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The author or concept searched is found in the following 6 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explanation | Deacon | I 38 Explanation/Deacon: a complete explanation cannot stop at a description of what is missing. It must provide a functional approach to why a certain organizational structure has been chosen. For example: DeaconVsPinker: Pinker's theory of language instinct repeats only a description of the problem and gives it a new name. >Language/Pinker, >Instincts, >Description, >Functional explanation, >Causal explanation, cf. >Best explanation. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Learning | Dennett | I 690ff Learning/DennettVsPinker: There is no "multipurpose operation" (Humans have different symbols than animals.) >Functions, >Symbols, >Purposes. But humans have so many individual devices for specific tasks that learning can often be regarded as media and content-neutral gift of non-stupidity. II 102ff Def Skinnerian creatures: "Where the inherited behavior ceases, the inherited variability of the conditioning process sets on". Def Popperian creatures/Dennett: their inner environment is an image of the outside world. (learned experience of others). Even a pilot training, where you just read a book would be Popperian. But that would be better than just trying your luck in the sky. Human/Dennett: Man is both a Skinnerain, a Darwinian, but also a Popperian creature. But with this he differs not at all from most animals. Def Gregorian creature/Dennett: benefits from the experience of others by using the insights that embody invented other intellectual tools. These improve both the producer and the examiner. >Animals. |
Dennett I D. Dennett Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, New York 1995 German Edition: Darwins gefährliches Erbe Hamburg 1997 Dennett II D. Dennett Kinds of Minds, New York 1996 German Edition: Spielarten des Geistes Gütersloh 1999 Dennett III Daniel Dennett "COG: Steps towards consciousness in robots" In Bewusstein, Thomas Metzinger Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 1996 Dennett IV Daniel Dennett "Animal Consciousness. What Matters and Why?", in: D. C. Dennett, Brainchildren. Essays on Designing Minds, Cambridge/MA 1998, pp. 337-350 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
| Machine Learning | Pinker | Brockman I 110 Machine Learning/Pinker: Despite the progress in machine learning, particularly multilayered artificial neural networks, current AI systems are nowhere near achieving general intelligence (if that concept is even coherent). Instead, they are restricted to problems that consist of mapping well-defined inputs to well-defined outputs (…). Many of the successes come not from a better understanding of the workings of intelligence but from the brute-force power of faster chips and Bigger Data, which allow the programs to be trained on millions of examples and generalize to similar new ones. Each system is an idiot savant, with little ability to leap to problems it was not set up to solve and a brittle mastery of those it was. - VsPinker: >Artificial intelligence/Dennett. Pinker: (…) to state the obvious, none of these programs has made a move toward taking over the lab or enslaving its programmers. Pinker, S. “Tech Prophecy and the Underappreciated Causal Power of Ideas” in: Brockman, John (ed.) 2019. Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI. New York: Penguin Press. |
Pi I St. Pinker How the Mind Works, New York 1997 German Edition: Wie das Denken im Kopf entsteht München 1998 Brockman I John Brockman Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI New York 2019 |
| Symbols | Deacon | I 79 Symbols/Deacon: Tradition: assumes that symbolic association is formed by learning the connection between a sound or string with something else in the world. DeaconVsTradition: this is what we mean by index or index-like or indexing association. >Icon/Deacon. I 80 Words can also be an index: e.g."Aha!","there" etc. >Indexicality. Understanding: a sign that someone has understood a word is his ability to use that word in other sentences. However, if the word is only inserted somewhere, it would only be an index-like or iconic understanding. >Understanding, >Language use. Symbol: to use something as a symbol, you should be able to handle the referential functions (what does it refer to?). >Reference, >Symbolic reference. Def stimulus generalization: the transfer of associations from one stimulus to a similar one. Similarly, the transfer of learned patterns to a similar context. This is often confused with symbolic associations. >Association, >Stimulus, >Stimulus meaning, >Language use, >Generalization. I 81 Learning/DeaconVsTradition: such transfers are not special forms of learning, but simply iconic projections. This happens by itself, because ambiguity is always involved. Psychological models often speak of rules for this transfer. >Learning, >Rules. DeaconVs: since this is an iconic relation, there is no implicit list of criteria that is learned. ((s) Images are compared directly, not based on lists of criteria). Icon/Deacon: Words or stimuli stand for a set of things that differ more or less from each other. People and animals learn this. This learning is not done by criteria for symbols, but by iconic overlapping. This provides the basis for an indexed reference. I 83 Symbol/learning/Deacon: the difficulty of symbolic learning stems from the complex relation a symbol (e.g. a word) has to other symbols. Such complex relations do not exist between indices (simple signs with a physical connection to an object). I 92 Symbols/Deacon: Problem: Symbols cannot be learned individually as they form a system among each other. I 93 Before a single symbol-object association can be detected, the complete logical system of symbols must be learned. Problem: even with a few symbols there is a very large number of possible combinations, most of which are pointless. These must be sorted out, i.e. "forgotten". I 99 Symbols/Deacon: Symbols are not an unstructured set of tokens representing objects, but they represent each other. Symbols do not refer directly to things in the world, but they do so indirectly by referring to other symbols ((s) because they are located in a syntactic and semantic system). I 100 Limitation/Borders: Randomly uninterpreted strings of signs have no reference and therefore no limit in their set. Other symbols: their quantity is limited because of (practical, external) use and because of the use of the other symbols by which they are defined. Question: why are only some types of symbol systems implemented in human languages, but not others? I 266 Symbols/Deacon: it is wrong to assume they are located somewhere in the brain. They are rather relations between tokens, not the tokens themselves. It is also not constituted by a special association, but by the set of associations that are partially represented in each instance of the symbol. I 267 In the brain, the operations for organizing these combinatorial relations are located in the prefrontal cortex. I 336 Symbols/language/brain/evolution/Deacon: Thesis: it is the use of symbols that made it necessary for our human brain to develop in such a way that special emphasis could be placed on actions in the prefrontal cortex. >Adaptation/Deacon. I 339 Symbols/Evolution/Brain/DeaconVsPinker/DeaconVsChomsky: whatever we call "language instinct", symbol processing is so widely distributed in the brain that it cannot be subjected to natural selection. Thus language is cut off from what biological evolution can shape. >Thinking, >Cognition, >Information processing/psychology, cf. >Cognitive psychology. I 339/340 Universal grammar/language evolution/solution/Deacon: Co-evolution of languages with regard to the circumstances and dispositions of the brain. This can be an explanation for a developing grammatical universality. >Universal grammar, >Symbolic communication, >Symbolic learning, >Symbolic representation. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Universal Grammar | Deacon | I 38 Universal Grammar/Pinker/Deacon: Pinker is a representative of many ideas of Chomsky about the uniqueness of human language. >St. Pinker, cf. >N. Chomsky. Language instinct/Pinker/Deacon: Thesis: innate grammatical knowledge is not incompatible with an adaptive interpretation of its origin. This instinct could have developed gradually in the course of natural selection. In this way, we avoid having to accept improbable coincidences(1). >Selection. Deacon: on the other hand, this does not yet provide us with a formal explanation of language competence and how it was created in the selection process. >Competence. DeaconVsPinker: Pinker's theory of linguistic instinct repeats only a description of the problem and gives it a new name. I 103 Universal grammar/Chomsky/Deacon: (Chomsky 1972(2);1980(3);1988(4)) Chomsky assumed three insights: 1. The logical structure of grammar is much more complex than previously assumed, but it does not pose a problem for speakers of a language. 2. Although languages have very different features on the surface, ... I 104 ...they have a common deep structure (depth logic). This, in turn, makes it difficult to discover these rules, which must first be made accessible indirectly. >Deep structure. 3. One can observe that children quickly learn a remarkable knowledge of the complex grammatical rules, without the trial and error procedure. Some authors have expanded this to the thesis that the abstract rules for a natural language could never be discovered. Other authors argued that one could never inductively infer the rules from texts if there was no prior knowledge of grammar. (See Chomsky and Miller, 1963(8) for a formal representation of this argument). DeaconVsUniversal Grammar: this cure is more radical than the suffering it is supposed to eliminate. Your assumptions about brains and evolution are far too strong. It turns children into super-intelligent learning subjects. I 105 Some authors VsUniversal Grammar: assume that straw men are build here: a limited model of language acquisition as an induction and the assertion that language experience takes place without feedback. I 138 Universal Grammar/DeaconVsUniversal Grammar/Deacon: Def Pidgin language/pidgin languages/Deacon: these are languages that have arisen from a collision of native languages of an area with immigrant languages. Pidgin languages are no one's mother tongue. They can disappear within a generation in favour of "Creole languages". Surprisingly, the syntactic structures of different Creole languages are similar. I 139 Among other things, Bickerton (1981(5), 1984(6), 1990(7)) takes this as evidence of innate grammatical patterns. DeaconVsBickerton/DeaconVsUniversal Grammar: We can explain the language learning skills differently than through an innate universal grammar: the children take many phrases as an unanalysed whole first, and then break them down later. I 140 Brains have developed in such a way that they can apply different learning strategies at different points in time. These strategies compete for neural resources. >Brain/Deacon, cf. >Neural networks. (1) Pinker, Steven (2000): The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. New York: Perennial Classics. (2) Chomsky, Noam (1972). Language and Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (3) Chomsky, Noam (1980) Rules and Representations. New York: Columbia University Press. (4) Chomsky, Noam (1988) Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures. Cambridge Ma: MIT PRess. (5) Bickerton, Derek (1981): Roots of language. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, Inc., Pp. xiii + 351. (6) Bickerton, Derek (1984): The Language bioprogram hypothesis, June 1984, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7(02): 173 - 188. (7) Bickerton, Derek (1990): Language & Species. University of Chicago Press. (8) Chomsky, Noam & G. Miller (1963) Introduction to formal analysis of natural language. In Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, Vol 2, ed. R. D. Luce, R. Bush, and E. Galanter. New York: John Wiley. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Universal Grammar | Pinker | Deacon I 38 Universal Grammar/Pinker/Deacon: Pinker is a proponent of many of Chomsky's ideas about the uniqueness of human language. >Noam Chomsky, >Grammar, >Language. Language Instinct/Pinker(1)/Deacon: Thesis: innate grammatical knowledge is not incompatible with an adaptationist interpretation of its origin. This instinct may have evolved gradually in the course of natural selection. In this way, we avoid having to assume improbable coincidences. DeaconVsPinker: on the other hand, this does not yet provide us with a formal explanation of language competence and how it arose in selection. >Selection, >Adaption. DeaconVsPinker: Pinker's theory of language instinct merely repeats a description of the problem and gives it a new name. 1.St. Pinker (1995). The Language Instinct. New York: Harper. |
Pi I St. Pinker How the Mind Works, New York 1997 German Edition: Wie das Denken im Kopf entsteht München 1998 Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dennett, D. | McGinn Vs Dennett, D. | I 69 Consciousness / McGinn: Even a syntactic CaIM explanation, which assumes that there is in fact symbols in the brain that makes it impossible to explain consciousness as mere aggregation of such symbols. (McGinnVsDennett, McGinnVsPinker). (CaIM = combinatoric atomism with lawlike mappings). Basic structure of the states of consciousness: if there ever is such a thing, it is at the level of consciousness! It is not a method for extracting of consciousness from brain states or brain characteristics. II 191 Def death / McGinn: the annihilation of the ego, dying is the process of extinction. II 192 We have only the very idea of it, to exist in an instant and to cease to exist in the next moment. The process remains vague and opaque. It is in many ways the same as the beginning of existence. We can not simply imagine the beginning of the ego as we imagine how matter takes a form. (DennettVs). |
McGinn I Colin McGinn Problems in Philosophy. The Limits of Inquiry, Cambridge/MA 1993 German Edition: Die Grenzen vernünftigen Fragens Stuttgart 1996 McGinn II C. McGinn The Mysteriouy Flame. Conscious Minds in a Material World, New York 1999 German Edition: Wie kommt der Geist in die Materie? München 2001 |
| Pinker, St. | Dennett Vs Pinker, St. | I 690 Learning / DennettVsPinker: no "multipurpose operation" (People have completely different symbols than animals.) But people have an extraordinary number of individual devices for specific tasks that learning can often be regarded as media- and content-neutral gift of non-stupidity. |
Dennett I D. Dennett Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, New York 1995 German Edition: Darwins gefährliches Erbe Hamburg 1997 Dennett II D. Dennett Kinds of Minds, New York 1996 German Edition: Spielarten des Geistes Gütersloh 1999 Dennett III Daniel Dennett "COG: Steps towards consciousness in robots" In Bewusstein, Thomas Metzinger Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 1996 Dennett IV Daniel Dennett "Animal Consciousness. What Matters and Why?", in: D. C. Dennett, Brainchildren. Essays on Designing Minds, Cambridge/MA 1998, pp. 337-350 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
| Pinker, St. | McGinn Vs Pinker, St. | I 69 Consciousness / McGinn: Even a syntactic CaIM declaration, which assumes that there are in fact symbols in the brain does not make it possible to explain the consciousness as a mere juxtaposition of such symbols. (McGinnVsDennett, McGinnVsPinker). Basic structure of states of consciousness: if there is ever such a thing, it is at the level of consciousness! It is not a method for lifting the consciousness of brain states or brain properties. |
McGinn II C. McGinn The Mysteriouy Flame. Conscious Minds in a Material World, New York 1999 German Edition: Wie kommt der Geist in die Materie? München 2001 |
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The author or concept searched is found in the following theses of the more related field of specialization.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Pinker, St. | Perler/Wild I 325 1. Language/Evolution/Pinker: This language is more recent, highlighting the difference between humans and animals. 2. Language/Evolution/VsPinker: Thesis: Language is rather something built on a large foundation of more general cognitive abilities. Animal communication can then be used to learn something about human communication. P.Greenfield: Thesis: Language and tool use have a basic common basis. The ability to complete hierarchically structured tasks of object manipulation. E.g. the completion of subgroups for a combination to larger objects. This corresponds to Chomsky's idea of the structure of the language. (Nominal, verbal phrases as subgroups). I 327 Thesis: assets have a neuronal base that developed long before the divergence of hominids and pongids. |
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