Na rozpoczęcie nowego sezonu (dla odwiedzających bloga): abstrakt tekstu, który będzie prezentowany na 4 Kolokwiach Poznanskich Kognitywistycznych polaczonych z 7 Zjazdem Towarzystwa Kognitywistycznego 3-4 grudnia br. Tematyka jest silnie powiazania z celami naszej grupy – badanie wyzszych, “emergujacych” zjawisk poznawczych, ktorymi zajmuja sie takze min. filozofowie prawa przy uzyciu nauk posiadajacych silne wsparcie empiryczne:):)
Pozdrawiam,
ŁŁ.
Text:
Pei Wang “From Inheritance relation to Non Axiomatic Logic”. [International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, 11(4), 281-319, 1994]
Abstract:
At the beginning of the paper, three binary term logics are defined. The first is based only on inheritance relation. This relation refers to weights between nodes of semantic network (terms). As author says the second and the third logics suggest a new way to process extension and intension. They have also interesting relations with Aristotle’s logic.
Based on the three simple systems a Non Axiomatic Logic is defined. It has term oriented language and an experience grounded semantics. It can uniformly represents and processes randomness, fuzziness and ignorance. It can also uniformly carries out deduction, abduction, induction and revision.
Commentary:
The proposed paper is a good start for Pei Wang works relating to cognitive logic. Cognitive logic claims to be an underlying logic for reasoning resulting from physical properties of neural networks (human mind). The work and underlying idea of Wang’s papers is an interesting piece which may be an important contribution for many methodology issues, like normative methodology. The paper may be helpful for understanding why the axiomatic logic seems to be a good methodology for normative disciplines however we have many problems with its adaptation.
Abstract here: LLazarz. Normative methodology obi .
Instead of usual short review I attach an abstract of the paper being prepared regarding normative methodology what toghether with prior papers on theory of norms constitutes almost full theory of normativity.
The text is being prepared for Cognitive Science workshps regarding influance of modern empirical sciences on philosophy of logic taking place in Amsterdam in December this year (the paper is not approved yet).
LL
Text:
Łupkowski Paweł, Dlaczego funkcjonalizm H. Putnama nie musi pytać o ontologiczny status stanó1) mentalnych (Why H. Putnam functionalism does not have to ask for ontological status of mental states?)
Abstract:
The article is a very short presentation of Putnam’s functionalism and its role for strong AI supporters.
At the beginning the authors presents shortly main assumptions of the Putnam’s functionalism which has been presented in a book “Mind and Machines”. The main Putnam’s theory assumption is identification of mental states with functional states, which can not be reduced to physical states of an organism.
Functionalism is a very attractive support for a strong version of Artificial Intelligence, which can be characterized as belief that thinking consists on computations, in particular consciousness results by appropriate computational process.
In the end the authors rises also some well known two counterarguments against the Putnam’s functionalism and strong AI position: reversed spectrum argument and Searle’s Chineese room argument.
Comment:
The author indicates one of the most influential scientific approach to the nature of the human being. He indicates the philosophical background as well as strong AI position itself. The article is short and superficial, however it’s journalist character might be an advantage too.
DRAFT. Cognitive Theory o f Norms. Normative schemas.W załączeniu tekst. Niestety dopiero wczoraj przyjechalem z “wakacji” i tekst jest under contruction. Dlatego prosze o wyrozumialosc za bledy. Abstrahujac od nich, a takze braku rysunkow, tekst w czesci kognitywistycznej jest w zasadzie gotowy. Niekompletne jest zakonczenie, przenoszace pojecia kognitywistyczne na “siatke pojeciowa” filozofii prawa. Poniewaz dyskurs pierwszej czesci najprawdopodobniej sprowadzi sie do takiej samej dyskusji jak przy poprzednich moich tekstach (mozliwosci aplikacji roszcacych sobie prawa do “obliczalnosci” teorii kognitywistycznych do caloscwioej wizji czlowieka, w szczegolnosci problemow na gruncie normatywnym), szczegolnie wdzieczny bede za uwagi i sugestie dotyczace drugiej czesci tektu, na razie otwartej.
Pozdrawiam,
ŁŁ.
Text
Smith, E. E., Shoben, E. J. & Rips, L. J. (1974). Structure and process in semantic memory: A featural model for semantic decisions. Psychological Review, 1, 214-241.
Abstract
According to the probabilistic view concept is a summary description of features of all objects representing the given concept. The given object described by the concept may have the given feature of this concepts with a given probability. In other words the probabilistic view assumes the concepts are the sets of some features associated with the probability of their occurrence.
Smith, Shoben, Rips following their researches assumed that the critical features may be specified among all features of the given concept. Critical features are fundamental for recognition of the object belonging to the given concepts (categorization) because they constitute a “core” of the concepts and all objects belonging to the given concepts may be characterized with those critical features. Authors assumed also existence of the characteristic features indicating how typical object is.
The second issue raised by the authors is the problem of the comparison between the category and a particular specimen. According to authors such comparison is made within two steps. In the first step the category and the specimen are compared entirely. It means that all features: critical and characteristic are taken into account. If the specimen has all or almost all critical features and more of characteristic once then the positive answer is given for the question on similarity. In the second step assumes detailed comparison consisting in comparison of the critical features only. The idea of this step is to check the proportion of critical features of the specimen towards all critical features of the category compared.
Commentary
The article is the classic one on the grounds of cognitive psychology. The most valuable point of the article is observation on definitions of the categories, as consisting in set of features. Probabilistic view underline one more important thing, probabilistic relations between the category and its features. That symbolic version of connectionist or semi-connectionist weights between chunks is just those probabilistic relations.
The early work described above in perceptual and conceptual categorization assumed that categories had critical features and that category membership could be determined by logical rules for the combination of features. More recent theories have accepted that categories may have an ill-defined or “fuzzy” structure and have proposed probabilistic or global similarity models for the verification of category membership. It was difficult to believe that there is any biological distinction between some features describing object indeed.
Text:
Anderson, J. R., Matessa, M. & Douglass, S. (1995. The ACT-R Theory of and visual attansion. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 61-65). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Abstract:
The article shows how the ACT-R system, which is a general system for modeling a wide range of higher level cognitive processes, has been extended to include a theory of visual attention (synthesis of the spotlight metaphor of Posner, feature synthesis model of Treisman and attentional model of Wolfe). Production rules can direct the attention to primitive visual features in the visual array. When attention is focused on a region, features in that region can be synthetised into declarative chunks. Assuming a time to switch attention of about 200 msec., this model proves capable of simulating the results from a number of the basic studies of visual attention. The ACT-R model has been extended to complex problem solving like equitation solving where we have shown that an important component of learning is acquiring efficient strategies for scanning the problem.
Commentary:
The above paper may seem to be irrelevant for the problem of biological foundations of law. However I strongly believe that the there is no fundamental differences between different kind of choices we make, independently from their complexity and their genesis. I strongly believe there are solid and common basis of any decision making. One of the fields where decision making is made within human architectures is field of visual attention. The problem of decision making and its nature is consequently connected with decision making regularity what is almost a normative problem already.
Text:
P. Glimcher (2003). The neurobiology of visual saccadic decision making, Annual Review of Neurosceince, t. 25, p. 133-179, przekład polski: A. Wojciechowski w „Formy aktywności umysłu ujęcie kognitywistyczne” , t. 2 Ewolucja I złożone struktury p0znawcze, red. naukowa Andrzej Klawiter.
Abstract:
As the authors says “over the past two decades significant progress has been made toward understanding the neural basis of primate decision making, the biological process that combines sensory data with stored information to select and execute behavioral responses.” In the article the author shows the scale of the progress that has been made in studies of visual-saccadic decision making, a system that is becoming a model for understanding decision making in general.
Moreover examples are given how theoretical models of efficient decision making developed in the social sciences are beginning to be used to describe the computations the brain must perform when it connects sensation and action. Using these economic models, neurophysiologists have been able to describe neuronal activity recorded from the brains of awake-behaving primates during actual decision making. These recent studies have examined the neural basis of decisions, ranging from those made in predictable sensorimotor tasks to those unpredictable decisions made when animals are engaged in strategic conflict. All of these experiments seem to describe a surprisingly well-integrated set of physiological mechanisms that can account for a broad range of behavioral phenomena. The subject article presents many of these recent studies within the emerging neuroeconomic framework for understanding primate decision making.
The progress in understanding spinal reflexes represented a first step in the psychological study of decision making. Reflex studies provided a model for understanding the simplest possible generative mechanism for behavior, a mechanism with which sensory stimuli could be used to trigger motor responses. The mechanism that underlie other classes of behavior, however remained largely unexplored, by psychology until recently.
There are three classes of behavioral decision making are specified:
Deterministic sensorimotor behaviors. Here the huge progress has been made.
Deterministic (or predictable) behaviors which are controlled by a mixture of sensory and nonsensory signals. These are bahaviors in which decision making is influenced bvby factors like the estimated value of a motor response ot by probabilistic estimates of the current state of the external world.
Stochastic (unpredictable) decision making. These also also begun to be studies psychologically.
Commentary:
The article presents quite detailed research on neurobiology and psychology of the simplest decision. However the more general idea is expressed in I personally share. When studying more and more complex decision making all of them are computable (deterministic sensu largo or probabilistically deterministic). As the authors says” these studies of stochastic behaviors are beginning to suggest that even this class of decision making may soon be understandable, at the mechanistic level, in terms of indentifiable cellular level computations performed within a defined neural architecture”.
Text:
M. Mahlmann , J. Mkhail, Cognitive Science, Ethics, Law, http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/mikhail/documents/Cognitive_Science_Ethics_and_Law_000.pdf
Abstract:
The above short paper is a good start on cognitive science perspective on ethics and law. The author shows how views on human mind developed within history, underlining moments where stronger stimulus had been given by scientific accelerations. One of this moments was a cognitive revolution of 1950s-1960s of XX century.
In the light of developments the author asks the following questions: what about morality? Wasn’t Hume correct to locate it in the capital he meant to conquer? Does not the existence of the language faculty and the modular view of the mind it helped spawn lend plausibility to the view that human beings likewise possess a distinct moral faculty? Can postulating such a faculty help explain the facts of moral development and the phenomenology of moral judgment?
Besides relevance of cognitive science for philosophy of mind, morality (ethics) the author also tries to answer shortly on question of relevance of cognitive science for law. On practical level it may have a serious implications for our understanding of fields such as a crime, tort, contract, evidence, agency, mens rea, insanity, culpability in general.
Commentary:
The paper is not very full of new ideas or theses. However I find valuable as it shows a new perspective for moral, ethics or legal researches. This new cognitive science perspective started in 1950s-1960s of XX century, however more and more often it „attacks” the most conservative corners of philosophy connected with normativism.
Text:
Anticipated emotions as Guides to choice, Barbara Mellers Peter McGraw, Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
(You can find it here.)
Abstact:
The paper regard an impact of emotions on decision making process. The role of emotions in this process seems to be unquestioned and consequently in ethics, morality and law where it seems to be a central issue. Moreover recent results in neuroscience researches on moral judgments show how important are emotions for the above mentioned decision making process.
In the paper authors present the theory of anticipated pleasure called decision affect theory and show how it relates to the decision making. It is claimed that when making decision, people anticipated the pleasure or pain of future outcomes, weigh those feelings by the chances they will occur, and select the option with grater average pleasure. Emotions are compared to the utility term which determines a choice from a set of possible of choices. The authors show some differences in utility and emotions from the other hand. Utility is rather stable description of outcomes, emotions are influenced by many variables. For example the outcome of the unchosen gamble was more appealing anticipated pleasure decreased. This is because people anticipate regret when they imagine having made the wrong choice. The authors show changes in the magnitude of emotions when the effect was more suprising. The authors came to conclusions that utilities do differ from anticipated pleasure. In most theories of choice utilities depend only on the status quo, bit no other reference points. Anticipated pleasure depends on multiple reference point. Furthermore in most theories of choice utilities are assumed to be independent from beliefs. In contrast anticipated pleasure of outcomes varies systematically with beliefs about their occurrence; anticipated feeling associated with suprising outcomes are amplified relative to anticipated feeling associated with expected outcomes.
Comments:
Paper is short and rather more general. However it shows the one important thing that I briefly outlined in the paper “Extremes meet each other”ł maybe general rule determining particular choice in the decision making process is the simple one {max (U)} and maybe it is enough to replicate some kind of intelligent decision maker however replicating a real human decision making process require good definition of utility. And when transforming emotions to utility or utility to emotions hard stuff begins. If we want to build a human level, or more- human alike program we should program the utility according to all possible knowledge on emotional results of particular states-actions. This particular thing seems to be imposible.
Biolawgy | Copernicus Center 