Introduction

Lecture notes

Phil/Psych 256
Jan. 9, 1997

Computation and representation:

Q: Why study the mind?

	A1: To understand language (syntax, grammaticality)

	A2: ... intelligent behaviour (individual, social)

	A3: ... culture (societies, mentalities)

	A4: ... thought (beliefs, theories)

Q: What approaches may be used?

	A1: Linguistics - intuition

	A2: Psychology - lab experiment

	A3: Anthropology - field observation

	A4: Neuroscience - brain

	A5: Philosophy - concepts

	A6: AI - simulation

Q: What does simulation involve?

	A1: Representations - data structures

	A2: Procedures - algorithms

	A3: Mind/Program analogy

Q: What do computer models do?

	A1: Embody/specify theories

	A2: Produce predictions

	A3: Suggest problems/research

Q: How are theories evaluated?

	A1: On what they can represent
	(propositions ...)

	A2: On the models they suggest
	(planning, decision, explanation, learning)

	A3: On psychological plausibility

	A4: On neurological plausibility

	A5: On practical usefulness (education, engineering)

Computational/Representational Understanding of Mind  (CRUM)

Analogy:

Program			Mind
------------------------------------------------------
data structures mental representations
	+                   +
algorithms      computational procedures
	=                   =
computing            thinking

Further materials

• Hothersall, D. (1984), History of psychology, Random House, New York [ISBN: 0394325915]
• Flanagan, O. (1992), The science of mind, 2nd edition, MIT Press, Cambridge