Journal

Volume 13, Issue 2 (June 30, 2012)

5 articles

• Three Challenges to Chalmers on Computational Implementation
  by Mark Sprevak
  J. CS. 2012, 13(2), 107-143;
  Abstract The notion of computational implementation is foundational to modern scientific practice, and in particular, to explanation in cognitive science. However, there is remarkably little in the way of theoretical understanding of what computational implementation involves. In a series of papers, David Ch... [Read more].
  Abstract The notion of computational implementation is foundational to modern scientific practice, and in particular, to explanation in cognitive science. However, there is remarkably little in the way of theoretical understanding of what computational implementation involves. In a series of papers, David Chalmers has given one of our most influential and thorough accounts of computational implementation (Chalmers, 1995, 1996, 2012). In this paper, I do three things. First, I outline three important desiderata that an adequate account of computational implementation should meet. Second, I analyse Chalmers’ theory of computational implementation and how it attempts to meet these desiderata. Third, I argue that despite its virtues, Chalmers’ account has three shortcomings. I argue that Chalmers’ account is (i) not sufficiently general; (ii) leaves certain key relations unclear; (iii) does not block the triviality arguments. [Collapse]
• Can a Brain Possess Two Minds?
  by Oron Shagrir
  J. CS. 2012, 13(2), 145-165;
  Abstract In “A Computational Foundation for the Study of Cognition” David Chalmers articulates, justifies and defends the computational suf ficiency thesis (CST). Chalmers advances a revised theory of computational implementation, and argues that implementing the right sort of computational structure is suff... [Read more].
  Abstract In “A Computational Foundation for the Study of Cognition” David Chalmers articulates, justifies and defends the computational suf ficiency thesis (CST). Chalmers advances a revised theory of computational implementation, and argues that implementing the right sort of computational structure is sufficient for the possession of a mind, and for the possession of a wide variety of mental properties. I argue that Chalmers’s theory of implementation is consistent with the nomological possibility of physical systems that possess different entire minds. I further argue that this brain-possessing-two-minds result challenges CST in three ways. It implicates CST with a host of epistemological problems; it undermines the underlying assumption that the mental supervenes on the physical; and it calls into question the claim that CST provides conceptual foundations for the computational science of the mind. [Collapse]
• Two Paradigms for Individuating Implementations
  by Colin Klein
  J. CS. 2012, 13(2), 167-179;
  Abstract Chalmers’ model of implementation has as a consequence that two deterministic programs will always take the same actions in the same order on the same input. However, there are methods of programming that do not make this assumption, some of which are quite powerful. I sketch an alternative view of ... [Read more].
  Abstract Chalmers’ model of implementation has as a consequence that two deterministic programs will always take the same actions in the same order on the same input. However, there are methods of programming that do not make this assumption, some of which are quite powerful. I sketch an alternative view of implementation, inspired by functional programming and Church's lambda calculus, and compare it with Chalmers’. I conclude by suggesting that the Church-inspired paradigm might be a more useful way to understand the architecture of the brain. [Collapse]
• The Causal Topography of Cognition
  by Stevan Harnad
  J. CS. 2012, 13(2), 181-196;
  Abstract The causal structure of cognition can be simulated but not implemented computationally, just as the causal structure of a furnace can be simulated but not implemented computationally. Heating is a dynamical property, not a computational one. A computational simulation of a furnace cannot heat a real... [Read more].
  Abstract The causal structure of cognition can be simulated but not implemented computationally, just as the causal structure of a furnace can be simulated but not implemented computationally. Heating is a dynamical property, not a computational one. A computational simulation of a furnace cannot heat a real house (only a simulated house). It lacks the essential causal property of a furnace. This is obvious with computational furnaces. The only thing that allows us even to imagine that it is otherwise in the case of computational cognition is the fact that cognizing, unlike heating, is invisible (to everyone except the cognizer). Chalmers’s “Dancing Qualia” Argument is hence invalid: Even if there could be a computational model of cognition that was behaviorally indistinguishable from a real, feeling cognizer, it would still be true that if, like heat, feeling is a dynamical property of the brain, a flip-flop from the presence to the absence of feeling would be undetectable anywhere along Chalmers’s hypothetical component-swapping continuum from a human cognizer to a computational cognizer―undetectable to everyone except the cognizer. But that would only be because the cognizer was locked into being incapable of doing anything to settle the matter simply because of Chalmers’s premise of input/output indistinguishability. That is not a demonstration that cognition is computation; it is just the demonstation that you get out of a premise what you put into it. But even if the causal topography of feeling, hence of cognizing, is dynamic rather than just computational, the problem of explaining the causal role played by feeling itself―how and why we feel―in the generation of our behavioral capacity―how and why we can do what we can do―will remain a “hard” (and perhaps insoluble) problem. [Collapse]
• Book Reviews: Conflicts in Interpretation
  by Michael Franke & Maria Aloni
  J. CS. 2012, 13(2), 197-209;
  Abstract This squib gives a critical review of the monograph entitled Conflicts in Interpretation (Hendriks et al., 2010) written by Petra Hendriks, Helen de Hoop, Irene Krämer, Henriette de Swart and Joost Zwarts, which was published in 2010 by Equinox Publishing, London. After sketching the relevant backgr... [Read more].
  Abstract This squib gives a critical review of the monograph entitled Conflicts in Interpretation (Hendriks et al., 2010) written by Petra Hendriks, Helen de Hoop, Irene Krämer, Henriette de Swart and Joost Zwarts, which was published in 2010 by Equinox Publishing, London. After sketching the relevant background of optimality theoretic approaches to semantics and pragmatics, we give a detailed summary of the contents of this book, discuss its merits and mention a few critical issues that, we feel, future research in this tradition may wish to address more carefully. [Collapse]