[This is for Grad Students taking the course.]
Computation is central to the foundations of modern cognitive science, but its role is controversial. Questions about computation abound: What is it for a physical system to implement a computation? Is computation sufficient for thought? What is the role of computation in a theory of cognition? What is the relation between different sorts of computational theory, such as connectionism and symbolic computation? In this paper I develop a systematic framework that addresses all of these questions.
Justifying the role of computation requires analysis of implementation, the nexus between abstract computations and concrete physical systems. I give such an analysis, based on the idea that a system implements a computation if the causal structure of the system mirrors the formal structure of the computation. This account can be used to justify the central commitments of artificial intelligence and computational cognitive science: the thesis of computational sufficiency, which holds that the right kind of computational structure suffices for the possession of a mind, and the thesis of computational explanation, which holds that computation provides a general framework for the explanation of cognitive processes. The theses are consequences of the facts that (a) computation can specify general patterns of causal organization, and (b) mentality is an organizational invariant, rooted in such patterns. Along the way I answer various challenges to the computationalist position, such as those put forward by Searle. I close by advocating a kind of minimal computationalism, compatible with a very wide variety of empirical approaches to the mind. This allows computation to serve as a true foundation for cognitive science.
I this article, Chalmers attempts to answer two important questions:
ReplyDelete1. Why have we chosen computation as the process by which we explain cognition (why could it not be some other highly technical process?) and
2. Why is there a causal relationship, or any relationship at all between computation and cognition?
Although I really technical article, I find that he may not answer anything about cognition itself, but he attacks two important issues that I never thought to even question in the course.
In explaining the relationship between cognition and computation, Chalmers says two things:
a. Computation has been chosen as the process/mechanism because it provides all of the tools we need in order to describe and possibly explain cognition. If it is useful and complete then it is a good mechanism. I sort of disagree. I mean this seems like a “keep what works” attitude. I would prefer a “keep what works unless and until something better comes along”.
b. The relationship between computation and cognition is causal (or intimate as he puts it) because so far, in implementing computations, the causal role of cognition holds.
I agree with you that the article was very technical and rather difficult to follow because of it. especially with regard to the conclusions it makes.
ReplyDelete"The thesis of computational explanation holds because computation provides a perfect language in which to specify the causal organization of cognitive processes; and the thesis of computational suf-ficiency holds because in all implementations of the appropriate computa-tions, the causal structure of mentality is replicated"
what I found particularly hard to understand is what it counts are 'mentality' and the particular way in which it argues it can be replicated.