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- Eric Dietrich (2001). It Does So: Review of The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology. AI Magazine 22 (4):141-144.Objections to AI and computational cognitive science are myriad. Accordingly, there are many different reasons for these attacks. But all of them come down to one simple observation: humans seem a lot smarter that computers -- not just smarter as in Einstein was smarter than I, or I am smarter than a chimpanzee, but more like I am smarter than a pencil sharpener. To many, computation seems like the wrong paradigm for studying the mind. (Actually, I think there are deeper and darker reasons why AI, especially, is so often the brunt of polemics, see Dietrich, 2000.) But the truth is this: AI is making exciting progress, and will one day make a robot as intelligent as a person; indeed the robot will be conscious. And all this is because of another truth: the computational paradigm is the best thing to come down the pike since the wheel.Reading list | Discuss | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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Jerry Fodor argues, in The mind doesn't work that way (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000, that the computational theory of mind is undermined by the pervasive context sensitivity of human cognition. His objections can be easily met, however, by noting the properties of appropriately structured representation hierarchies.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: helios.hampshire.edu informaworld.com taylorandfrancis.metapress.com ingentaconnect.com tandfonline.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: helios.hampshire.edu informaworld.com taylorandfrancis.metapress.com ingentaconnect.com tandfonline.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... A postcard summary of life, the universe and everything might go as follows. The universe appeared and started expanding. Life appeared somewhere and then on Earth began making larger and smarter animals. Humans appeared and became smarter and more numerous, by inventing language, farming, industry, and computers.
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| | Scholar | More options ... The "New Synthesis" in cognitive science is committed to the computational theory of mind (CTM), massive modularity, nativism, and adaptationism. In The mind doesn't work that way , Jerry Fodor argues that CTM has problems explaining abductive or global inference, but that the New Synthesis offers no solution, since massive modularity is in fact incompatible with global cognitive processes. I argue that it is not clear how global human mentation is, so whether CTM is imperiled is an open question. Massive modularity also lacks some of the invidious commitments Fodor ascribes to it. Furthermore, Fodor's anti-adaptationist arguments are in tension with his nativism about the contents of modular systems. The New Synthesis thus has points worth preserving.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Jerry Fodor argues against the widely held view that mental processes are largely computations, that the architecture of cognition is massively modular, and...
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: human-nature.com linguistlist.org mitpress.mit.edu mentalhelp.net sscnet.ucla.edu | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: human-nature.com linguistlist.org mitpress.mit.edu mentalhelp.net sscnet.ucla.edu | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Fodor's thinking on modularity has been influential throughout a range of the areas studying cognition, chiefly as a prod for positive work on modularity and domain-specificity. In The Mind Doesn't Work That Way, Fodor has developed the dark message of The Modularity of Mind regarding the limits to modularity and computational analyses. This paper offers a critical assessment of Fodor's scepticism with an eye to highlighting some broader issues in play, including the nature of computation and the role of recent empirical developments in the cognitive sciences in assessing Fodor's position.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Fodor's thinking on modularity has been influential throughout a range of the areas studying cognition, chiefly as a prod for positive work on modularity and domain-specificity. In _The Mind Doesn't Work That Way_, Fodor has developed the dark message of _The Modularity of Mind_ regarding the limits to modularity and computational analyses. This paper offers a critical assessment of Fodor's scepticism with an eye to highlighting some broader issues in play, including the nature of computation and the role of recent empirical developments in the cognitive sciences in assessing Fodor's position.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Over the last quarter century or so, no one has done more to shape debate in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science than Jerry Fodor. He is best known for championing the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM), the view that thinking consists of computations over syntactically structured mental representations (Fodor, 1975). He has also developed the idea that the mind is partially made up of isolated mechanisms called “modules” that employ innate databases informationally encapsulated from the rest of the mind (Fodor, 1983).
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| | Scholar | More options ... This review sketches Fodor's critique of evolutionary psychology and the 'massive modularity' thesis; queries his views on abduction in central processes; and suggests that his pessimism about the scope of computational psychology undermines his realism about folk psychology.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: cogprints.org | Scholar | More options ...
| | Other links: cogprints.org | Scholar | More options ... Objections to AI and computational cognitive science are myriad. Accordingly, there are many different reasons for these attacks. But all of them come down to one simple observation: humans seem a lot smarter that computers -- not just smarter as in Einstein was smarter than I, or I am smarter than a chimpanzee, but more like I am smarter than a pencil sharpener. To many, computation seems like the wrong paradigm for studying the mind. (Actually, I think there are deeper and darker reasons why AI, especially, is so often the brunt of polemics, see Dietrich, 2000.) But the truth is this: AI is making exciting progress, and will one day make a robot as intelligent as a person; indeed the robot will be conscious. And all this is because of another truth: the computational paradigm is the best thing to come down the pike since the wheel.
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| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: bingweb.binghamton.edu | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: bingweb.binghamton.edu | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Objections to AI and computational cognitive science are myriad. Accordingly, there are many different reasons for these attacks. But all of them come down to one simple observation: humans seem a lot smarter that computers -- not just smarter as in Einstein was smarter than I, or I am smarter than a chimpanzee, but more like I am smarter than a pencil sharpener. To many, computation seems like the wrong paradigm for studying the mind. (Actually, I think there are deeper and darker reasons why AI, especially, is so often the brunt of polemics, see Dietrich, 2000.) But the truth is this: AI is making exciting progress, and will one day make a robot as intelligent as a person; indeed the robot will be conscious. And all this is because of another truth: the computational paradigm is the best thing to come down the pike since the wheel.
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| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Discussion of Eric Dietrich, It does so: Review of _The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology_
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