manwithoutqualities

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August 25, 2010anthony grayling, cognition, cognitive science, consciousness, mri, neuron, neurophilosophy, Neurophysics, neuroscience

Grayling on neurophilosophy

Here’s a brief view of neurophilosophy from Anthony Grayling in The Philosopher’s Magazine.

August 23, 2010artificial intelligence, collaborative filtering, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, computational psychology, computer simulations, Eric Bonabeau, google, Margery Doyle, particle swarm optimization, Pierre-Paul Grasse, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence

Stigmergy – the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment – was first conceptualized by zoologist Pierre-Paul Grasse in his ground-breaking work on termite colonies (Grasse 1959). It wasn’t until 1999 that Grasse’s work was brought to a wider audience by Eric Bonabeau et al (1999) in a special issue of Artificial…

August 23, 2010ants, artificial intelligence, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, computational psychology, cybernetics, Marco Dorigo, optimization, particle swarm optimization, spontaneous order, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence

Swarm intelligence

Here’s an article from The Economist on the practical application of swarm intelligence to human optimization problems.

August 22, 2010artificial intelligence, cognitive science, Herbert Simon, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind

“Artificial Intelligence”

I shall disclaim responsibility for this particular choice of terms. The phrase “artificial intelligence,” which led me to it, was coined, I think, right on the Charles River, at MIT. Our own research group at Rand and Carnegie Mellon University have prefered phrases like “complex information processing” and “simulation of cognitive processes.” But then we run…

August 20, 2010Brian Leiter, Joshua Knobe, Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosophy, Tim Maudlin, timothy williamson

The State of Philosophy

Joshua Knobe, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Tim Maudlin, Timothy Williamson, Brian Leiter, and Ernie Sosa discuss in The New York Times “Philosophy’s New Take on Old Problems: Do experimental methods offer new horizons for philosophy departments, which have come under attack for being impractical?”

August 18, 2010active externalism, active perception, Andy Clark, cognition, cognitive systems, Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind, cognitive systems research, colin allen, consciousness, dan weiskopf, david chalmers, Fred Adams, Georg Theiner, Ken Aizawa, Matthew Barker, Nivedita Gangopadhyay, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, robert goldstone, robert rupert, Zoe Drayson

Extended Mind – Themed Issue of CSR

The full and sequential lineup of this special issue of CSR is now available as Volume 11, Issue 4, Pages 311-408 (December 2010). Thanks to all – the contributors and the Elsevier type-setting team for making this such a smooth experience.

August 16, 2010cognition, cognition in the wild, cognitive anthropology, cognitive closure, cognitive science, cognitive systems, consciousness, cybernetics, cyborgs, philosophy of mind

Cognition in the Wild

Here’s a report in The New York Times It was a primitive trip with a sophisticated goal: to understand how heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects.

August 16, 2010cognition, epistemology, imagination, philosophy of science, thought experiments, timothy williamson

Timothy Williamson in the NYT

Here’s a Timothy Williamson piece in the NYT. Constraining imagination by knowledge does not make it redundant. We rarely know an explicit formula that tells us what to do in a complex situation. We have to work out what to do by thinking through the possibilities in ways that are simultaneously imaginative and realistic, and…

August 13, 2010cognitive science, connectionism, consciousness, cybernetics, hayek, joaquin fuster, memory, networks, neurobiology, neuron, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, the sensory order

Joaquin Fuster

I recently had the honor and good fortune to be on the same panel as neuroscientist Joaquin Fuster. We had been in correspondence over the years: the intellectual generosity of this man, one of the giants in the field, knows no bounds. I was thrilled to finally meet him in person. Below are some shots…

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