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  • 1
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    “X” meansX: Fodor/Warfield semantics (1994)
    Springer
    Minds and machines 4 (1994), S. 215-231 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8641
    Keywords: Meaning ; representation ; disjunction problem ; Twin-Earth ; Fodor ; asymmetric causal dependency ; actual ; naturalized semantics ; information
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Computer Science , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract In an earlier paper, we argued that Fodorian Semantics has serious difficulties. However, we suggested possible ways that one might attempt to fix this. Ted Warfield suggests that our arguments can be deflected and he does this by making the very moves that we suggested. In our current paper, we respond to Warfield's attempts to revise and defend Fodorian Semantics against our arguments that such a semantic theory is both too strong and too weak. To get around our objections, Warfield proposes a modified reading of one of Fodor's conditions and proposes adding a new condition to the theory. We show that neither the modified reading nor the additional condition saves the asymmetric causal dependency approach to naturalized semantics.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00974146
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  • 2
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Can computers carry content ‘inexplicitly’? (1994)
    Springer
    Minds and machines 4 (1994), S. 333-344 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8641
    Keywords: Emergence ; content ; information ; representation ; computers
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Computer Science , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract I examine whether it is possible for content relevant to a computer's behavior to be carried without an explicit internal representation. I consider three approaches. First, an example of a chess playing computer carrying ‘emergent’ content is offered from Dennett. Next I examine Cummins’ response to this example. Cummins says Dennett's computer executes a rule which is inexplicitly represented. Cummins describes a process wherein a computer interprets explicit rules in its program, implements them to form a chess-playing device, then this device executes the rules in a way that exhibits them inexplicitly. Though this approach is intriguing, I argue that the chess-playing device cannot exist as imagined. The processes of interpretation and implementation produce explicit representations of the content claimed to be inexplicit. Finally, the Chinese Room argument is examined and shown not to save the notion of inexplicit information. This means the strategy of attributing inexplicit content to a computer which is executing a rule, fails.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00974198
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  • 3
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    The many uses of ‘belief’ in AI (1991)
    Springer
    Minds and machines 1 (1991), S. 55-73 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8641
    Keywords: Belief ; syntax ; propositions ; meaning ; information ; tractability ; degrees of confidence ; dispositions
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Computer Science , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Within AI and the cognitively related disciplines, there exist a multiplicity of uses of ‘belief’. On the face of it, these differing uses reflect differing views about the nature of an objective phenomenon called ‘belief’. In this paper I distinguish six distinct ways in which ‘belief’ is used in AI. I shall argue that not all these uses reflect a difference of opinion about an objective feature of reality. Rather, in some cases, the differing uses reflect differing concerns with special AI applications. In other cases, however, genuine differences exist about the nature of what we pre-theoretically call belief. To an extent the multiplicity of opinions about, and uses of ‘belief’, echoes the discrepant motivations of AI researchers. The relevance of this discussion for cognitive scientists and philosophers arises from the fact that (a) many regard theoretical research within AI as a branch of cognitive science, and (b) even if theoretical AI is not cognitive science, trends within AI influence theories developed within cognitive science. It should be beneficial, therefore, to unravel the distinct uses and motivations surrounding ‘belief’, in order to discover which usages merely reflect differing pragmatic concerns, and which usages genuinely reflect divergent views about reality.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00360579
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  • 4
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Infons as mathematical objects (1992)
    Springer
    Minds and machines 2 (1992), S. 185-201 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8641
    Keywords: Constraint ; individuation scheme ; infon ; information ; representation ; type
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Computer Science , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract I argue that the role played by infons in the kind of mathematical theory of information being developed by several workers affiliated to CSLI is analogous to that of the various number systems in mathematics. In particular, I present a mathematical construction of infons in terms of representations and informational equivalences between them. The main theme of the paper arose from an electronic mail exchange with Pat Hayes of Xeroxparc. The exposition derives from a talk I gave at theTheories of Partial Information conference held at the University of Texas at Austin, January 1990.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00704457
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  • 5
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Counting information: A note on physicalized numbers (1996)
    Springer
    Minds and machines 6 (1996), S. 229-238 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8641
    Keywords: Continuum ; counting ; energy ; infinite ; information ; Landauer ; limits ; physical
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Computer Science , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Existing work on the ultimate limits of computation has urged that the apparatus of real numbers should be eschewed as an investigative tool and replaced by discrete mathematics. The present paper argues for a radical extension of this viewpoint: not only the continuum but all infinitary constructs including the rationals and the potential infinite sequence of whole numbers need to be eliminated if a self-consistent investigative framework is to be achieved.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00391287
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  • 6
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    The Engagement of Religion and Biology: A Case Study in the Mediating Role of Metaphor in the Sociobiology of Lumsden & Wilson (2000)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 15 (2000), S. 669-698 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: analogy ; biological systems ; causation ; complexity ; emergent materialism ; hierarchy ; human sociobiology ; information ; metaphor ; methodological reduction ; ontological reduction ; part-whole relations ; physical systems ; religion and science ; self-organization ; social systems ; theory constitution ; theory reduction
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract I claim that explanations of human behaviour by Edward O. Wilsonand Charles Lumsden are constituted by a religiously functioningmetaphysics: emergent materialism. The constitutive effects areidentified using six criteria, beginning with a metaphorical re-description of dissimilarities between levels of organization interms of the lower level, and consist of conceptual andexplanatory reductions (CER). Wilson and Lumsden practice CER,even though CER is not required by emergent materialism. Theypreconceive this practice by a re-description which conflates thelevels of organization and explain failure of CER in terms oftechnical, not ontological or epistemological reasons. Iinterpret these three practices as a reaction of Wilson againsthis early Christian religious beliefs. Statements by Wilsonindicate this reaction ultimately constitutes his explanations ofsocial, moral and religious behaviour. Tested knowledge about matter at the lower level functions as ametaphysical belief when applied to the higher level becausethere it is untested. I offer twelve criteria for the diagnosisof religious functions of this metaphysical materialism, five ofwhich are satisfied. I show that the constitutive effects of thismaterialism in sociobiology are due to its religious functions,are beneficial for science and do not destroy its public nature.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006688908463
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  • 7
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    The mind body problem and the second law of thermodynamics (1987)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 2 (1987), S. 271-275 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Mind ; body ; entropy ; information ; dualism ; second law of thermodynamics
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Cartesian mind body dualism and modern versions of this viewpoint posit a mind thermodynamically unrelated to the body but informationally interactive. The relation between information and entropy developed by Leon Brillouin demonstrates that any information about the state of a system has entropic consequences. It is therefore impossible to dissociate the mind's information from the body's entropy. Knowledge of that state of the system without an energetically significant measurement would lead to a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00128833
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  • 8
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Entropy and information in evolving biological systems (1989)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 4 (1989), S. 407-432 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: evolution ; entropy ; information ; hierarchy ; ecology ; phylogeny ; natural selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Integrating concepts of maintenance and of origins is essential to explaining biological diversity. The unified theory of evolution attempts to find a common theme linking production rules inherent in biological systems, explaining the origin of biological order as a manifestation of the flow of energy and the flow of information on various spatial and temporal scales, with the recognition that natural selection is an evolutionarily relevant process. Biological systems persist in space and time by transfor ming energy from one state to another in a manner that generates structures which allows the system to continue to persist. Two classes of energetic transformations allow this; heat-generating transformations, resulting in a net loss of energy from the system, and conservative transformations, changing unusable energy into states that can be stored and used subsequently. All conservative transformations in biological systems are coupled with heat-generating transformations; hence, inherent biological production, or genealogical proesses, is positively entropic. There is a self-organizing phenomenology common to genealogical phenomena, which imparts an arrow of time to biological systems. Natural selection, which by itself is time-reversible, contributes to the organization of the self-organized genealogical trajectories. The interplay of genealogical (diversity-promoting) and selective (diversity-limiting) processes produces biological order to which the primary contribution is genealogical history. Dynamic changes occuring on times scales shorter than speciation rates are microevolutionary; those occuring on time scales longer than speciation rates are macroevolutionary. Macroevolutionary processes are neither redicible to, nor autonomous from, microevolutionary processes.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00162588
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  • 9
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Evolution in thermodynamic perspective: An ecological approach (1989)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 4 (1989), S. 373-405 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Noneequilibrium thermodynamics ; information ; informed patters of energy flow ; ecological hierarchy ; geneological hierarchy ; succession ; development ; Darwinian tradition ; reductionism ; teleology ; natural selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Recognition that biological systems are stabilized far from equilibrium by self-organizing, informed, autocatalytic cycles and structures that dissipate unusable energy and matter has led to recent attempts to reformulate evolutionary theory. We hold that such insights are consistent with the broad development of the Darwinian Tradition and with the concept of natural selection. Biological systems are selected that re not only more efficient than competitors but also enhance the integrity of the web of energetic relations in which they are embedded. But the expansion of the informational phase space, upon which selection acts, is also guaranteed by the properties of open informational-energetic systems. This provides a directionality and irreversibility to evolutionary processes that are not reflected in current theory. For this thermodynamically-based program to progress, we believe that biological information should not be treated in isolation from energy flows, and that the ecological perspective must be given descriptive and explanatory primacy. Levels of the ecological hierarchy are relational parts of ecological systems in which there are stable, informed patterns of energy flow and entropic dissipation. Isomorphies between developmental patterns and ecological succession are revealing because they suggest that much of the encoded metabolic information in biological systems is internalized ecological information. The geneological hierarchy, to the extent that its information content reflects internalized ecological information, can therefore be redescribed as an ecological hierarchy. This thermodynamic approach to evolution frees evolutionary theory from dependence on a crypto-Newtonian language more appropriate to closed equilibrial systems than to biological systems. It grounds biology non-reductively in physical law, and drives a conceptual wedge between functions of artifacts and functions of natural systems. This countenances legitimate use of teleology grounded in natural, teleomatic laws.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00162587
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  • 10
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    A semiotical reflection on biology, living signs and artificial life (1991)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 6 (1991), S. 325-340 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Artificial life ; biology ; information ; Peirce ; philosophy of science ; semiotic realism ; semiotics ; tign ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract It is argued, that theory sf signs, especially in the tradition of the great philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) can inspire the study of central problems in the philosophy of biology. Three such problems are considered: (1) The nature of biology as a science, where a semiotically informed pluralistic approach to the theory of science is introduced. (2) The peculiarity of the general object of biology, where a realistic interpretation of sign- and information-concepts is required to see sign-processes as immanent in nature. (3) The possibility of an artificial construction of life, hereby discussed as a conceptual problem in the present form of the artificial life project and its implied definition of life.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00132235
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