Volume 23, Issue 2, April 2024, Page 187-223.

This paper explores the difference between Connectionist proposals for cognitive a r c h i t e c t u r e a n d t h e s o r t s o f m o d e l s t hat have traditionally been assum e d i n c o g n i t i v e s c i e n c e . W e c l a i m t h a t t h (...) e m a j o r d i s t i n c t i o n i s t h a t , w h i l e b o t h Connectionist and Classical architectures postulate representational mental states, the latter but not the former are committed to a symbol-level of representation, or to a ‘language of thought’: i.e., to representational states that have combinatorial syntactic and semantic structure. Several arguments for combinatorial structure in mental representations are then reviewed. These include arguments based on the ‘systematicity’ of mental representation: i.e., on the fact that cognitive capacities always exhibit certain symmetries, so that the ability to entertain a given thought implies the ability to entertain thoughts with semantically related contents. We claim that such arguments make a powerful case that mind/brain architecture is not Connectionist at the cognitive level. We then consider the possibility that Connectionism may provide an account of the neural (or ‘abstract neurological’) structures in which Classical cognitive architecture is implemented. We survey a n u m b e r o f t h e s t a n d a r d a r g u m e n t s t h a t h a v e b e e n o f f e r e d i n f a v o r o f Connectionism, and conclude that they are coherent only on this interpretation. (shrink)

This essay explores a conception of responsibility at work in moral and criminal responsibility. Our conception draws on work in the compatibilist tradition that focuses on the choices of agents who are reasons-responsive and work in criminal jurisprudence that understands responsibility in terms of the choices of agents who have capacities for practical reason and whose situation affords them the fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing. Our conception brings together the dimensions of normative competence and situational control, and we factor normative (...) competence into cognitive and volitional capacities, which we treat as equally important to normative competence and responsibility. Normative competence and situational control can and should be understood as expressing a common concern that blame and punishment presuppose that the agent had a fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing. This fair opportunity is the umbrella concept in our understanding of responsibility, one that explains it distinctive architecture. (shrink)

Emotion is conceptualised as an emergent, dynamic process based on an individual's subjective appraisal of significant events. It is argued that theoretical models of emotion need to propose an architecture that reflects the essential nature and functions of emotion as a psychobiological and cultural adaptation mechanism. One proposal for such a model and its underlying dynamic architecture, the component process model, is briefly sketched and compared with some of its major competitors. Recent empirical evidence in support of the (...) model is reviewed. Special emphasis is given to the dynamic aspect of emotion processes, in particular the sequence of appraisal checks and the synchronisation of response systems, as well as the capacity of the model to predict individual differences in emotional responding. (shrink)

This paper proposes a brain-inspired cognitive architecture that incorporates approximations to the concepts of consciousness, imagination, and emotion. To emulate the empirically established cognitive efficacy of conscious as opposed to non-conscious information processing in the mammalian brain, the architecture adopts a model of information flow from global workspace theory. Cognitive functions such as anticipation and planning are realised through internal simulation of interaction with the environment. Action selection, in both actual and internally simulated interaction with the environment, is (...) mediated by affect. An implementation of the architecture is described which is based on weightless neurons and is used to control a simulated robot. (shrink)

Article history: This article sketches the Parallel Architecture, an approach to the structure of grammar that Accepted 29 August 2006 contrasts with mainstream generative grammar (MGG) in that (a) it treats phonology, Available online 13 October 2006 syntax, and semantics as independent generative components whose structures are linked by interface rules; (b) it uses a parallel constraint-based formalism that is nondirectional; (c) Keywords: it treats words and rules alike as pieces of linguistic structure stored in long-term memory.

Sober and Wilson have propose a cluster of arguments for the conclusion that “natural selection is unlikely to have given us purely egoistic motives” and thus that psychological altruism is true. I maintain that none of these arguments is convincing. However, the most powerful of their arguments raises deep issues about what egoists and altruists are claiming and about the assumptions they make concerning the cognitive architecture underlying human motivation.

This paper aims to pay tribute to Figal’s comprehensive and innovative analysis of the artwork and beauty, while challenging both his realist position on the immediacy of meaning and his monist stance that reduces sublimity to beauty. To enquire into the origin of aesthetic feelings and sense, and thus, to break the hermeneutic circle, we first trace the origin of this reduction to the reception of Burke’s concept of the sublime by Mendelssohn and Kant. We then recur to Husserl and (...) Dufrenne to trace the origin of the sense of the feeling of sublimity in the realm of affectivity or sensuousness. This genesis takes place in passive experience, where we identify an excess of sensuous sense over categorial meaning that is constitutive of the affective sense that our bodily sensations give to hyletic material. It is argued that this sensuous excess evokes a sublime experience in the phenomenological sense, involving an affective and disruptive bodily experience and an endless process of sense formation. Affective or sensuous sense is thus an event that irreversibly affects the bodily surface. To elucidate this phenomenon, we draw on the theoretical framework of Breton and Bataille, positing it as a form-transgressive ‘convulsive’ sublime, which we then illustrate in the architectural works of Tschumi and Eisenman. In short, we have retrieved the origin of aesthetic experience and redefined the feeling of the sublime as a phenomenological ‘convulsive’ sublimity. (shrink)

The French Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre meditates on the relationship between jouissance, space, and architecture. Commissioned as a part of a study on tourist new towns in Spain, the book identifies spaces devoted to pleasure, enjoyment, sensuality, and desire as sites where the possibilities for a society moving beyond Fordism are manifested. In order to study these possibilities, architecture needs to be redefined as a mode of imagination rather than being restricted to a specialized practice or (...) a collection of monuments. Taking the practices of habitation as the starting point of the inquiry, Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment is understood as a production of space on all scales, from the domestic interiors, through urban spaces, to landscapes. Extending the focus of the book from “architecture” to “space of jouissance” within a transdicisplinary perspective, Lefebvre opens the discussion towards questions of subversive spaces, rhythmanalysis of the body, and pedagogy of senses. He proposes a Marxist take of architecture different from and alternative to the voice of Manfredo Tafuri, which since then has dominated critical architectural theory and history. Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment not only fundamentally changes our view on French and international architecture culture after 1968 but it gives new impulses for today’s debates about architecture and the urban society. (shrink)

There are many modal epistemologies available to us. Which should we endorse? According to Bob Hale, we can start to answer this question by examining the architecture of modal knowledge. That is, we can try to decide between the following claims: knowing that p is possible is essentially a matter of having a well-founded belief that there are no conflicting necessities—a necessity-based approach—and knowing that p is necessary is essentially a matter of having a well-founded belief that there are (...) no conflicting possibilities—a possibility-based approach. Hale argues for the first of these claims, but I contend that his arguments fail. However, it doesn't follow that we should endorse a possibility-based approach. I repurpose Hale's arguments to show those who would endorse possibility-based approaches need to say more about our modal knowledge concerning logic and mathematics; if they can't, then they ought to endorse a hybrid modal epistemology that doesn't give priority to one modality across the board. Additionally, those who endorse possibility-based views may be committed to Peter van Inwagen's modal skepticism. (shrink)

Recent work in cognitive neuroscience on the child's Theory of Mind (ToM) has pursued the idea that the ability to metarepresent mental states depends on a domain-specific cognitive subystem implemented in specific neural circuitry: a Theory of Mind Module. We argue that the interaction of several domain-general mechanisms and lower-level domain-specific mechanisms accounts for the flexibility and sophistication of behavior, which has been taken to be evidence for a domain-specific ToM module. This finding is of more general interest since it (...) suggests a parsimonious cognitive architecture can account for apparent domain specificity. We argue for such an architecture in two stages. First, on conceptual grounds, contrasting the case of language with ToM, and second, by showing that recent evidence in the form of fMRI and lesion studies supports the more parsimonious hypothesis. 1. Theory of Mind, Metarepresentation, and Modularity2. Developmental Components of ToM3. The Analogy with Modularity of Language4. Dissociations without Modules5. The Evidence from Neuroscience6. Conclusion. (shrink)

Decision-makers in governments, enterprises, businesses and agencies or individuals, typically, make decisions according to various regulations, guidelines and policies based on existing records stored in various databases, in particular, relational databases. To assist decision-makers, an expert system, encompasses interactive computer-based systems or subsystems to support the decision-making process. Typically, most expert systems are built on top of transaction systems, databases, and data models and restricted in decision-making to the analysis, processing and presenting data and information, and they do not provide (...) support for the normative layer. This paper will provide a solution to one specific problem that arises from this situation, namely the lack of tool/mechanism to demonstrate how an expert system is well-suited for supporting decision-making activities drawn from existing records and relevant legal requirements aligned existing records stored in various databases.We present a Rule-based reporting systems architecture, which is intended to integrate databases, in particular, relational databases, with a logic-based reasoner and rule engine to assist in decision-making or create reports according to legal norms. We argue that the resulting RuleRS provides an efficient and flexible solution to the problem at hand using defeasible inference. To this end, we have also conducted empirical evaluations of RuleRS performance. (shrink)

This paper is about how to give human-like powers to complete agents. For this the most important design choice concerns the overall architecture. Questions regarding detailed mechanisms, forms of representations, inference capabilities, knowledge etc. are best addressed in the context of a global architecture in which different design decisions need to be linked. Such a design would assemble various kinds of functionality into a complete coherent working system, in which there are many concurrent, partly independent, partly mutually supportive, (...) partly potentially incompatible processes, addressing a multitude of issues on different time scales, including asynchronous, concurrent, motive generators. Designing human like agents is part of the more general problem of understanding design space, niche space and their interrelations, for, in the abstract, there is no one optimal design, as biological diversity on earth shows. (shrink)

Summer 2010 was marked by one of the worst environmental disasters ever experienced on a global scale. Following the explosion of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon on April 20—the drilling platform for British Petroleum—thousands of tons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, water and energy came together in ways that had the potential to do tremendous damage to the land and the air, which were invaded by an oil slick and toxic gases. This was (...) clearly a man-made crisis, which the world watched with shock and dismay. In the aftermath of this event and the chaos caused by greed and incompetence, it is important to remind humanity of what it might have forgotten. Ancient philosophy .. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Radical Constructivist Structural Design Education for Large Cohorts of Chinese Learners” by Christiane M. Herr. Upshot: In the target article, Christiane Herr offers an insightful characterization of how von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism can be implemented in structural design education in architecture. In this commentary, I articulate possible connections between research on problem solving and problem posing in mathematics education and design processes in structural design education as described in the target article.

This book is a sustained defence of traditional internalist epistemology. The aim is threefold: to address some key criticisms of internalism and show that they do not hit their mark, to articulate a detailed version of a central objection to externalism, and to illustrate how a consistent internalism can meet the charge that it fares no better in the face of this objection than does externalism itself. This original work will be recommended reading for scholars with an interest in epistemology.

Designing a virtual environment within a digital game occupies a large part of the design procedure, requiring holistic attention and a broad arrangement of the game constituents. Considering other design disciplines, they occupy a unified design methodology; however, a comprehensive literature review reveals the lack of the intended design methodology in the digital game domain's virtual environment development, despite a currently proposed theoretical methodology trying to dissolve the issue. Hence, this research aims to determine the industry's requirements and provide a (...) set of assets included in current digital games as an initial step of providing such a design methodology for the domain. In this regard, the researchers reverse-engineered ten selected digital games, understanding the current condition of digital games via adopting the mentioned currently available design methodology. This dataset reveals a lack in the assets of the story layer in the recent digital games, despite their focus on being story-based. This dilemma leads to long text or speech conversations between game characters, disrupting the players while following the game. The current design focuses on environmental resources only, however, as a virtual landscape, the story needs to be reinforced to be a balanced and well-designed game. Hence, increasing the ratio of the assets in this layer will advance the games' interactivity. Also, as future work, this data set could pave the way for a digital game industry design tool regarding the virtual environment. (shrink)

What type of artificial systems will claim to be conscious and will claim to experience qualia? The ability to comment upon physical states of a brain-like dynamical system coupled with its environment seems to be sufficient to make claims. The flow of internal states in such systems, guided and limited by associative memory, is similar to the stream of consciousness. A specific architecture of an artificial system, termed articon, is introduced that by its very design has to claim being (...) conscious. Non-verbal discrimination of the working memory states of the articon gives it the ability to experience different qualities of internal states. Analysis of the flow of inner states of such a system during typical behavioral process shows that qualia are inseparable from perception and action. The role of consciousness in learning of skills — when conscious information processing is replaced by subconscious — is elucidated. Arguments confirming that phenomenal experience is a result of cognitive processes are presented. Possible philosophical objections based on the Chinese room and other arguments are discussed, but they are insufficient to refute articon’s claims that it is conscious. Conditions for genuine understanding that go beyond the Turing test are presented. Articons may fulfill such conditions and in principle the structure of their experiences may be arbitrarily close to human. (shrink)

According to the interpretation of Hegel, Egyptian religious buildings, and among them especially the temples, represent the beginning of the history of architecture, and so the beginning of the entire history of art.The Egyptian religious architecture has a symbolic character, because its configuration tries to represent the spiritual content without being fully adequate to it. So the Egyptian temple alludes to the divine through its entire structure, but does not have a proper internal space, dedicated to the worship (...) of the image of God.On this point, contemporary Egyptology corrected Hegel’s view, because broadly speaking the Egyptian temple had an interior where the image of the deity was safeguarded. However, Hegel’s thesis paradoxically remains suitable for a particular case of the Egyptian experience that he could not know at that time: in the monotheistic religion of Amarna, the temple of the sun-god Aton has no images and does not have a center, because the Divine is present everywhere, like the sunlight that illuminates equally all over the temple. (shrink)

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein define a nudge as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.” Much has been written about the ethics of nudging competent adult patients. Less has been written about the ethics of nudging surrogates’ decision‐making and how the ethical considerations and arguments in that context might differ. Even less has been written about nudging surrogate decision‐making in the context (...) of pediatrics, despite fundamental differences that exist between the pediatric and adult contexts. Yet, as the field of behavioral economics matures and its insights become more established and well‐known, nudges will become more crafted, sophisticated, intentional, and targeted. Thus, the time is now for reflection and ethical analysis regarding the appropriateness of nudges in pediatrics. We argue that there is an even stronger ethical justification for nudging in parental decision‐making than with competent adult patients deciding for themselves. We give three main reasons in support of this: (1) child patients do not have autonomy that can be violated (a concern with some nudges), and nudging need not violate parental decision‐making authority; (2) nudging can help fulfill pediatric clinicians’ obligations to ensure parental decisions are in the child's interests, particularly in contexts where there is high certainty that a recommended intervention is low risk and of high benefit; and (3) nudging can relieve parents’ decisional burden regarding what is best for their child, particularly with decisions that have implications for public health. (shrink)