CHARDA: Causal Hybrid Automata Recovery via Dynamic Analysis

We propose and evaluate a new technique for learning hybrid automata automatically by observing the runtime behavior of a dynamical system. Working from a sequence of continuous state values and predicates about the environment, CHARDA recovers the distinct dynamic modes, learns a model for each mode from a given set of templates, and postulates causal guard conditions which trigger transitions between modes. Our main contribution is the use of information-theoretic measures (1)~as a cost function for data segmentation and model selection to penalize over-fitting and (2)~to determine the likely causes of each transition. CHARDA is easily extended with different classes of model templates, fitting methods, or predicates. In our experiments on a complex videogame character, CHARDA successfully discovers a reasonable over-approximation of the character's true behaviors. Our results also compare favorably against recent work in automatically learning probabilistic timed automata in an aircraft domain: CHARDA exactly learns the modes of these simpler automata.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for IJCAI 201

Automated Game Design Learning

While general game playing is an active field of research, the learning of game design has tended to be either a secondary goal of such research or it has been solely the domain of humans. We propose a field of research, Automated Game Design Learning (AGDL), with the direct purpose of learning game designs directly through interaction with games in the mode that most people experience games: via play. We detail existing work that touches the edges of this field, describe current successful projects in AGDL and the theoretical foundations that enable them, point to promising applications enabled by AGDL, and discuss next steps for this exciting area of study. The key moves of AGDL are to use game programs as the ultimate source of truth about their own design, and to make these design properties available to other systems and avenues of inquiry.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for CIG 201

Burnout in scholarship and non-scholarship female college swimmers

An emerging concern in the world of sports is burnout among amateur athletes. It is a major issue that must be addressed because some of the world’s best athletes are becoming victims to it. Not only is burnout affecting athletics, it is effecting the lives of those individuals who burn out and leave sports all together. Athletics help build a foundation of life skills such as communication, teamwork, leadership, and problem solving that athletes rely on daily. Sports provide a safe environment that can help keep the majority of participants out of trouble. It is important to have a better understanding of the causes of burnout, so preventative measures can be taken to decrease burnout amongst athletes

Is there an 'ought' in belief?

[spa] De acuerdo con el denominado punto de vista teleológico de la creencia, la idea de que las creencias tienen como objetivo la verdad se considera que significa literalmente que el sujeto, al creer que p, tiene un cierto objetivo: el objetivo de aceptar p sólo si p es verdadera. Por el contrario, de acuerdo con el denominado punto de vista normativo, la afirmación de que las creencias tienen como objetivo la verdad se considera que es equivalente a la tesis de que existe una norma constitutiva de corrección que gobierna la creencia. El normativista argumenta que el punto de vista teleológico no puede dar cuenta a la vez de dos rasgos estándar de la creencia: por una parte, las creencias están a menudo causalmente influenciadas por consideraciones no aléticas; por otra, nosotros sentimos que es exclusivamente la verdad la que nos guía cuando deliberamos sobre si creer algo. En este artículo muestro, en primer lugar, que el argumento normativista no logra establecer conclusivamente que la creencia está gobernada por una norma constitutiva de corrección. En segundo lugar, y de manera más positiva, ofrezco una respuesta teleológica a cada una de las objeciones normativistas. Con ello, bosquejo una nueva estrategia teleo- lógica que nos permite explicar los rasgos de la creencia antes mencionados.[eng] According to the so-called teleological view of belief, the idea that beliefs aim at truth is taken to mean literally that the subject, in believing that p, has a certain goal: the goal of accepting p only if p is true. In contrast, according to the so-called normative view, the claim that beliefs aim at truth is considered to be tantamount to the thesis that there is a constitutive norm of correctness governing belief. The normativist argues that the teleological view cannot jointly account for two standard features of belief: beliefs are often causally influenced by non-alethic considerations, yet we always feel we are moved exclusively by truth when deliberating whether to believe. In this paper, I first show that the normativist argument falls short of establishing that belief is norm-governed. Second, and more positively, I offer a teleological reply to each of the normativist objections, thereby outlining a novel teleological strategy that allows us to explain the aforesaid standard features of belief

Los problemas del eclecticismo en teoría del significado : digresión sobre el programa antirealista de M. Dummett

Una de las mayores dificultades del paradigma explicativo que arranca del último Wittgenstein es la ausencia de una estructuración sistemática de sus principios. Cuando se trata de construir ese marco arquitectónico parece necesario acudir, sin embargo, a posiciones moleculares de origen claramente fregeano, El programa anti-realista del filósofo inglés M. Dummett constituye sin duda uno de los intentos más interesantes de conjugar estos dos tipos de ideas: si, por una parte, parece clara la influencia de Wittgenstein en los presupuestos básicos sobre los que Dummett construye las líneas que ha de seguir una teoría del significado, por otra, no parece estar dispuesto a admitir que tal explicación pueda agotarse completamente en una especificación de los diferentes usos lingüísticos, porque eso supondría acabar con la noción misma de un significado objetivo y, por tanto, nos llevaría a tener que admitir la imposibilidad de una teoría sistemática del funcionamiento del lenguaje. Los problemas que plantea su propuesta constituyen el objeto de discusión de este artículo.The lack of a systematic structuring of its principles is one of the greatest difficulties of the explanatory paradigm that stems from the late developments of Wittgenstein's thought. When we try to build that architectural frame, however, we need to have recourse to "molecular" positions which have an obvious fregean origin. The anti-realistic programme of the English philosopher M. Dummett is without any doubt one of the most interesting attempts of conciliating both types of ideas: Wittgenstein's influence on the basic assumptions on which Dummett builds the guidelines that a theory of meaning has to follow seems clear. But, at the same time, he does not seem to be willing accept that explanation can interpreted restrictively as a specification of the different linguistic "uses", as this would be equal to putting an end to the notion of an objective meaning and would lead us to admitting the impossibility of a systematic theory of language performance. The problems that arise form his proposal are the topic we discus in this paper

Nonconceptualism and the Cognitive Impenetrability of Early Vision

This paper examines the relationship between cognitive impenetrability and perceptual nonconceptualism. I argue against the view, recently defended by Raftopoulos, that the (alleged) cognitive impenetrability of early vision is a necessary and sufficient condition for states of early vision and their content to be nonconceptual. I show that that view, here dubbed 'the mutually entailing thesis', admits two different standard interpretations depending on how we understand the property of being nonconceptual corresponding to the distinction between the state and the content views of perceptual nonconceptualism. I first argue for the falsity of the state-nonconceptualist reading of the mutually entailing thesis, on the grounds that it mistakenly takes being nonconceptual to be a causal instead of a constitutive relationship. The content-nonconceptualist understanding of the thesis, I then argue, is disproved by plausible views regarding the content of experience. The mutually entailing thesis could only be true, I conclude, on a non-standard, causal interpretation of the notion of nonconceptual content. Yet, on that reading, the thesis would either be trivially true or would entirely fail to engage with the contemporary literature on perceptual nonconceptualism

Compositionality, Iconicity, and Perceptual Nonconceptualism

This paper concerns the role of the structural properties of representations in determining the nature of their content. I take as a starting point Fodor's (2007) and Heck's (2007) recent arguments making the iconic structure of perceptual representations essential in establishing their content as content of a different (nonconceptual) kind. I argue that the prima facie state / content error this strategy seems to display is nothing but a case of 'state/content error error', i.e., the mistake of considering that the properties that characterize the type of content certain representations have are indeed independent of their structural properties. I also consider another objection to the general strategy, namely that it falls short of showing that the nonconceptual content of perceptual experiences thus established is the kind of content that figures in true explanations of intentional behavior. I concede this point in respect of Fodor's version of the strategy, while denying that it has any bearing on Heck's approach. The success of this objection in Heck's case ultimately depends, I argue, upon an unjustified commitment to a certain empirically suspect model of perception

Social vision: Breaking a philosophical impasse?

I argue that findings in support of Adams and Kveraga's functional forecast model of emotion expression processing help settle the debate between rich and sparse views of the content of perceptual experience. In particular, I argue that these results in social vision suggest that the distinctive phenomenal character of experiences involving high-level properties such as emotions and social traits is best explained by their being visually experienced as opposed to being brought about by perceptual judgments