinct economic regions sharing properties that differentiate them from competitors elsewhere. These arguments are extended to illustrate how the emergent properties of economic agents and places co-evolve and lead to different trajectories of economic development over space.evolutionary economics, economic geography, Generalized Darwinism, biological metaphors, self-organization
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