From - Wed Aug 29 09:45:53 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: WELCOME TO CSE/LIN/PHI/PSY 575/APY 526 NEWSGROUP Date: 28 Aug 2001 12:53:03 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 38 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9mg47f$n78$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: WELCOME TO CSE/LIN/PHI/PSY 575/APY 526 NEWSGROUP ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the newsgroup for Introduction to Cognitive Science, which I will henceforth refer to as CSE 575, rather than by its much longer name as shown in the Subject line above :-) Please monitor this on a daily basis, and please feel free to post news or questions of interest to the rest of the class. >From time to time, I will feel free to repost to this newsgroup private emails that you may send to me, but only under the following conditions: 1. I perceive the email to be of general interest to the class. 2. I will remove all identifying information. If you send me an email that you do NOT want publicized in this way, please let me know. -Bill Rapaport ------------------------------------------------------------------------- William J. Rapaport Associate Professor of Computer Science & Adjunct Professor of Philosophy Member, Center for Cognitive Science Associate Director, SNePS Research Group (SNeRG) 201 Bell Hall (office: 214 Bell) | work: 716-645-3180 x 112 Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering | fax: 716-645-3464 University at Buffalo (SUNY) | home: 716-636-8625 Buffalo, NY 14260-2000 | rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CSE: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/ homepage: /~rapaport/ SNeRG: /sneps/ Buffalo Restaurant Guide: /restaurant.guide/ Center for Cognitive Science: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci/ From - Wed Aug 29 09:46:39 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: COG SCI MAILING LISTS Date: 28 Aug 2001 12:55:49 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 11 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9mg4cl$n9q$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: COG SCI MAILING LISTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you want to be put on the email lists for the Center for Cognitive Science, please go to the CCS website: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci/Misc/mailing.lists.htm and sign up! This way, you will be alerted to upcoming colloquia, etc. From - Wed Aug 29 09:47:21 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: COG SCI COLLOQ -- WED AUG 28 -- Gil-White/Psychology Date: 28 Aug 2001 12:56:05 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 69 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9mg4d5$na7$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: COG SCI COLLOQ -- WED AUG 28 -- Gil-White/Psychology ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, August 29, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "COGNITIVELY SPEAKING, WHAT IS AN ETHNIC CATEGORY?" Francisco Gil-White, Ph.D. Department of Psychology University of Pennsylvania Introduction by Donald Pollock, Department of Anthropology, UB If, despite the fact that ethnic essences do not exist, ethnic actors nevertheless represent ethnies as essentialized groups, we must understand why. This talk will present and defend the argument that humans process ethnic groups (and a few other related social categories) as if they were species - with the associated essentialism - because their surface similarities to species make them inputs to the living kinds mental module that initially evolved to process species - level categories. The similarities in processing between species and ethnic categories will be explored (the main responsible similarities are category-based endogamy, and descent-based membership), and an evolutionary argument for this pyschological borrowing from 'living kinds' reasoning to the social domain will be defended. In a nutshell, I will argue that thinking about ethnies as if they were species was adaptive in the ancestral environment because it solved problems of inference and coordination in the domain of interactional norms. This event is co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology and Philosopy. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu About the presenter: The evolutionary psychology of ethnic sentiments. How do cognitive and affective mechanisms give rise to ethnicity, and why did these mechanisms evolve? Field work among nomadic pastoralists in western Mongolia. The evolutionary psychology of prestige Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Aug 29 09:47:35 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE Date: 29 Aug 2001 13:15:30 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 12 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9mipti$9ib$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- We have our first guest lecturer scheduled: Susan Udin, from Physiology, who will speak on the general topic of cognitive neuroscience on Oct 18. I have added this info, and relevant weblinks, to the syllabus. http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/syl.html#dates From - Wed Aug 29 09:47:46 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: SCHEDULE FOR COGSCI SPEAKER Date: 29 Aug 2001 13:41:49 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 32 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9miret$agk$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: SCHEDULE FOR COGSCI SPEAKER ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 06:35:10 -0400 From: Heike H Jones Subject: Schedule for Francisco Gil-White To: COGSCI-LOCAL-LIST@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Wednesday, 8/29/01 11am Arrival 12pm Lunch at the Tiffin Room with Len Talmy 2pm - 4 pm COLLOQUIA, 280 Park Hall 5pm Pizza Chat If you would like to join Len Talmy and Francisco Gil-White for lunch at the Tiffin Room and/or the pizza chat in the CogSci library, please send me email (hhjones@buffalo.edu) Thank you! Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Aug 30 09:11:05 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: UB COG SCI RESEARCH GROUPS Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 09:09:53 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 11 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3B8E3B21.6B90C715@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:10 --------------------------- UB COG SCI RESEARCH GROUPS --------------------------- I have posted a list of UB Cog Sci Research Groups on the Directory of Documents. It can be linked to directly at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/researchgroups.html From - Fri Aug 31 09:27:29 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: UB COG SCI MAILING LISTS Date: 30 Aug 2001 13:22:25 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 19 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9mlemh$osp$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: UB COG SCI MAILING LISTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are several UB Cog Sci (CCS) mailing lists. For descriptions and information on how to get on these lists, go to: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci/Misc/mailing.lists.htm At the very least, all grad and undergrad students interested in CogSci activities at UB should be on the cogsci-students mailing list. From - Fri Aug 31 09:27:48 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: MIT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE COGNITIVE SCIENCES Date: 30 Aug 2001 13:26:01 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 15 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9mlet9$ov3$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:12 To access the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences: Go to: http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/login.html Where it says "Access to fulltext E-MAIL", enter: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu For Password, enter: rapaport From - Fri Aug 31 09:27:57 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CATEGORIES Date: 30 Aug 2001 16:47:52 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 11 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9mlqno$21u$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:13 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: CATEGORIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------- After my brief mention of categories in today's lecture, I found an announcement of a course on categories by David Zubin (LIN) in my email (which some of you may already have seen): http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/categories.txt From - Fri Aug 31 11:11:09 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!callisto.acsu.buffalo.edu!nb7 From: Niranjan Balasubram Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Cognitive Behavior & Behaviorist Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 15:38:26 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 28 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: callisto.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: nb7 Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:14 Suppose there is a cognitive agent X exhibiting Cognitive behavior (say) B. If I am a behaviorist, I am not going to be interested in acquiring any information about the mental states and processes that are a causal effect of the Cognitive behavior B. Then Question a] what I would be observing is just the stimuli and the response of X and so the observation cannot be and would not be about Cognitive beahvior. Is this a correct perception? Question b] Suppose a computational cognitive scientist studies about a cognitive task A. Can he identify the subtasks( which reflect upon the mental states and processes) that add up to the entire cognitive task ? Can such subtasks be studied behavioristically ? Question c] This one is about the QUALIA. Can QUALIA be observed at the signal level by which I mean to say that they are nothing but the physical responses that these QULIA generate in the cognitive agent( say Human, like the impulses that are received by the Brain when we see a Green object ). Is this perspective at signal level totally irrelevant at the Cognitive level. :) My apologies to everybody if this mail has disturbed you in anyway. Thank you very much. Niranjan Balasubramanian 45 Merrimac Street Buffalo, NY 1421 From - Fri Aug 31 11:21:16 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: COMPUTATIONAL COGNITIVE SCIENCE Date: 31 Aug 2001 13:10:30 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 13 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9mo2c6$920$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:15 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: COMPUTATIONAL COGNITIVE SCIENCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A very interesting paper on computational cognitive science, and why lots of people don't like it, just came to my attention. I recommend it highly: Dietrich, Eric (2000), "Cognitive Science and the Mahechanistic Forces of Darkness...", Techne 5(2), online. For the weblink, see the Directory of Documents. From - Tue Sep 4 09:36:49 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: RESEARCH GROUP LIST UPDATED Date: 4 Sep 2001 13:03:21 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n2jep$i53$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: RESEARCH GROUP LIST UPDATED ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have updated the list of research groups; see: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/researchgroups.html From - Tue Sep 4 09:37:05 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: COMMENT ON BEHAVIORISM POSTING Date: 4 Sep 2001 13:06:35 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 15 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n2jkr$ia2$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:18 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: COMMENT ON BEHAVIORISM POSTING ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marla Perkins writes: > I ... wish to comment on our poster's > questions about behaviorism... > His first question seems to indicate that he > has not quite understood that classic behaviorism > would say that there simply are NO cognitive states; > if I've understood him correctly, he seems to assume > that behaviorism isn't concerned with such states. From - Tue Sep 4 09:37:19 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci business meeting Wed 2PM, grant kickoff 4PM Date: 4 Sep 2001 13:17:17 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 28 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n2k8t$ile$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:19 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: CogSci business meeting Wed 2PM, grant kickoff 4PM ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leonard Talmy Subject: CogSci business meeting Wed 2PM, grant kickoff 4PM Comments: To: Cognitive Science Members Comments: cc: Heike H Jones To: COGSCI-STUDENTS-LIST@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Hi CogSci members and students, This year's first business meeting will be held this Wednesday at 2 in 280 Park. The agenda topics will include how to allocate the money used in previous years for student support, whether to develop an M.A. in CogSci, Distinguished Speaker ideas, reports on the undergrad major, the graduate track, and the student organization. At 4PM in 653 Baldy, we will have the initial meeting to see if we can formulate a training grant roughly around the theme of spatial and temporal cognition. If you are at all interested, please come with your ideas. Thanks, --Len From - Tue Sep 4 12:34:23 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Cognitive Behavior & Behaviorist Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:20:41 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 61 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3B8FAB49.5F13FC53@cse.buffalo.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:16 Niranjan Balasubram wrote: > Suppose there is a cognitive agent X exhibiting Cognitive behavior (say) > B. If I am a behaviorist, I am not going to be interested in acquiring any > information about the mental states and processes that are a causal effect > of the Cognitive behavior B. Sounds right to me, because if I'm a behaviorist, I don't believe that there are any mental states/procs that B causes. > Then > > Question a] what I would be observing is just the stimuli and the > response of X and so the observation cannot be and would not be about > Cognitive beahvior. Is this a correct perception? Sounds right. Are there any behaviorists reading this exchange who care to comment? > > > Question b] Suppose a computational cognitive scientist studies about > a cognitive task A. Can he identify the subtasks( which reflect upon the > mental states and processes) that add up to the entire cognitive task ? I would hope so. > > Can such subtasks be studied behavioristically ? If they can be identified in terms of stimuli and response. > > > Question c] This one is about the QUALIA. Can QUALIA be observed at the > signal level by which I mean to say that they are nothing but the physical > responses that these QULIA generate in the cognitive agent( say Human, > like the impulses that are received by the Brain when we see a Green > object ). The "inverted spectrum" case may be relevant here. Suppose some cognitive agent has an "inverted spectrum"; i.e., when that agent perceives grass, she or he has the same qualititative experience that you and I have when we perceive a yellow post-it note, and vice versa. In other words, that agent sees yellow where we see green, and vice versa. But there's no behavioral way to identify such agents, since when they look at grass, they *say* that they are seeing the color green even though their "internal" experience is the same as *our* "internal" experience of yellow. Perhaps you can clarify your question with respect to this example. See http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/Articles/levin.html for more on qualia. See http://www.d.umn.edu/~dcole/inverted_spectrum.htm for more on inverted spectrum arguments. From - Tue Sep 4 12:34:36 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!callisto.acsu.buffalo.edu!nb7 From: Niranjan Balasubram Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: COMMENT ON BEHAVIORISM POSTING Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:32:36 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 38 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9n2jkr$ia2$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: callisto.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: nb7 To: "William J. Rapaport" In-Reply-To: <9n2jkr$ia2$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:21 The question was framed so because in the last Lecture in the classification of people that studied Cognitive behavior, the two base classes were cognitivists and behaviorists. Your reply has now cleared my confusion. Thank you very much. Niranjan Balasubramanian 45 Merrimac Street Buffalo, NY 1421 Home Phone 716 833 4051 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If everybody who feared they would fail, didnt even try, WHERE WOULD WE BE?" - Message in a Bottle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On 4 Sep 2001, William J. Rapaport wrote: > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Subject: COMMENT ON BEHAVIORISM POSTING > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Marla Perkins writes: > > > I ... wish to comment on our poster's > > questions about behaviorism... > > His first question seems to indicate that he > > has not quite understood that classic behaviorism > > would say that there simply are NO cognitive states; > > if I've understood him correctly, he seems to assume > > that behaviorism isn't concerned with such states. > > > > From - Tue Sep 4 12:34:48 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676,sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Collective Intentionality: Believing and Accepting as a Group Date: 4 Sep 2001 14:14:31 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 43 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n2nk7$kdo$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:23 sunyab.cse.575:20 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Collective Intentionality: Believing and Accepting as a Group ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthonie W. M. Meijers Professor, Eindhoven University (The Netherlands) "Collective Intentionality: Believing and Accepting as a Group" Park Hall 141, Wednesday September 5, 4 PM UB North (Amherst) Campus ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This paper will be revised and published in the journal Protosociology. Anthonie Meijers is Professor of the Philosophy of Technology at the University of Technology at Eindhoven, the Netherlands. (Eindhoven is one of the most prestigious technical universities in Europe, comparable to MIT.) He is also co-principal investigator of a large 5-year grant from the Dutch equivalent of NSF on "The Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts." He studied mechanical engineering and philosophy and wrote his PhD thesis on the foundation of the theory of speech acts in the theory of intentionality. He has recently edited and contributed to Belief, Cognition, and the Will (1999), The Empirical Turn in the Philosophy of Technology (Elsevier Science, 2000), and Explaining Beliefs: Lynne Rudder Baker and her Critics (forthcoming, Nov 2001, Stanford CSLI / Univ. of Chicago Press). His talk at UB is about collective intentionality as one of the conditions for the constitution of social reality. In "Believing and Accepting as a Group" he develops a relational account of collective agents, developing and revising ideas found in Gilbert, Tuomela and Searle. The notion of collective belief will be analyzed in more detail, by introducing a distinction between the epistemic attitude of believing a proposition and the pragmatic attitude of accepting a view. Groups may be said to accept a view for its use in practical deliberations, rather than believing a proposition in a strict sense. The notion of collective intentionality is also useful to draw a line between social and technical artifacts, thus extending the earlier analysis made in Dipert's Artifacts, Art Works and Agency (and related literature). For more information about this talk, contact rdipert@acsu.buffalo.edu. From - Wed Sep 5 09:46:04 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE Date: 4 Sep 2001 18:28:17 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 10 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n36g1$sht$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:23 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have updated the syllabus to show that Prof. David Smith, Psychology, will be our guest speaker in class on Tue Oct 2. For more details, see: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/syl.html#dates From - Wed Sep 5 09:46:40 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: NEW STUDENTS Date: 4 Sep 2001 17:08:24 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 26 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n31q8$psq$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: NEW STUDENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are new to CSE 575, please do the following: 1. Fill out the "name sheet" at http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/nameSheet.txt and turn it in at the next lecture 2. Be sure to read the syllabus, which will be constantly updated, at http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/syl.html 3. Be sure to monitor the newsgroup at news:sunyab.cse.575 or at least to monitor the newsgroup archive at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/news.txt From - Thu Sep 6 12:44:16 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!xena.acsu.buffalo.edu!kochanec From: Tara R Kochanec Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: COMMENT ON BEHAVIORISM POSTING Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 10:23:42 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 24 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9n2jkr$ia2$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: xena.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: kochanec In-Reply-To: <9n2jkr$ia2$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:24 Behaviorism is the opposite of Cognitivism--It is concerned with only observable stimulus-response behaviors On 4 Sep 2001, William J. Rapaport wrote: > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Subject: COMMENT ON BEHAVIORISM POSTING > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Marla Perkins writes: > > > I ... wish to comment on our poster's > > questions about behaviorism... > > His first question seems to indicate that he > > has not quite understood that classic behaviorism > > would say that there simply are NO cognitive states; > > if I've understood him correctly, he seems to assume > > that behaviorism isn't concerned with such states. > > > > From - Thu Sep 6 12:44:35 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: MITECS Date: 5 Sep 2001 14:31:36 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 46 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n5d08$6sh$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:25 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: MITECS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Getting your own online subscription to MITECS is not as simple as I had hoped. As the appended correspondence with MIT Press indicates, you can subscribe in one of two ways: 1. Buy the (expensive) hardcover edition, and get online service for free. 2. Buy the (relatively inexpensive) paper edition, and pay extra for the online service. Note that you don't actually have to buy the paper edition; anyone can subscribe to the online service for a fee. Details are on the MITECS website. Note that you will still be able to access MITECS in the way I indicated in an earlier posting, at least through the end of this semester. Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 10:13:22 -0400 To: From: Maria Santos Subject: Re: General Information, Books If you ordered the paperback on-line access would be extra but if you ordered the original hardcover policy you will be given free access with the standard white registration card that was included within the book. If you have the card please fill it out and send to Marney Smyth at the DPL, 5 Cambridge Center, Suite 4, Cambridge, MA 02142. Her e-mail is marney@dpl.mit.edu. MariaAt 10:21 AM 9/4/2001 -0400, you wrote: >The following message from William J. Rapaport >was sent via the MIT Press website. >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > >I have ordered MITECS as >a required text for my graduate course in Cog Sci @ SUNY Buffalo (CSE >575). Can students who >buy the book get free access to the online version? Or do they have >to pay an additional amount for a 6-month or 1-year subscription? (I >recall that when I bought the book, it came with free access.) Thanks. From - Thu Sep 6 12:44:54 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: QUERY ON "INNATE IDEAS" Date: 5 Sep 2001 14:38:14 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 30 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n5dcm$735$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:26 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: QUERY ON "INNATE IDEAS" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tara Kochanec writes: > I was wondering how empiricists would account for > innate behaviors seen in > infants? For example, experiments have been done that > show that infants > too young to have learned aversions to cliffs or > stairs (places they could > from) have a natural tendency to fear and avoid them. I don't really know how Lockean empiricists would have replied. I'm sure they would have been astonished to learn such facts. Modern empiricists seem to be pretty happy with these kinds of "innate ideas", essentially redefining "innate" to mean, not so much "born with", but more like "present at birth". I suggest you take a look at: Cummins, Chs. 28-31, especially Ch. 31 by Spelke and Companion, Chs. 45-46 for some contemporary discussions. From - Thu Sep 6 12:48:42 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!bmb From: bmb@NO.SPAM.acsu.buffalo.edu Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: QUERY ON "INNATE IDEAS" Date: 5 Sep 2001 16:49:34 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 52 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n5l2u$b3h$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> References: <9n5dcm$735$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: yeager.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: bmb X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA 970625; sun4u SunOS 5.8] Originator: bmb@yeager.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:27 > Tara Kochanec writes: > > I was wondering how empiricists would account for > > innate behaviors seen in > > infants? [snip] William J. Rapaport wrote: > I don't really know how Lockean empiricists would have replied. I'm > sure they would have been astonished to learn such facts. Modern > empiricists seem to be pretty happy with these kinds of "innate ideas", > essentially redefining "innate" to mean, not so much "born with", but > more like "present at birth". In the vein of "present at birth", but with a connectionist view on what that means is a book called _Rethinking Innateness_ by Jeffery Ellman, Elizabeth Bates and a couple other people. The basic idea, to my understanding, is that what (some) people talk about as innate behaviours (e.g. Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device, which I'm guessing we'll get to in class at some point) are emergent properties of the hardwiring of the brain. So, language is learned, not innate, but it's leanred only because we've got human brains. I'm not sure how this fits with the rationalists and empiricists. We don't have innate ideas per se, so in that sense we have tabula rasa, but we have a particular brain structure, which limits/influences what and how we learn, which is similar to the veining in marble metaphor of Leibniz. It's an interesting book and has a companion volume of exercises in connectionist modelling. But note that the authors are unapologetic connectionists, and don't necessarily believe in physical symbol systems, (depending on one's definitions of symbols and symbol manipulation). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Breton Bienvenue e-mail: bmb@acsu.buffalo.edu Psycholinguistics Lab phone: (716) 645-3650 X377 Department of Psychology fax: (716) 645-3801 SUNY at Buffalo lab webpage: http://psychling.buffalo.edu Buffalo, NY 14260 personal webpage: http://www.buffalo.edu/~bmb ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From - Thu Sep 6 12:54:56 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!bmb From: bmb@NO.SPAM.acsu.buffalo.edu Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: PSS questions Date: 5 Sep 2001 17:01:52 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 32 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n5lq0$bkk$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: yeager.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: bmb X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA 970625; sun4u SunOS 5.8] Originator: bmb@yeager.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:28 Greetings all, I was reading the Newell & Simon article about physical symbol systems and I have a couple of general questions for the computer science-oriented people in the group. First, N&S talk about chess as being an unsolved problem in that the entire set of possible chess games isn't known, so a search tree can't pick perfect games as is possible for tic-tac-toe or something with fewer possible moves. Is chess unsolved simply because it's too big, or is in necessarily unsolvable for some reason. I got the impression that it was the second from the article, but I don't see why that would be. Second, when discussing PSS in class Prof. Rapaport said that a symbol system is computationally equivalent with a connectionist model. I've heard this claim before. Basically saying that, in theory, one could desing a big enough turing machine to solve any computational problem, and likewise, one could make a sophisticated enough connectionist system to solve any computational problem. But I've never seen an actual proof that the two are functionally equivalent. Is there a proof of this, or is it just a commonly accepted assumption? Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Breton Bienvenue e-mail: bmb@acsu.buffalo.edu Psycholinguistics Lab phone: (716) 645-3650 X377 Department of Psychology fax: (716) 645-3801 SUNY at Buffalo lab webpage: http://psychling.buffalo.edu Buffalo, NY 14260 personal webpage: http://www.buffalo.edu/~bmb ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From - Thu Sep 6 12:59:37 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: INNATE IDEAS Date: 6 Sep 2001 14:18:46 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 11 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n80k6$lv6$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: INNATE IDEAS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some of you have asked for more information on innate ideas. I suggest starting with the following: Companion, Chs. 45-46 Cummins, Chs. 28-31 From - Thu Sep 6 12:59:47 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: INTENTIONALITY Date: 6 Sep 2001 14:19:31 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n80lj$m3k$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:30 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: INTENTIONALITY ------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information on intentionality, take a look at: Companion, Ch. 47 From - Thu Sep 6 13:18:36 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: QUERY ON "INNATE IDEAS" Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 12:53:37 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 12 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3B97AA11.F0418A83@cse.buffalo.edu> References: <9n5dcm$735$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <9n5l2u$b3h$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:31 bmb@NO.SPAM.acsu.buffalo.edu wrote: > In the vein of "present at birth", but with a connectionist view on what > that means is a book called _Rethinking Innateness_ by Jeffery Ellman, > Elizabeth Bates and a couple other people. A review of this by a philosopher, Ken Aizawa, recently appeared in Minds & Machines Volume 9, Issue 3, August 1999; an online preprint is at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/aizawa.combined.rev.pdf From - Thu Sep 6 13:18:48 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!bmb From: bmb@NO.SPAM.acsu.buffalo.edu Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: PSS questions Date: 5 Sep 2001 17:01:52 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 32 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9n5lq0$bkk$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: yeager.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: bmb X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA 970625; sun4u SunOS 5.8] Originator: bmb@yeager.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:28 Greetings all, I was reading the Newell & Simon article about physical symbol systems and I have a couple of general questions for the computer science-oriented people in the group. First, N&S talk about chess as being an unsolved problem in that the entire set of possible chess games isn't known, so a search tree can't pick perfect games as is possible for tic-tac-toe or something with fewer possible moves. Is chess unsolved simply because it's too big, or is in necessarily unsolvable for some reason. I got the impression that it was the second from the article, but I don't see why that would be. Second, when discussing PSS in class Prof. Rapaport said that a symbol system is computationally equivalent with a connectionist model. I've heard this claim before. Basically saying that, in theory, one could desing a big enough turing machine to solve any computational problem, and likewise, one could make a sophisticated enough connectionist system to solve any computational problem. But I've never seen an actual proof that the two are functionally equivalent. Is there a proof of this, or is it just a commonly accepted assumption? Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Breton Bienvenue e-mail: bmb@acsu.buffalo.edu Psycholinguistics Lab phone: (716) 645-3650 X377 Department of Psychology fax: (716) 645-3801 SUNY at Buffalo lab webpage: http://psychling.buffalo.edu Buffalo, NY 14260 personal webpage: http://www.buffalo.edu/~bmb ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From - Thu Sep 6 13:19:01 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: PSS questions Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 12:59:01 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 32 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3B97AB55.43CDD3F7@cse.buffalo.edu> References: <9n5lq0$bkk$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:32 bmb@NO.SPAM.acsu.buffalo.edu wrote: > > First, N&S talk about chess as being an unsolved problem in that the entire > set of possible chess games isn't known, so a search tree can't pick perfect > games as is possible for tic-tac-toe or something with fewer possible moves. > Is chess unsolved simply because it's too big, or is in necessarily > unsolvable for some reason. I got the impression that it was the second from > the article, but I don't see why that would be. It's the first: It can be solved in principle, but not in practice. For more on why, see: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/572/S01/chess.html > > > Second, when discussing PSS in class Prof. Rapaport said that a symbol system > is computationally equivalent with a connectionist model. ... But I've never > seen an actual proof that the two are > functionally equivalent. Is there a proof of this, or is it just a > commonly accepted assumption? > > Good question! I've heard of proofs, but never seen one myself. On the other hand, here's an outline of a proof: Connectionist systems are run on ordinary computers; therefore, Turing machines can model connectionist systems. From - Mon Sep 10 09:34:14 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: PSS questions Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 13:26:51 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 42 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3B97B1DB.99AE17C4@cse.buffalo.edu> References: <9n5lq0$bkk$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3B97AB55.43CDD3F7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:33 William J Rapaport wrote: > > > > > > Second, when discussing PSS in class Prof. Rapaport said that a symbol system > > is computationally equivalent with a connectionist model. ... But I've never > > seen an actual proof that the two are > > > functionally equivalent. Is there a proof of this, or is it just a > > commonly accepted assumption? > > > > > > Good question! I've heard of proofs, but never seen one myself. > On the other hand, here's an outline of a proof: Connectionist systems > are run on ordinary computers; therefore, Turing machines can model > connectionist systems. Well, I just got a book in the mail with some references to this (talk about coincidence!). The book is probably too new to be easily available, but I'll give the references here for future use: Harnish, Robert M., _Minds, Brains, Computers: An Historical Introduction to the Foundations of Cognitive Science_ (Malden, MA: Blackwell), pp. 409-410. This section cites the following articles: Hornik, K., et al. (1989), "Multlayer feedforward networks are universal approximators", Neural Networks 2: 359-366. Franklin, S., & Garzon, M. (1991), "Neural computability", in O. Omidvar (ed.), Progress on Neural Networks, Vol. 1 (Norwood, NJ: Ablex). Siegelmann, H., & Sontag, E. (1992), "On the computational power of neural nets", Proc. 5th ACM Workshop on Computational Learning Theory (NY: ACM), pp. 440-449. Kilian, J., & Siegelmann, H. (1993), "On the power of sigmoid neural networks", Proc. 6th ACM Workshop on Computational Learning Theory (NY: ACM), pp. 137-143. From - Mon Sep 10 09:34:29 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: UPDATED SYLLABUS Date: 7 Sep 2001 19:11:04 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9nb648$jpi$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:34 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: UPDATED SYLLABUS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The syllabus has been updated to reflect new information about Cog Sci Colloquium speakers and their topics. See: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/syl.html#dates From - Mon Sep 10 09:34:37 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: COG SCI COLLOQ: ZUBROW, ORIGIN OF MUSIC Date: 7 Sep 2001 19:13:58 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 47 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9nb69m$jv6$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:35 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: COG SCI COLLOQ: ZUBROW, ORIGIN OF MUSIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, September 12, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC" Ezra Zubrow, Ph.D. Department of Anthropology University at Buffalo Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Tue Sep 11 09:46:32 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM THIS SATURDAY Date: 11 Sep 2001 13:46:07 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 12 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9nl4iv$ftr$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:36 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM THIS SATURDAY ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, Sep. 15, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 141 Park Hall IGERT Symposium: Situated Cognition, Visual Perception, and Map Orientation Barry Smith (PHI), David Mark (GEO), Roberto Casata (PHI) Jerome Dokic, Univ. of Rouen & Institut Nicod, Paris. From - Wed Sep 12 09:26:10 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: LIST OF RESEARCH GROUPS UPDATED Date: 12 Sep 2001 13:03:24 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9nnmes$r5o$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:37 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: LIST OF RESEARCH GROUPS UPDATED ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The list of research groups has been updated; see: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/researchgroups.html From - Wed Sep 12 09:26:16 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Today!Today! CoSci Colloquia, Ezra Zubrow, Anthropology, UB Date: 12 Sep 2001 13:20:41 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 69 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:38 Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, September 12, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC" Ezra Zubrow, Ph.D. Department of Anthropology University at Buffalo This paper reports on the recent results of a joint project between the University of Buffalo and University of Cambridge. There are four results: * Bone flutes and percussion instruments have been found -the former dating 33K and the latter perhaps 50K. * One may predict and simulate the sounds of these instruments. * Cognitively, one may predict that music precedes language. * One may examine the causal role that music has in the evolutionary and cognitive relationships among Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis,and homo erectus. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Sep 13 12:41:13 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: UPDATED SYLLABUS Date: 13 Sep 2001 13:40:44 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9nqd0s$hsc$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:42 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: UPDATED SYLLABUS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have completely revised the schedule; please see the new syllabus at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/syl.html#dates From - Thu Sep 13 12:41:54 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu!nb7 From: Niranjan Balasubram Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Origin of Music Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 15:56:27 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 87 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: nb7 In-Reply-To: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:40 Dear Dr.Rapaport, I understand Dr.Zubrow's claim that Music must have evolved prior to Language considering the Physical evidence he presented and the Generalized nature of Music. 1.Are Sign-languages considered languages in this sense? 2.Isnt the need to communicate the causative of language? 3.If there were no languages ( allowing for sign language existence ) at the time of origin of music or just after, then wouldnt it be natural to assume that music was indeed one of the causal effect of the need to communicate? ( That is I could percieve no other motive for people to play music ) If people( if you can call them that ) played music just bcecause they liked it, then the need to communicate wouldnt be the causative for the origin of music. But the absence of any languages would naturally have led to the use of music as a form of communication. 4. I also think that the music produced by the stone implements would have been preceded by the sounds that they themselves could produce. In that case there need not be physical evidence of languages or Music for that matter. Niranjan Balasubramanian 45 Merrimac Street Buffalo, NY 1421 Home Phone 716 833 4051 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If everybody who feared they would fail, didnt even try, WHERE WOULD WE BE?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On 12 Sep 2001, William J. Rapaport wrote: > Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! > > > CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE > University at Buffalo, State University of New York > > > Wednesday, September 12, 2001 > 280 Park Hall > North Campus > 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm > > "THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC" > > > Ezra Zubrow, Ph.D. > Department of Anthropology > University at Buffalo > > This paper reports on the recent results of a joint project between > the University of Buffalo and University of Cambridge. There are > four results: > > * Bone flutes and percussion instruments have been found -the former > dating 33K and the latter perhaps 50K. > > * One may predict and simulate the sounds of these instruments. > > * Cognitively, one may predict that music precedes language. > > * One may examine the causal role that music has in the evolutionary > and cognitive relationships among Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens > neanderthalensis,and homo erectus. > > > > > > Everyone is welcome to From - Thu Sep 13 12:50:15 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575,sunyab.cse.676 Subject: DIGITAL SUMMIT Date: 13 Sep 2001 16:38:43 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 40 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9nqnej$nt8$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:43 sunyab.cse.676:32 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: DIGITAL SUMMIT ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:49:51 -0400 From: Kristin Herman Subject: Digital Summit Nov 2 and 3 - further information To: PROVOST-FACULTY-LIST@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU *******************HOLD THE DATE NOV 2 AND 3******************** Please disseminate to relevant lists outside of UB. A registration flyer is being printed and will be mailed shortly. The University at Buffalo will host Digital Frontier: The Buffalo Summit 2001, from November 2-3, 2001. This summit will examine the far-reaching impacts of digital technology as manifested in the arts and sciences, medicine, education, and various aspects of everyday life. Plenary speakers include Michael Paige, Director of Xerox PARC, Brenda Laurel, pioneer developer of interactive fiction, Jaron Lanier, who coined the term "virtual reality", Steve Mann, inventor of the wearable computer, and Clifford Stoll, author of Silicon Snake Oil. Symposia will explore privacy, virtual reality, telemedicine and distance learning, information overload and retrieval, the gender divide in tech careers, and person:machine interfaces. These sessions will also include demonstrations of new media, digital arts, and applications of advanced computing, as well as extrapolations about likely technological developments of the future. Sponsors include CISCO Systems, Verizon, Niagara Mohawk, Silicon Graphics, Inc., American Psychological Association and others. The website at http://digitalsummit.buffalo.edu provides further information about the plenary speakers, and also online registration. The summit will take place at the Center for the Arts on the north campus of UB. Questions can be directed to Dr. Cusker in the Office of the Vice President for Research at 645-3321 or cusker@research.buffalo.edu. Jaylan S. Turkkan, Ph.D. Vice President for Research From - Fri Sep 14 12:20:55 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!mmwahler From: Misty Wahler Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 16:11:38 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 48 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: mmwahler In-Reply-To: <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> Originator: mmwahler@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:45 On Thu, 13 Sep 2001, William J Rapaport wrote: > > 3.If there were no languages ( allowing for sign language existence ) at > > the time of origin of music or just after, then wouldnt it be natural to > > assume that music was indeed one of the causal effect of the need to > > communicate? > > ( That is I could percieve no other motive for people to play > > music ) If people( if you can call them that ) played music just bcecause > > they liked it, then the need to communicate wouldnt be the causative for > > the origin of music. But the absence of any languages would naturally have > > led to the use of music as a form of communication. > > This seems reasonable, but a bit more dubious. What do other people reading > this think? I think that people had to discover the sounds they could make with the stones, and perhaps they just experimented with them for awhile before realizing that they could communicate with them. Maybe when people started making sounds with the stones they realized that they could get each others attention with them. Hitting the stones hard to produce a loud noise would probably get the other people to turn around and wonder what the noise was, and from this they might have developed a scheme in which different sounds meant different things. Music could have developed from this, even if people had no formal language. > > > 4. I also think that the music produced by the stone implements would have > > been preceded by the sounds that they themselves could produce. > > Do you mean the sounds that they, the stone implements, could produce? I think the writer means that before people made stone instruments, they were able to make noises themselves with their voices. > > > In that > > case there need not be physical evidence of languages or Music for that > > matter. > > > > I don't follow this. I don't think I do either. Misty From - Fri Sep 14 12:21:24 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!nb7 From: Niranjan Balasubramanian Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 09:15:29 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 15 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: mekab.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: nb7 In-Reply-To: Originator: nb7@mekab.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:46 hi everybody, By sounds they themselves could produce , I meant VOCAL SOUNDS. Sorry for the confusion caused. Here it goes again. People must have started to use their own voices prior to the use of stones to either produce speicifc sounds as either music or as a signalling system. There need be no physical evidence for this. How does one prove that music preceded vocal signals( formal enough to be called language ?)?. If sign languages are languages then how does one prove that music preceded sign language? Niranjan From - Fri Sep 14 12:22:08 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!nb7 From: Niranjan Balasubramanian Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:04:43 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 66 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: mekab.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: nb7 In-Reply-To: <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> Originator: nb7@mekab.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:47 Here is an attempt to give more clarity to my confusions. Assuming that no languages existed when music originated, I claim that the motive for music ( the motive for usage not the origin) must be the need to communicate. But this music ( produced from sound ) must have been preceded by vocal sounds which definitely would have been much easier to generate and use. Recursively, the motive for using vocal sounds should also be the need to communicate. My question is do these vocal sound system qualify as a language system ? Where do sign languages fit in this picture? Niranjan On Thu, 13 Sep 2001, William J Rapaport wrote: > Niranjan Balasubram wrote: > > > > > 1.Are Sign-languages considered languages in this sense? > > Yes; see MITECS, "Sign Languages" > http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/Entry/newport.html > > > > > > > > 2.Isnt the need to communicate the causative of language? > > I don't know; sounds reasonable. > > > > > > > 3.If there were no languages ( allowing for sign language existence ) at > > the time of origin of music or just after, then wouldnt it be natural to > > assume that music was indeed one of the causal effect of the need to > > communicate? > > ( That is I could percieve no other motive for people to play > > music ) If people( if you can call them that ) played music just bcecause > > they liked it, then the need to communicate wouldnt be the causative for > > the origin of music. But the absence of any languages would naturally have > > led to the use of music as a form of communication. > > This seems reasonable, but a bit more dubious. What do other people reading > this think? > > > > > > > 4. I also think that the music produced by the stone implements would have > > been preceded by the sounds that they themselves could produce. > > Do you mean the sounds that they, the stone implements, could produce? > > > In that > > case there need not be physical evidence of languages or Music for that > > matter. > > > > I don't follow this. > > > From - Mon Sep 17 09:39:25 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:25:35 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 34 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BA22F7F.78B72C1F@cse.buffalo.edu> References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:48 Niranjan Balasubramanian wrote: > > Assuming that no languages existed when music originated, I claim that the > motive for music ( the motive for usage not the origin) must be the need > to communicate. To communicate propositional information, or to communicate emotions? > . My question is do these vocal sound system qualify as a > language system ? > > Where do sign languages fit in this picture? > Good question; check MITECS for articles on the origins of language, or see: Merlin Donald, _Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition_, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). and/or: TITLE: The symbolic species : the co-evolution of language and the brain / by Terrence W. Deacon. AUTHOR: Deacon, Terrence William. PUBLISHED: New York : W.W. Norton, 1997. From - Mon Sep 17 09:39:52 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!mmwahler From: Misty Wahler Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:28:47 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 27 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: mmwahler In-Reply-To: Originator: mmwahler@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:49 On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Niranjan Balasubramanian wrote: > Assuming that no languages existed when music originated, I claim that the > motive for music ( the motive for usage not the origin) must be the need > to communicate. > > But this music ( produced from sound ) must have been preceded by vocal > sounds which definitely would have been much easier to generate and use. > Recursively, the motive for using vocal sounds should also be the need to > communicate. My question is do these vocal sound system qualify as a > language system ? Now I'm not a linguistics expert, but I wouldn't think that just any vocal sounds would be classified as a "language". Many animals produce vocal noises (for instance dogs bark, and they bark in different ways depending what they are feeling) but I don't think anyone considers that an actual language. I would guess that to be considered a language, there has to be some structure to the noises. > > Where do sign languages fit in this picture? There are specific signs for all kinds of things. Maybe an analogy would be vocal noises are to language what pointing is to sign language? Monkeys can point at things, and my dog will "paw" something she wants, so would that be an appropriate analogy? Someone correct me if I'm wrong... From - Mon Sep 17 09:40:09 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!hercules.acsu.buffalo.edu!kochanec From: Tara R Kochanec Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 15:55:57 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 13 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hercules.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: kochanec In-Reply-To: <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:50 Regarding the question about music--it seems like music is an exaptation, in terms of evolution, in that the neural human mechanisms that produce music were not originally designed to do so. Similar things include artistic and athletic ability---In another course, I learned that these types of capabilities have not been selected for, but that they instead develop from already existing general mechanisms (language)--so, i would probably think that music developed after language (that is, the ability for humans to create music) or that music had little to do with the causal need for language. Tara Kochanec From - Mon Sep 17 09:40:20 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!nb7 From: Niranjan Balasubramanian Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 20:19:44 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 36 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: la-fin-du-monde.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: nb7 In-Reply-To: Originator: nb7@la-fin-du-monde.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:51 There was another arguement that to my understanding says that Music is more generalized than Language and therefore msut have eveolved prior to language. Can it be refuted by saying that the generalized nature of music implies the information content would be both less and inaccurate( more general ). Do you contend that the theory that the origin of music precedes that of language can be refuted with the natural selection arguement alone? Thanx for the reply. Niranjan On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Tara R Kochanec wrote: > Regarding the question about music--it seems like music is an exaptation, > in terms of evolution, in that the neural human mechanisms that produce > music were not originally designed to do so. Similar things include > artistic and athletic ability---In another course, I learned that these > types of capabilities have not been selected for, but that they instead > develop from already existing general mechanisms (language)--so, i would > probably think that music developed after language (that is, the ability > for humans to create music) or that music had little to do with the causal > need for language. > > Tara Kochanec > > > From - Mon Sep 17 09:40:46 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music Date: 17 Sep 2001 13:21:35 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 19 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9o4tcv$onj$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:52 Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 13:59:23 -0400 (EDT) From: Niranjan Balasubramanian To: Misty Wahler , Subject: Re: Origin of Music Thanks for the resposnes. I am glad I am able to communicate my ideas to someone with adequate clarity. As a follow up to the discussion, I am talking about sounds that have a structure that is repeated every time to communicate the same propositional information every time it is used( I am not talking about communicating emotions just as a dog might ). This I think must be the case because the need to communicate such information produced by the cognitive processes of each individual would have been satisfied by the easiest availble means of producing structured noise which is the vocal sounds. Therefore such a system of communication must have evolved prior to using stones for music. If this communication system qualifies as language then we could possibly argue against Language preceding Music. Niranjan From - Wed Sep 19 09:20:49 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CCS COLLOQ: TODAY, WED, SEP 19: TALMY ON SPATIAL LANGUAGE Date: 19 Sep 2001 13:14:50 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 69 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9oa5oa$mk1$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:53 Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, September 19, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm "THE REPRESENTATION OF SPATIAL STRUCTURE IN SPOKEN AND SIGNED LANGUAGES" Leonard Talmy, Ph.D. Department of Linguistics Center for Cognitive Science University at Buffalo Linguistic research to date has determined many of the factors that structure the spatial schemas found across spoken languages. It is now feasible to integrate these factors and to determine the comprehensive system they constitute for spatial structuring in spoken language. This system is characterized by several features: It has a relatively closed universally available inventory of fundamental spatial elements that are combined to form whole schemas. It has a relatively closed set of categories that these elements appear in. And it has a relatively closed small number of particular elements in each category, hence, of spatial distinctions that each category can ever mark. An examination of signed language shows that its structural representation of space systematically differs from that in spoken language in the direction of what appear to be the structural characteristics of scene parsing in visual perception. Such differences include the following: Signed language can mark finer spatial distinctions with its inventory of more structural elements, more categories, and more elements per category. It represents many more of these distinctions in any particular expression. It also represents these distinctions independently in the expression, not bundled together into "pre-packaged" schemas. And its spatial representations are largely iconic with visible spatial characteristics. The findings suggest that instead of some discrete whole-language module, spoken language and signed language are both based on some more limited core linguistic system that then connects with different further subsystems for the full functioning of the two different language modalities. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Sep 20 08:45:31 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: DOES LANGUAGE INFLUENCE THOUGHT? Date: 19 Sep 2001 20:25:40 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 12 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9oav04$7f4$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:54 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: DOES LANGUAGE INFLUENCE THOUGHT? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Earlier in the semester, someone raised the question of whether the language we speak influences the way we think. A recent survey article nicely summarizes the current state of the debate on this: Bloom, Paul, & Keil Frank C. (2001), "Thinking through Language", _Mind and Language_ 16(4): 351-367. From - Thu Sep 20 08:45:39 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloq., 9/26/01, Tjaden, UB/CDS Date: 20 Sep 2001 12:43:38 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 60 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9oco9q$qd4$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:55 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, September 26, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm "ACOUSTIC-PERCEPTUAL DISTINCTIVENESS AND COARTICULATORY PATTERNS IN DYSARTHRIA" Kristin Tjaden, Ph.D. Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences University at Buffalo The dysarthrias are a group of communicative disorders resulting from impairment to central and/or peripheral nervous system structures important for the motor execution of speech. From a functional viewpoint, speech intelligibility and naturalness may be impaired owing to reduced speed, strength, range, accuracy, and timing of speech movements in the respiratory-laryngeal, velopharyngeal, and oral articulatory mechanisms. Although a great deal of progress has been made in characterizing the speech production deficits associated with the various dysarthrias, vocal tract activity in dysarthria remains poorly understood. The current presentation focuses on oral articulatory impairments associated with Parkinson's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Multiple Sclerosis, as inferred from the acoustic speech signal. In addition to describing how these neurologic diseases affect the articulatory-acoustic working space for individuals' habitual or normal speech mode, changes in the acoustic working space associated with speech rate and vocal intensity manipulations will be discussed. The relationship between the size of the acoustic working space and auditory-perceptual impressions of speech also will be discussed as well as coarticulatory differences for individuals with dysarthria and neurologically healthy speakers. Finally, the theoretical implications of a relationship between coarticulatory patterns in dysarthria and the size of the articulatory-acoustic working space will be considered. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Sep 20 13:47:50 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CLASSICS IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY Date: 20 Sep 2001 12:57:40 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9ocp44$qog$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:56 Since we will be beginning our study of the role of psychology in cognitive science soon, you might find the following website of interest (there's a broken link to it on MITECS, but I tracked it down): Classics in the History of Psychology http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/ From - Fri Sep 21 09:12:00 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE Date: 20 Sep 2001 19:10:49 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9odevp$9rc$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:57 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The syllabus has been updated to reflect new information on CCS colloquia and 575 guest lectures; see: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/syl.html#dates From - Mon Sep 24 09:31:22 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!lucia.acsu.buffalo.edu!mbp From: Marla B Perkins Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: A Proposal Contra Lakoff Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 12:06:09 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 40 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: lucia.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: mbp Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:58 As noted in class on Thursday, George Lakoff has proposed that people speak as they do because they have the bodies that they do. His ideas mesh with his interpretation of evolutionary theory, but they have undesirable consequences: 1. They depend on evolutionary theory. 2. They assume materialism (at least to some extent--I'm not sure how far Lakoff would go with this). 3. They imply a great deal of relativism, enough that successful communication may be impossible. 4. If language is a measure of humanity and human reason, those with less-than-perfect bodies would have less-than-perfect reason and humanity; this could be used to justify all kinds of human-rights abuses, if we wanted to go that far (Lakoff probably doesn't, but one ought to be careful about the implications of one's theories). I'd like to propose a more Hobbesian solution. People talk as they do because they're obsessed with themselves. Subjectivity is likely inevitable and impossible to avoid. Under this theory, successful linguistic communication would remain possible because we all, regardless of our chances of having careers as super-models, are primarily selfish, and this wires our circuits similarly enough to make it work. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do (I wouldn't say that humans are perfect by any stretch of the imagination), the selfishness will also drive us to figure out what went wrong and make the necessary adjustments because we want everyone to share our opinions. There's a theory in communication that says that the goal of all communication is silence, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his book, _The Brothers Karamazov_ argued that militant religion is all about forcing others to share one's beliefs. Combined with the selfishness, our tendency toward being social creatures could have immense explanatory power for the type of data that Lakoff uses to support his embodiment theory. (It further occurs to me that Ayn Rand might have liked this theory.) While selfishness may not be the most desirable solution, I'll have to have a Hobbesian/Randian moment and say that it's my current favorite. From - Tue Sep 25 08:53:02 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: A Proposal Contra Lakoff Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:33:43 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 14 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BAF3637.29D02CDC@cse.buffalo.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:59 Marla B Perkins wrote: > As noted in class on Thursday, George Lakoff has proposed that people > speak as they do because they have the bodies that they do. His ideas > mesh with his interpretation of evolutionary theory, but they have > undesirable consequences: You have the makings of an interesting term paper here! Be sure to read Lakoff's Women, Fire, & Dangerous Things, if you haven't yet, in order to get Lakoff's actual theory in his own words. The reference is on the directory of documents. -Bill From - Tue Sep 25 08:53:09 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloq., Wedn. 9/26/01, Kristin Tjaden Date: 24 Sep 2001 15:07:00 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 59 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9oni6k$ltd$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:60 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, September 26, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm "ACOUSTIC-PERCEPTUAL DISTINCTIVENESS AND COARTICULATORY PATTERNS IN DYSARTHRIA" Kristin Tjaden, Ph.D. Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences University at Buffalo The dysarthrias are a group of communicative disorders resulting from impairment to central and/or peripheral nervous system structures important for the motor execution of speech. From a functional viewpoint, speech intelligibility and naturalness may be impaired owing to reduced speed, strength, range, accuracy, and timing of speech movements in the respiratory-laryngeal, velopharyngeal, and oral articulatory mechanisms. Although a great deal of progress has been made in characterizing the speech production deficits associated with the various dysarthrias, vocal tract activity in dysarthria remains poorly understood. The current presentation focuses on oral articulatory impairments associated with Parkinson's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Multiple Sclerosis, as inferred from the acoustic speech signal. In addition to describing how these neurologic diseases affect the articulatory-acoustic working space for individuals' habitual or normal speech mode, changes in the acoustic working space associated with speech rate and vocal intensity manipulations will be discussed. The relationship between the size of the acoustic working space and auditory-perceptual impressions of speech also will be discussed as well as coarticulatory differences for individuals with dysarthria and neurologically healthy speakers. Finally, the theoretical implications of a relationship between coarticulatory patterns in dysarthria and the size of the articulatory-acoustic working space will be considered. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci/html/2001_fall.htm#tjaden From - Wed Sep 26 09:20:35 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu!kochanec From: Tara R Kochanec Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: pain Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:38:32 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 13 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: kochanec Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:61 We talked in class about whether or not a computer could experience pain. I find it absurd to think that this could really happen. Afterall, humans are made up of living cells and chemicals. Computers are simply machines built to mimic human behavior. Do people really beleive that computers are capable of experiencing pain in the same way humans do? If so, then these individuals must also beleive that computers can experience other higher-level things such as consciousness provided that are given the right program. If this is the case, then computers should also be able to experience greed, a desire to control, etc. If this is the case, aren't these people who believe this is possible afraid of technological advances? This all sounds very sci-fi to me. Tara Kochanec From - Wed Sep 26 09:26:34 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!nb7 From: Niranjan Balasubramanian Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Pain Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:10:18 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 27 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: hadar.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: nb7 In-Reply-To: Originator: nb7@hadar.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:63 Assuming that the right programs for pain, consciousness and greed could be generated. Will it still suffice for the entity thus developed to break free of the inherent constraints(say finiteness of code which implies finiteness of functions that it could peroform) imposed on it by its designer. As long as this barrier remains then I believe we can realx and not worry too much about technology. Maybe the products of such high quality would still be predictable. On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Tara R Kochanec wrote: > We talked in class about whether or not a computer could experience pain. > I find it absurd to think that this could really happen. Afterall, humans > are made up of living cells and chemicals. Computers are simply machines > built to mimic human behavior. Do people really beleive that computers > are capable of experiencing pain in the same way humans do? If so, then > these individuals must also beleive that computers can experience other > higher-level things such as consciousness provided that are given the > right program. If this is the case, then computers should also be able to > experience greed, a desire to control, etc. If this is the case, aren't > these people who believe this is possible afraid of technological > advances? This all sounds very sci-fi to me. > Tara Kochanec > > From - Wed Sep 26 09:27:02 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!hercules.acsu.buffalo.edu!kochanec From: Tara R Kochanec Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Pain Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:36:38 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 45 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: hercules.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: kochanec To: Niranjan Balasubramanian In-Reply-To: Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:64 Well if there is a finiteness of code, then how can one say a computer can actually experience pain or any of these things? My point is that if cognitive scientist are willing to make claims about the potential for computers to be programmed to experience human qualities, then they must follow through with their claims. That is, if a computer can be programmed to be "conscious" based on wiring and code, then once conscious, it should become aware, and thus should be able to be escape finiteness. I agree with you that this is not plausible, which is why i think the whole idea of computers experiencing pain is not plausible either. Tara Kochanec On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Niranjan Balasubramanian wrote: > Assuming that the right programs for pain, consciousness and greed could > be generated. Will it still suffice for the entity thus developed to > break free of the inherent constraints(say finiteness of code which > implies finiteness of functions that it could peroform) imposed on it by > its designer. As long as this barrier remains then I believe we can realx and > not worry too much about technology. Maybe the products of such high > quality would still be predictable. > > > On Tue, 25 Sep > 2001, Tara R Kochanec wrote: > > > We talked in class about whether or not a computer could experience pain. > > I find it absurd to think that this could really happen. Afterall, humans > > are made up of living cells and chemicals. Computers are simply machines > > built to mimic human behavior. Do people really beleive that computers > > are capable of experiencing pain in the same way humans do? If so, then > > these individuals must also beleive that computers can experience other > > higher-level things such as consciousness provided that are given the > > right program. If this is the case, then computers should also be able to > > experience greed, a desire to control, etc. If this is the case, aren't > > these people who believe this is possible afraid of technological > > advances? This all sounds very sci-fi to me. > > Tara Kochanec > > > > > > > From - Wed Sep 26 09:35:40 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Today! CogSci Colloq., Kristin Tjade, Ph.D., Dept. of CDS, UB Date: 26 Sep 2001 13:17:45 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 62 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9oskhp$sua$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:65 TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, September 26, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm "ACOUSTIC-PERCEPTUAL DISTINCTIVENESS AND COARTICULATORY PATTERNS IN DYSARTHRIA" Kristin Tjaden, Ph.D. Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences University at Buffalo The dysarthrias are a group of communicative disorders resulting from impairment to central and/or peripheral nervous system structures important for the motor execution of speech. From a functional viewpoint, speech intelligibility and naturalness may be impaired owing to reduced speed, strength, range, accuracy, and timing of speech movements in the respiratory-laryngeal, velopharyngeal, and oral articulatory mechanisms. Although a great deal of progress has been made in characterizing the speech production deficits associated with the various dysarthrias, vocal tract activity in dysarthria remains poorly understood. The current presentation focuses on oral articulatory impairments associated with Parkinson's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Multiple Sclerosis, as inferred from the acoustic speech signal. In addition to describing how these neurologic diseases affect the articulatory-acoustic working space for individuals' habitual or normal speech mode, changes in the acoustic working space associated with speech rate and vocal intensity manipulations will be discussed. The relationship between the size of the acoustic working space and auditory-perceptual impressions of speech also will be discussed as well as coarticulatory differences for individuals with dysarthria and neurologically healthy speakers. Finally, the theoretical implications of a relationship between coarticulatory patterns in dysarthria and the size of the articulatory-acoustic working space will be considered. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Sep 26 09:36:37 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Pain Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:34:07 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 37 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BB1D94F.BC01A0A@cse.buffalo.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:68 Tara R Kochanec wrote: > Well if there is a finiteness of code, then how can one say a computer can > actually experience pain or any of these things? I'm not sure I see what finiteness of code has to do with it. Presumably, our "code" (implemented in DNA) is finite, too, and we are the clear cases of entities that can feel pain (ignoring "zombie" arguments for the moment). > My point is that if > cognitive scientist are willing to make claims about the potential > for computers to be programmed to experience human qualities, then they > must follow through with their claims. If you mean that they must try to build such entities, well, they are! For some explorations along these lines, see the work on "Cog" at MIT, and the work on emotion by Rosalind Picard @ MIT and by Aaron Sloman: On Cog: http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/cog.html On Picard: http://www.media.mit.edu/affect/ On Sloman: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/cogaff.html > That is, if a computer can be > programmed to be "conscious" based on wiring and code, then once > conscious, it should become aware, and thus should be able to be escape > finiteness. I'm not sure what you mean by "escape finiteness". However, the antecedent of your claim is difficult to establish: How would we know whether a computer is "really" conscious (or feels pain)? Because it says so? Probably not. On the other hand, how do we know whether other humans are conscious or feel pain? Because they say so? -Bill From - Wed Sep 26 09:36:51 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: pain Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:25:07 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 45 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BB1D733.B35F95DB@cse.buffalo.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:66 Tara R Kochanec wrote: > Afterall, humans > are made up of living cells and chemicals. Computers are simply machines What is the difference? (I'm not saying that there is no difference; I'm merely asking you to be more precise about what you think the difference is.) "Living" cells are just complex bundles of chemicals (and there's no such thing as "living" chemicals, of course). So, you need to clarify what you think the difference is between organic chemicals (i.e., carbon-based) and whatever it is that computers are made of. You would also need to explain why you think that the physical substance is important (rather than the functional organization, though that's a harder distinction to specify, since it's at the heart of the "qualia" issue). > Do people really beleive that computers > are capable of experiencing pain in the same way humans do? If so, then > these individuals must also beleive that computers can experience other > higher-level things such as consciousness provided that are given the > right program. If this is the case, then computers should also be able to > experience greed, a desire to control, etc. These implications seem correct to me. > If this is the case, aren't > these people who believe this is possible afraid of technological > advances? It doesn't follow that they would be afraid, but they do need to think these issues through before plunging ahead and building such devices. > This all sounds very sci-fi to me. Yup! Is that good or bad? -Bill From - Wed Sep 26 09:39:55 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!bmb From: bmb@NO.SPAM.acsu.buffalo.edu Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: pain Date: 26 Sep 2001 13:31:59 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 49 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9oslcf$t6f$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: yeager.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: bmb X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA 970625; sun4u SunOS 5.8] Originator: bmb@yeager.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:67 Greetings all, Tara R Kochanec wrote: >> We talked in class about whether or not a computer could experience >> pain. I find it absurd to think that this could really happen. >> Afterall, humans are made up of living cells and chemicals. Computers >> are simply machines built to mimic human behavior. I think the very reason I find it possible for computers to (in theory) feel pain it that humans _are_ made up of nothing but chemicals. The recipe for all life on earth can be reduced to a pretty small set of components - just 4 proteins organized in chains of genes. All the variety of life, including all our complex cognition, language, problem solving, qualia and consciousness (at least if you aren't a dualist of some flavor) is the result of particular ordering of those 4 proteins, along with exposure to a particular environment. Given that we share most of our DNA (over 90%?) with all life on earth, the stuff that makes us unique is in only 10% of our DNA. So consciousness, reasoning, language etc. don't even seem to require too big a recipe compared with eating, breathing, locomotion, reproduction, etc. (If any bio/neuroscience people find that my understanding of DNA is fundamentally flawed please tell me). Why couldn't a computer do something similar with it's limited instruction set? Particularly given the potential of genetic algorithms & ALife (along with lots of time) to develop adaptive programs. I do think that conscious robots fall into the realm of science-fiction at the moment, but then 100 years ago so did Jules Verne's nuclear submarine. > If this is the case, aren't these people who believe this is possible > afraid of technological advances? This all sounds very sci-fi to me. Some Very Smart People(tm) actually are afraid of being overtaken by technology. Stephen Hawking has proposed genetic engineering of humans inorder to stay one step ahead of the computer competition. See: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2094424,00.html Of course he's an astrophysicist not a geneticist, so he may be off his rocker about this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Breton Bienvenue e-mail: bmb@acsu.buffalo.edu Psycholinguistics Lab phone: (716) 645-3650 X377 Department of Psychology fax: (716) 645-3801 SUNY at Buffalo lab webpage: http://psychling.buffalo.edu Buffalo, NY 14260 personal webpage: http://www.buffalo.edu/~bmb -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From - Fri Sep 28 09:00:04 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!nb7 From: Niranjan Balasubramanian Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Pain Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:35:51 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 40 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <3BB1D94F.BC01A0A@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: shaula.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: nb7 In-Reply-To: <3BB1D94F.BC01A0A@cse.buffalo.edu> Originator: nb7@shaula.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:71 On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, William J Rapaport wrote: > Tara R Kochanec wrote: > > > Well if there is a finiteness of code, then how can one say a computer can > > actually experience pain or any of these things? > > I'm not sure I see what finiteness of code has to do with it. The finiteness of our DNA code restricts our functional abilities ( like say the ability to fly ( by ourselves )...). Maybe we are limited likewise in our cognitive ablities too. This may suggest the finiteness of code or the finite capabilities of the machine that implements the cognitive capabilities will enable the implementor to have a default control over the implemented cognitive fucntions. So is the set of cognitive functions that we can ever implement in a machine is always a subset of our own set of Cognitive functions? (:-)I believe that if a functional representation of the cognitive abilties can be obtained they can be implemented in any other agent. How do I refute the above arguement of finiteness ?) > I'm not sure what you mean by "escape finiteness". However, the antecedent > of your claim is difficult to establish: How would we know whether a computer > is "really" conscious (or feels pain)? Because it says so? Probably not. On the > > other hand, how do we know whether other humans are conscious or feel pain? > Because they say so? We know other humans are conscious because we know(?) we are conscious...From what we can observe about them we can assert they are conscious. But this looks like a behaviorist approach to prove consciousness. Can somebody come up with a cognitive approach to prove others are conscious too ? Niranjan From - Fri Sep 28 09:00:45 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: Prerak P Sanghvi Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Pain Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 13:31:42 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 50 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BB210FE.1060704@cse.buffalo.edu> References: <3BB1D94F.BC01A0A@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: psanghvi User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u; en-US; m18) Gecko/20010307 Netscape6/6.01 X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:72 William J Rapaport wrote: > Tara R Kochanec wrote: > > >> Well if there is a finiteness of code, then how can one say a computer can >> actually experience pain or any of these things? > > > I'm not sure I see what finiteness of code has to do with it. Presumably, > our "code" (implemented in DNA) is finite, too, and we are the clear cases > of entities that can feel pain (ignoring "zombie" arguments for the moment). Yes, I don't think experiencing pain has anything to do with finiteness. After all, in a finite amount of time, an entity can anyway only perform finite amount of functions, which, it seems, should be capable of being represented by finite amount of code! In fact, nothing about us so-called "conscious" humans is infinite at all, as far as we know! Further, this "finite" amount of code does NOT have to be predefined by a "designer". If the program is "intelligent" enough, it can generate more code by itself (which is possible even today)- probably based on its interactions or _experiences_ with the surroundings - which you might want to call "learning", and hence contribute to its own intellectual growth. Nothing sci-fi about it so far... I think what is making the idea that computers can feel pain incomprehensible is the difficulty to imagine how we would represent a thing like "pain" inside a computer - or consciousness for that matter. If the computer is built to transmit signals from sensors just like our body, and if the computer is built to process the signals in such a way that it "behaves like it is feeling pain" in every situation where we would expect it to feel pain, then we should accept that the computer is feeling pain. Of course, the standard question here is - Is the computer exhibiting pain behavior or is it just simulating pain behavior? Another reason why it seems "unbelievable" could be the fact that all of our previous experiences have shown to us that machines (which computers are) don't feel. If a Martian comes to earth, and says that it is feeling pain, we would probably believe it, because we don't have any set notions about whether Martians feel pain or not. Please bring any obvious flaws in the above to my notice.. :-) -Prerak Sanghvi From - Fri Sep 28 09:00:57 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: pain Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:38:56 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 13 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BB1DA70.D3C911D0@cse.buffalo.edu> References: <3BB1D733.B35F95DB@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:69 I wrote: > Tara R Kochanec wrote: > > > This all sounds very sci-fi to me. > > Yup! Is that good or bad? In fact, it has been SF authors, especially Isaac Asimov, who have done the most to think through the social implications of constructing robots. From - Fri Sep 28 09:01:09 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: pain Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:41:43 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 13 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BB1DB17.B62684E4@cse.buffalo.edu> References: <9oslcf$t6f$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:70 bmb@NO.SPAM.acsu.buffalo.edu wrote: > Why couldn't a computer do something similar with it's limited > instruction set? Particularly given the potential of genetic algorithms & > ALife (along with lots of time) to develop adaptive programs. On the moral implications of ALife, the best SF story I know is: Stanislaw Lem (1971), "Non Serviam," in S. Lem, _A Perfect Vacuum_, trans. by M. Kandel (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979). -Bill From - Fri Sep 28 09:01:26 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: ON THE PRIVACY OF PAIN Date: 26 Sep 2001 19:13:45 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 16 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9ot9d9$4vp$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:73 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ON THE PRIVACY OF PAIN ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. For a humorous commentary on the privacy of pain, see the updated directory of documents: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/directory.html 2. The other day, my nearly-6-year-old son, who had badly hurt his toe a few weeks ago, told me, "I know some things that you don't. Like things about me. 'Cause you're not me. I know what my toe feels like." (And he's not even taking Intro to Cog Sci :-) From - Mon Oct 1 09:34:06 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloquia, Wedn. October 3, 2001, Harry Heft, Date: 28 Sep 2001 18:36:33 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 74 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9p2fvh$osi$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:74 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 3, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "From 'Thing and Medium' to Ecological Psychology: A Tale of Two Research Programs" Harry Heft, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Dension University, Ohio In the middle decades of the 20th century, two psychologists -- James Gibson working in perception, Roger Barker working in social development - separately proposed an ecological psychology that was a radical break from standard approaches in their respective areas. Although each employed the label 'ecological psychology' to describe their contributions, their proposed programs were distinctly dissimilar from each other, both with respect to their problem focus and also with regard to their level of analysis. In keeping with these notable differences, theory and research in each program proceeded independently. And yet, in spite of their notable differences, each program embraced as one of its foundational ideas Fritz Heider's (1926) highly original analysis of 'thing and medium.' This presentation will identify some of the distinctive and significant contributions of each ecological program, examine their common ties to Heider's seminal work, and offer an integrated view of an ecological psychology that functions at both the level of individual- environment interaction and collective social processes. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu ========================================================================= Schedule for Dr. Harry Heft, Ph.D., Dept. of Psychology, Denison University, Ohio Wednesday, October 3, 2001 10:00 am - 12: pm available for meetings 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Lunch at the Tiffin Room 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm COLLOQUIUM 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm Pizza chat If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Harry Heft please send me email. If you are interested in participating at the luncheon at the Tiffin room and/or the pizza chat please also send me email. Thank you! Heike Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Oct 3 09:33:31 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: QUERIES ABOUT TERM-PROJECT PROPOSALS Date: 2 Oct 2001 17:37:03 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 72 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9pctvv$lt$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:75 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: QUERIES ABOUT TERM-PROJECT PROPOSALS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A student writes: > I was wondering what our proposals should include (how > in-depth) about our topics. i am also a little > confused about what topics we can use. i don't have > any knowledge about the computer aspects of this class. And another student writes: > I'm having difficulty deciding on a term project for cse575. > I was hoping to do the programming project option. Do you > have any suggestions or materials that give some ideas for > projects. What I'll be looking for in your proposals is evidence that you have a good idea of what it is that you will be researching and writing about. The kind of advice I expect to give you is: "this is a good project", or "this project is too vague; why don't you focus on X, Y, or Z" or "this project is too large; why don't you focus on X, Y, or Z" or I will suggest some readings that you might not have thought of, etc. You should try to include a list of articles and/or books that you will read and discuss. The proposal doesn't have to be much more than a paragraph or so, plus a bibliography, but if you have more to say, that's fine, too. Don't forget the page limitations: 10 pages (not including bibliography). You can go as high as 15 pages, if necessary, but please not longer than that (write concisely! :-). If you paper is much less than 10 pages, it will not be sufficient for a good grade! As for programming projects, there are many famous CogSci computational implementations that you could try to recreate, e.g., logic theorist, GPS, EPAM, SAM, PAM, various neural-net/connectionist programs, etc. For ideas, you might check MITECS or some intro cogsci texts such as the following: Stillings, Neil A.; Weisler, Steven E.; Chase, Christopher H.; Feinstein, Mark H.; Garfield, Jay L.; & Rissland, Edwina L. (1995), Cognitive Science: An Introduction; 2nd edition (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). SEL BF311 .C5523 1995 Luger, George F.; with Johnson, Peder; Stern, Carl; Newman, Jean E.; & Yeo, Ronald (1994), Cognitive Science: The Science of Intelligent Systems (San Diego: Academic Press). Lockwood BF311 .L84 1994 ========================================================================= If you use either of the above books from the library, please use them in the library, or borrow them for no more than a couple of days, so that other students can use them, too. ========================================================================= Sobel, C. P. (2001), The Cognitive Sciences (Mountainview, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company). This is the text for PSY 248, Intro to Cog Sci, and may still be available in the bookstore. Re-read the syllabus for more ideas on what I'm looking for, or contact me by email or during office hours if you have more questions, or just need some leads. From - Wed Oct 3 09:33:39 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: HEFT SCHEDULE Date: 3 Oct 2001 13:18:39 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 29 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9pf37f$13j$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:76 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: HEFT SCHEDULE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, October 3, 2001 ... - 10: 00am B.Smith/D.Mark 10:15am - 11:00am Meeting with Peter Hare 11:00am - 12:00pm Meeting with David Mark 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Lunch at the Tiffin Room (L.Talmy, H.Heft, D.Mark) 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm COLLOQUIUM 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm Pizza chat Ifyou are interested in participating at the luncheon at the Tiffin room and/or the pizza chat please send me email. Thank you! Heike Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Oct 3 09:33:45 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: HEFT COLLOQUIUM TODAY (WED OCT 3) Date: 3 Oct 2001 13:21:53 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 74 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9pf3dh$19f$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:77 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: HEFT COLLOQUIUM TODAY (WED OCT 3) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 3, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "From 'Thing and Medium' to Ecological Psychology: A Tale of Two Research Programs" Harry Heft, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Dension University, Ohio In the middle decades of the 20th century, two psychologists -- James Gibson working in perception, Roger Barker working in social development - separately proposed an ecological psychology that was a radical break from standard approaches in their respective areas. Although each employed the label 'ecological psychology' to describe their contributions, their proposed programs were distinctly dissimilar from each other, both with respect to their problem focus and also with regard to their level of analysis. In keeping with these notable differences, theory and research in each program proceeded independently. And yet, in spite of their notable differences, each program embraced as one of its foundational ideas Fritz Heider's (1926) highly original analysis of 'thing and medium.' This presentation will identify some of the distinctive and significant contributions of each ecological program, examine their common ties to Heider's seminal work, and offer an integrated view of an ecological psychology that functions at both the level of individual- environment interaction and collective social processes. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Oct 4 09:23:04 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloquium, 10/10/01, Robert Van Gulick Philosophy, Syracuse Date: 4 Oct 2001 13:05:36 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 67 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9phmr0$8sv$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:83 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 10, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Robert Van Gulick, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy Syracuse University "Maps, Gaps, and Traps: Metaphors for Understanding Consciousness" The metaphors we use to talk about the problem of consciousness can both illuminate and restrict our understanding. They can reveal otherwise hidden aspects, or blind us to things outside their perspective. The much invoked metaphor of the "explanatory gap" - first coined by Joe Levine - provides a good case study (others might include Chalmer's Hard Problem/ Easy Problem distinction, or Nagel's equation of being a conscious x with "there being something that it's like to be an x".) The gap metaphor is both powerful but ambiguous in ways that can lead us astray if we do not can take care. I will explore the metaphor and its many meanings, in hope to dispel confusion and foster greater understanding of the mind/matter basis of consciousness. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Tue Oct 9 09:23:08 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: "EXTENDED ABSTRACT" Date: 8 Oct 2001 19:11:06 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 31 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9pstoa$oc4$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:84 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: "EXTENDED ABSTRACT" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A student writes: > Could you give me some clear guidelines for what is meant by an > 'extended' abstract? How long is extended? I haven't gathered all the > references for my paper as of yet, so can the list of references be less > than the final paper's? In the world of conference submissions, an abstract is a paragraph-length summar of what the paper is about, while the full paper is, of course, the full paper. Intermediate between those 2 extremes is something called the "extended abstract", which can be seen either as a longer version of the abstract or as a shorter version of the full paper; it can also be seen as a proposal for what you plan to do. As for length, I'd suggest aiming for somewhere between a paragraph (maybe about 100 words, or 1/2 a page) and the full 10-page paper (which would suggest that an extended abstract might be about 5 pages :-) I know that's vague, so if you're still not sure, do the following: Write something that you think will convey to me what your final paper will be about. If I need more info or if I think you need to refine things a bit, I'll let you know. As for references, yes, the list of references in the proposal can not only be shorter, but also longer, or merely overlap, the final list of references. My experience is that the references in the proposal is usually *longer* than the final list. From - Tue Oct 9 09:23:15 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloquium, Robert VanGulick, Philosophy, Syracuse Date: 9 Oct 2001 13:17:43 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 66 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9putdn$p2o$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:85 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 10, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Robert Van Gulick, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy Syracuse University "Maps, Gaps, and Traps: Metaphors for Understanding Consciousness"" The metaphors we use to talk about the problem of consciousness can both illuminate and restrict our understanding. They can reveal otherwise hidden aspects, or blind us to things outside their perspective. The much invoked metaphor of the "explanatory gap" - first coined by Joe Levine - provides a good case study (others might include Chalmer's Hard Problem/ Easy Problem distinction, or Nagel's equation of being a conscious x with "there being something that it's like to be an x".) The gap metaphor is both powerful but ambiguous in ways that can lead us astray if we do not can take care. I will explore the metaphor and its many meanings, in hope to dispel confusion and foster greater understanding of the mind/matter basis of consciousness. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Oct 10 09:05:39 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: SHADOWS Date: 9 Oct 2001 16:43:44 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 48 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9pv9g0$rc$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:86 Roberto Casati (Institut Nicod, Paris; UB) "The Discovery of the Shadow" 210 O'Brian Hall (next to Park and Baldy) Thursday October 11, 3 PM Note time and place. UB North (Amherst) Campus Roberto Casati is a frequent visitor to UB, working with Park Professor Barry Smith, among others. He is the author of Holes and Other Superficialities with Achille Varzi (1995), Parts and Places: The Structures of Spatial Representation, with A. Varzi (1999), and the extremely well reviewed The Discovery of the Shadow: The Fascinating Career of a Mysterious Phenomenon in German (2001) forthcoming in English as The Discovery of the Shadow. Shadows are something we learn about ourselves in childhood, and few of us have not been struck by some unusual characteristics of shadows: they have an umbra (dark) and a penumbra (gray) area, they are (metaphysically) dependent on the existence of an opaque object and a light source, and they are flat (two-dimensional, lacking depth). More mysterious still, they look as if they were something and we can see and talk about them as objects. But they are not constituted from matter, nor even from photons or some other particle. They are, or are due to, absences of reflected light on a surface. In this respect they are entities like holes-another part of Dr. Casati's previous work, Holes and Other Superficialities with Achille Varzi (1995). Kevin Mulligan Achille Varzi used the name Entia minora (Minor Entities) for such fascinating 'things." Dr. Casati will talk about the history of theories about shadows, and about the metaphysical nature of shadows: What exactly are they? Upcoming talks: 16 Oct Catherine McKeen (SUNY College Brockport), Aristotle's Metaphysics Park Hall 141 1-2:50 (Prof. Yu's Aristotle Graduate Seminar) 8 Nov Graduate Student Conference: Assessing the Age of Analysis Center for Inquiry. See website below. 9-10 Nov Peirce Professorship Conference: Assessing the Age of Analysis. Speakers: Nicholas Capaldi, Randall R. Dipert, Peter Hare, Wybo Houkes, Peter Hylton, Joseph Margolis, Jennifer Nagel, Barry Smith, Avrum Stroll. Center for Inquiry, Sweet Home Rd. Website: www.neologic.net/ub From - Wed Oct 10 09:05:45 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: JOURNAL OF CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES Date: 9 Oct 2001 16:53:12 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 18 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9pva1o$12s$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:87 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: JOURNAL OF CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------- An interesting cogsci journal that might interest some of you is: Journal of Consciousness Studies which self-describes itself as being for people interested in: How does the mind relate to the brain? Can computers ever be conscious? What do we mean by subjectivity and the self? You can visit their website at: http://www.imprint-academic.com/jcs From - Wed Oct 10 09:05:51 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: REFERENCES ON COGNITIVE GEOGRAPHY Date: 10 Oct 2001 13:00:36 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9q1gpk$5sg$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:88 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: REFERENCES ON COGNITIVE GEOGRAPHY ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some references to work on cognitive geography, supplied by David Mark, are now available on the Directory of Documents at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/directory.html From - Thu Oct 11 08:54:38 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloq., Robert Van Gulick,Philosophy, Syracuse Date: 10 Oct 2001 14:58:43 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 69 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9q1nn3$8qi$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:89 Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 10, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Robert Van Gulick, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy Syracuse University "Maps, Gaps, and Traps: Metaphors for Understanding Consciousness"" The metaphors we use to talk about the problem of consciousness can both illuminate and restrict our understanding. They can reveal otherwise hidden aspects, or blind us to things outside their perspective. The much invoked metaphor of the "explanatory gap" - first coined by Joe Levine - provides a good case study (others might include Chalmer's Hard Problem/ Easy Problem distinction, or Nagel's equation of being a conscious x with "there being something that it's like to be an x".) The gap metaphor is both powerful but ambiguous in ways that can lead us astray if we do not can take care. I will explore the metaphor and its many meanings, in hope to dispel confusion and foster greater understanding of the mind/matter basis of consciousness. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Oct 11 08:54:44 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Van Gulick Schedule Date: 10 Oct 2001 14:59:49 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 25 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9q1np5$8r3$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:90 Robert Van Gulick Schedule for Wednesday, October 10, 2001 11:30am Arrival 12 noon Lunch in the Tiffin Room 2pm - 4pm COLLOQUIUM 4:30pm - ? Pizza chat If you want to participate in the lunch and/or the pizza chat please send me email at hhjones.buffalo.edu. Thank you! Heike Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Oct 11 08:54:52 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: DAVID SMITH ON UNCERTAINTY Date: 10 Oct 2001 15:41:59 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9q1q87$a06$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:91 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: DAVID SMITH ON UNCERTAINTY ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've added some references (including one online) to David Smith's work on the "uncertainty response" to the directory of documents at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/directory.html From - Fri Oct 12 10:36:14 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: GRADING CRITERIA FOR TERM PROJECTS Date: 12 Oct 2001 13:09:50 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 10 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9q6q2u$7l0$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:92 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: GRADING CRITERIA FOR TERM PROJECTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I added to the directory of documents a list of grading criteria for the term projects. Or see the following website directly: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/grading.criteria.html From - Mon Oct 15 12:21:25 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: WRITING GUIDELINES Date: 12 Oct 2001 18:07:28 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 12 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9q7bh0$ft7$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:93 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: WRITING GUIDELINES ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A reminder for those of you writing term projects: All programming and research reports must follow my on-line writing guidelines, at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/typing.info.pdf From - Mon Oct 15 12:21:35 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloq., Tamar Gendler, Philosophy, Syracuse Date: 15 Oct 2001 16:18:44 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 81 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qf294$4tg$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:94 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 17, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Tamar Gendler, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy Syracuse University "Philosophical Implications of Research on Childhood Pretense" Recent empirical research concerning children's games of pretense seems to show that they are marked by the presence of two central features, which I call quarantining' and 'fertility'. Quarantining is manifest to the extent that causes within the pretense-episode are taken to have effects only within the pretense-episode (so, for example, the child does not expect the table really to be wet if the child "spills the tea"). Fertility is manifest the extent that features of the imaginary situation that have not been explicitly stipulated are derivable via features of their real-world analogues (so, for example, the child does expect the table to be wet in the pretence if she up-ends the teapot above its surface). At the same time, from the same early age, it seems that both quarantining and fertility are constrained in crucial ways. Quarantining gives way to 'contagion' in cases of affect-laden imagination (so, for example, a child who imagines a bear on the staircase may be reluctant to go upstairs alone). And fertility gives way to 'unproductivity' as a result of the fundamental incompleteness of the imaginary (so, for example, there may be no fact of the matter (in the pretence) just how much "tea" there is left in the teapot). Exactly when and how these constraints relate to the principles to which they are exceptions raises complicated and interesting questions. In my talk, I will present these distinctions in light of recent empirical research, and discuss some of their implications for a number of issues of current philosophical discussion in epistemology, aesthetics and the philosophy of mind. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Mon Oct 15 12:21:51 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Schedule for Tamar Gendler for Wednesday, October 17, 2001 Date: 15 Oct 2001 16:20:24 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 25 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qf2c8$4ue$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:95 Subject: Schedule for Tamar Gendler for Wednesday, October 17, 2001 Arrival 12:00pm Lunch in the Tiffin Room 2:00pm -4:00pm COLLOQUIUM 4:30pm - ? Coffee Chat in the CogSci Library with Dr. Gendler If you are interested in joining Dr. Gendler for lunch and/or would like to participate in the Coffee Chat in the CogSci Library please send email to hhjones@buffalo.edu Thank you Heike Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Mon Oct 15 16:23:28 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: MITECS DOWN, OCT. 16 Date: 15 Oct 2001 19:59:55 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 25 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qff7r$bcs$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: MITECS DOWN, OCT. 16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The server that MITECS resides on will be down tomorrow, Oct. 16; see the following notice for details. ========================================================================= As part of a series of major site and service upgrades this fall, the CogNet server is being moved to a new and more appropriate location. The physical move is planned for October 16th, 2001, between the hours of 6:00 pm and 10:00pm EST. During these hours, the server will be unavailable, but we will be working to ensure as short as possible a down time. If you notice irregularities or other access problems in the lead in time period, please be patient. We are confident that the outcome of this move will ensure a much more effective and efficient service for CogNet members. We expect everything to be back up and functioning by 10pm, EST. If you have any additional questions, please emai to CogNetAdmin@cognet.mit.edu From - Mon Oct 15 16:23:37 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: QUERY ABOUT COMMUNICATION AS A COG SCI Date: 15 Oct 2001 20:20:48 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 45 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qfgf0$c08$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: QUERY ABOUT COMMUNICATION AS A COG SCI ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A student writes: > I have a question for you -- why isn't the field of communication considered > a part of the cognitive sciences? Communication is defined as: > > Communication: "to provide the student with a comprehensive knowledge of the > nature of human communication, the symbol system by which it occurs, its > media, and its effects." > > It would seem to me this would fit into the cognitive sciences, no? > > Curious to hear your thoughts. There are actually (at least) 2 questions here: 1. Why isn't the field of communication generally considered to be one of the cognitive sciences? Simply as a matter of historical fact, it hasn't been so considered. Classically, the "core" cogsci disciplines are AI, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and the cognitive neurosciences, with maybe parts of anthropology. The historical question can best be answered by reading a good history of cogsci, such as Gardner's book (see the course website) or the intro in the Companion text. I don't know the early history of communication as an academic discipline; maybe it's not old enough to have been there at the beginning? 2. Why isn't our Dept. of Communication more involved in CogSci here at UB? A few COM faculty have been involved, notably Joe Woelfel, but it may be that many of the COM faculty haven't been doing research that is cogsci related (just as many PSY faculty don't), or perhaps the geographic barrier of being located in Ellicott has something to do with it. For what it's worth, some former-SILS faculty are members, e.g., Corinne Jorgensen. On the other hand... English is not typically considered to be one of the cognitive sciences, yet our department has historically been closely involved in cogsci, with a couple of faculty members (Swan, Bunn) and at least one PhD dissertation in cogsci (Mary Galbraith). From - Mon Oct 15 16:23:45 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: COGNITIVE SOCIAL SCIENCE Date: 15 Oct 2001 20:22:51 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qfgir$c4v$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:98 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: COGNITIVE SOCIAL SCIENCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From the Chronicle of Higher Education -- Toward the Founding of Cognitive Social Science http://chronicle.com/search97cgi/s97_cgi?action=View&VdkVgwKey=%2Fprivate%2Fusers%2Fche%2Fhtdocs%2Fweekly%2Fv48%2Fi06%2F06b01101%2Ehtm&DocOffset=1&DocsFound=19&QueryZip=cognitive+science&Collection=Weekly48&Collection=Weekly47&Collection=DailyNews2001&Collection=MagReader2001&Collection=CareerNetwork&SortField=score&SortOrder=desc&ViewTemplate=ArchiveView%5Fnew%2Ehts& From - Wed Oct 17 08:55:51 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: LOGICAL ILLUSIONS Date: 16 Oct 2001 18:58:42 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qi012$m85$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:99 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: LOGICAL ILLUSIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the promised analysis of Johnson-Laird's logical illusion, see: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/logical.illusion.html From - Wed Oct 17 08:55:57 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: TODAY! CogSci Colloq., Tamar Gendler, Philosophy, Syracuse Date: 17 Oct 2001 12:54:13 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 82 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qjv1l$puj$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:100 TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 17, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Tamar Gendler, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy Syracuse University "Philosophical Implications of Research on Childhood Pretense" Recent empirical research concerning children's games of pretense seems to show that they are marked by the presence of two central features, which I call quarantining' and 'fertility'. Quarantining is manifest to the extent that causes within the pretense-episode are taken to have effects only within the pretense-episode (so, for example, the child does not expect the table really to be wet if the child "spills the tea"). Fertility is manifest the extent that features of the imaginary situation that have not been explicitly stipulated are derivable via features of their real-world analogues (so, for example, the child does expect the table to be wet in the pretence if she up-ends the teapot above its surface). At the same time, from the same early age, it seems that both quarantining and fertility are constrained in crucial ways. Quarantining gives way to 'contagion' in cases of affect-laden imagination (so, for example, a child who imagines a bear on the staircase may be reluctant to go upstairs alone). And fertility gives way to 'unproductivity' as a result of the fundamental incompleteness of the imaginary (so, for example, there may be no fact of the matter (in the pretence) just how much "tea" there is left in the teapot). Exactly when and how these constraints relate to the principles to which they are exceptions raises complicated and interesting questions. In my talk, I will present these distinctions in light of recent empirical research, and discuss some of their implications for a number of issues of current philosophical discussion in epistemology, aesthetics and the philosophy of mind. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Oct 17 08:56:04 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Schedule for Tamar Gendler for Wednesday, October 17, 2001 Date: 17 Oct 2001 12:55:07 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 28 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qjv3b$pv1$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:101 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Schedule for Tamar Gendler for Wednesday, October 17, 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arrival 12:15pm Lunch in the Tiffin Room 2:00pm -4:00pm COLLOQUIUM 4:30pm - ? Coffee Chat in the CogSci Library with Dr. Gendler If you are interested in joining Dr. Gendler for lunch and/or would like to participate in the Coffee Chat in the CogSci Library please send email to hhjones@buffalo.edu Thank you Heike Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Oct 18 13:06:34 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: QUERY ON GENDLER & CHILDREN'S PRETENSE Date: 18 Oct 2001 13:21:37 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 35 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qml11$gut$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:102 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: QUERY ON GENDLER & CHILDREN'S PRETENSE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A student writes: > I was thinking about the colloquium talk and I was wondering about the > idea of pictures as a form of pretense. One audience member didn't think > looking at a picture was pretending anything, but what about certain > pictures which are not meant to be reality? Specifically, I was thinking > about magazine ads and pictures which portray people (especially women:) > as something they are really not. Would this be a better example of a > picture as pretense, or would you have to split pictures into two > categories, such as magazine-ad-type pictures which portray fake > situations and "real" pictures, such as a picture taken at a real-life > event where the people in it are being themselves? Or is the content or > situation of the picture irrelevant, and we just imagine the objects that > the picture represents when we look at it? In that case, there would be > two different layers of pretense when it comes to pictures, one layer > would be imagining the objects and the second would be imagining the > situation the objects (or people) are in. Does this sound right? First, I think you should send your query to Gendler! (Her email address should be available from the link with her name on our class syllabus.) Second, I quite agree with your first point. As you may recall, I was the one who raised the issue about children learning about reality from pretense. It was Erwin Segal, from UB Pschology, who suggested that pictures weren't pretense, and Gendler also used pictures of dinosaurs, presumably realistic pictures of once-real things. On the other hand, what I had in mind included very non-realistic "pretend" things, such as stuffed animals, cartoon animal characters, etc., and it seems plausible that your examples would fit into the same category. In both cases, people seem to transfer properties of the pretend thing to the real thing; in my cases, these properties do apply to the real thing, whereas in your cases, if I understand you, they don't. From - Thu Oct 18 13:06:46 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: WHAT IS COMPUTATION? Date: 18 Oct 2001 14:21:21 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qmoh1$ijv$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:103 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: WHAT IS COMPUTATION? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- My web document on "What Is Computation?" has been revised and updated. The new version is at the old link: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/computation.html From - Thu Oct 18 13:07:06 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: TERM PAPER PROPOSALS Date: 18 Oct 2001 16:41:29 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 13 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qn0np$mgd$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:104 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: TERM PAPER PROPOSALS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't forget to read the Term Project Guidelines on the web at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/term.project.guidelines.html And for those of you who need to submit new or revised proposals, please remember that they are due on Tuesday, Oct. 23. No term papers will be accepted whose proposals have not been approved. From - Fri Oct 19 09:26:08 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: MEMORY AND COGNITION IN ZOO PRIMATES Date: 19 Oct 2001 13:20:03 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 69 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9qp9a3$3al$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:105 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 24, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Suzanne MacDonald, Ph.D. Department of Psychology York University, Toronto, Canada STUDYING MEMORY AND COGNITION IN ZOO PRIMATES: REWARDS AND CHALLENGES" Exploring memory and cognition in nonhuman primates has traditionally been done in laboratory situations. While labs offer great experimental control, the range of species that can be studied is limited. Zoo animals offer a unique opportunity to examine cognitive processes in a wide variety of species. In this talk, I will focus on my research with prosimians, New and Old World monkeys, and Great Apes. I'll discuss my findings on spatial memory and foraging strategies, as well as my current work on abstract concept discrimination, communication, and social cognition. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu About the presenter: Suzanne MacDonald spealizes in animal learning and behavior. Her teaching interests lie in the area of animal behavior and cognition. Her research interests focus on animal thinking, especially in primate species. Since 1993, Dr. MacDonald has served as the (volunteer) Behaviorist at the Toronto Zoo. She and her group of graduate students do research focused on the reproduction and conservation of endangered species (ranging from black-footed ferrets to rhinos), and on environmental enrichment for zoo animals. In addition, Dr. MacDonald writes and hosts a regular segment on animal behavior ("Animal Talk") for the Discovery Channel. Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3795 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Oct 24 12:41:54 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: MEMORY AND COGNITION IN ZOO PRIMATES Date: 24 Oct 2001 16:41:22 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 74 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9r6qvi$ddj$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:106 TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 24, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Suzanne MacDonald, Ph.D. Department of Psychology York University, Toronto, Canada STUDYING MEMORY AND COGNITION IN ZOO PRIMATES: REWARDS AND CHALLENGES" Exploring memory and cognition in nonhuman primates has traditionally been done in laboratory situations. While labs offer great experimental control, the range of species that can be studied is limited. Zoo animals offer a unique opportunity to examine cognitive processes in a wide variety of species. In this talk, I will focus on my research with prosimians, New and Old World monkeys, and Great Apes. I'll discuss my findings on spatial memory and foraging strategies, as well as my current work on abstract concept discrimination, communication, and social cognition. About the presenter: Suzanne MacDonald spealizes in animal learning and behavior. Her teaching interests lie in the area of animal behavior and cognition. Her research interests focus on animal thinking, especially in primate species. Since 1993, Dr. MacDonald has served as the (volunteer) Behaviorist at the Toronto Zoo. She and her group of graduate students do research focused on the reproduction and conservation of endangered species (ranging from black-footed ferrets to rhinos), and on environmental enrichment for zoo animals. In addition, Dr. MacDonald writes and hosts a regular segment on animal behavior ("Animal Talk") for the Discovery Channel. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. Subject: Schedule for Suzanne MacDonald for Wednesday 10/24/01 Arrival at around 1pm 2:00pm COLLOQUIUM 4:30pm - ? Pizza chat in the CogSci library. If you want to participate in the pizza chat please send me email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Thank you! Heike Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3794 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Oct 25 14:41:00 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: DEVELOPMENTAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Date: 25 Oct 2001 18:33:23 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 29 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9r9ltj$11u$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:107 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: DEVELOPMENTAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: CogNews@cognet.mit.edu Subject: New Reference Work Added to CogNet Library Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 16:51:25 GMT MIT CogNet is pleased to announce that a major new reference work -- Nelson and Luciana's "Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience" -- has been added to the library collection. Fully integrated with the CogNet search engine, the handbook contains forty-one original contributions exploring basic aspects of neural development, sensory and sensorimotor systems, language, cognition, and emotion. Aided by recent results in neurobiology establishing that the human brain remains malleable and plastic throughout much of the lifespan, the contributors also explore the implications of lifelong neural plasticity for brain and behavioral development. The Handbook can be viewed at: http://cognet.mit.edu/Books/Nelson/index.adp The CogNet Team From - Thu Oct 25 14:45:56 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: MIDSEMESTER COURSE EVALUATION Date: 25 Oct 2001 18:40:30 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 127 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9r9mau$14k$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:108 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: MIDSEMESTER COURSE EVALUATION ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for your comments. For the most part, you seem happy with the course but have a few suggestions for improvement, which I'll comment on below. If, at any time, you have other suggestions for improvement, please let me know. ========================================================================= 1. One set of issues concerned making more time for class discussions, perhaps by my using prepared slides more and the blackboard less, thus freeing us up to allow for more time to talk. I think there are two separate, though related, issues here. The easiest way to get more class discussion is for you, the students, to initiate it. Have a question? Raise your hand! Think my reply is inadequate? Say so! Embarrased to speak in class? Don't be, but if you really are, post something to the newsgroup and we can have the discussion there. Basically, I don't think that we lack *time* for discussion. Although the syllabus lists a number of topics I'd like to talk about this semester, it's my syllabus, not anyone else's, so if we talk a lot and as a consequence don't cover everything, so be it. Would my using prepared slides instead of writing on the board save any time? Maybe, but I doubt it would save so much that we could have a good discussion in that amount of time. In principle, I don't like using prepared slides in a course: They tend to put students to sleep. Students need to be active in class, not passively listening and passively watching. One good way to be active is to take notes, but it's a lot easier to take notes if the instructor is also writing at the same time the student is; otherwise, the student has to rush to finish copying the slide before the instructor goes on to the next one. And, yes, I could post the slides to the website, but then you'd just be passive watchers again. On the other hand, if my handwriting is not large enough to see or clear enough to read, let me know. I could try writing on the overhead, but my experience with that is pretty poor: I like to move around, but that's hard to do when you're stuck in front of the overhead projector. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Some of you want to learn more about X, where X = neuroscience, connectionism, embodied cognition, etc., etc. Some of you think I'm spending too much time on Y, where Y = AI or philosophy, or .... Some of you think I'm spending too *little* time on Y, where Y = the same topics that others think I'm spending too much time on. Well, it's hard to please all the people all the time. Each instructor of this course in the past has come from a different discipline, and each tends to emphasize his or her own discipline; after all, that's what each of us knows best. I admit that I have been staying away from neuroscience, connectionism, and embodied cognition, because, as I have said in lecture, these are not my areas; I know as much about them as you do, possibly less. That's why I've encouraged those of you who want to learn more about them to investigate them for your term paper. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Many of you would like to see more guest lecturers, or have each guest give 2 presentations. Interesting! This semester we'll have 6 guest lecturers (I had invited a few more, but they couldn't make it). The last time I taught this course, I had about 4 times that many guest lecturers, and the chief complaint I had was that there were too many, and not enough time for discussion. So, next time, I'll aim for a few more, but not as many as the previous time :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Some of you would like more discussion of various cognitive abilities from the viewpoints of multiple disciplines. That's an interesting idea. What we will be doing a bit later that may go some way towards satisfying this desire is to look at some interdisciplinary cognitive science projects where multiple disciplines are being brought to bear on a single topic. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. One issue some of you pointed out was the difficulty of trying to read papers from so many different disciplines with different styles of doing research and of writing it up. Yup! That's a problem, and not just for you; it's a problem for real, practicing cognitive scientists. But I do have a general suggestion for how to overcome this, based on my own experience when I began my graduate career in philosophy after an undergraduate career as a mathematician: I didn't know how to read philosophy. But I did know how to read math, so I tried applying my mathematical reading tactics to philosophy. And it worked! So let me share it with you (some of you may have already heard me say this in other courses): Read s-l-o-w-l-y. In particular, read one sentence, make sure you understand it, and don't go on to the next sentence until you have thoroughly understood the current one. (For an algorithm that spells this out, see: .) Of course, this may not help if you're reading, say, a psychology paper that is heavy on statistics and you know no statistics. But it works pretty well in general. And when you still don't understand something after reading it slowly and asking someone from that discipline to explain it, then perhaps what you've read really makes no sense, or perhaps it could be the starting point for your own research. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. A few of you were not happy with the fact that your course grade depends only on one thing: the term paper. Well, it doesn't depend entirely on the term paper. As the syllabus says: "Your final course grade will be a weighted average (probably 50-50) of (1) your class attendance and participation, and (2) your grade on the project. What this means, essentially, is that if you attend virtually all classes and actively participate (which, so far, is true of most of you), then your "class" grade will be A. So your final grade will be the average of your project grade and A. I have posted the criteria I will use to grade your project (at http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/grading.criteria.html). This is one reason I insist on an approved term-project topic before you begin, so that your final paper has a real chance of being worth an A. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From - Thu Oct 25 14:46:17 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: DEVELOPMENTAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 14:44:38 -0400 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 16 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BD85D96.74470044@cse.buffalo.edu> References: <9r9ltj$11u$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:109 "William J. Rapaport" wrote: > > The Handbook can be viewed at: > > http://cognet.mit.edu/Books/Nelson/index.adp Well, I must apologize for this tantalizing posting. I had assumed that those of us with subscriptions to MITECS would have access to this, but when I linked here, I found that last year it had been changed to a fee-only basis. I haven't paid (and don't plan to). However, MITECS is *still* available (because I *did* pay for that :-) From - Fri Oct 26 09:16:08 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!mmwahler From: Misty Wahler Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: AARON website Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 18:02:37 -0400 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 10 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Originator: mmwahler@pollux.cse.Buffalo.EDU Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:110 If anyone is interested in the AARON program, I found a good website for it: http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/ You can download the screen saver, or if you don't feel like it you can watch AARON paint right on the web:) It also has a screen saver that writes poetry! From - Fri Oct 26 11:18:02 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: REORGANIZATION OF DIRECTORY OF DOCUMENTS Date: 26 Oct 2001 13:25:08 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 30 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rbo7k$977$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:111 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: NEW DIRECTORY OF DOCUMENTS; AARON; OTHER A.I. TOPICS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The Directory of Documents has become a bit cluttered, so I've cleaned it up a bit, reorganizing it. All the old info is still available; hopefully, it'll all be a bit easier to find. Check it out at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/directory.html 2. And thanks, Misty, for finding the Aaron link! You folks might also find the following website on Aaron of interest: "Aaron: Art from the Machine", by Mark K. Anderson http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,43685,00.html 3. For more information on various topics in AI, see: AI Topics http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/aitopics.html which is sponsored by the AAAI: American Assoc. for A.I. E.g., links on "creativity" can be found at: http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/create.html From - Tue Oct 30 09:57:28 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Cogsci Colloquium, Wedn., October 31, K. Nicholas Leibovic, Date: 29 Oct 2001 16:15:30 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 52 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rjvb2$b2v$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:112 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 31, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "BRAIN AND VISION" K. Nicholas Leibovic, Ph.D. Department of Biophysical Sciences University at Buffalo Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3794 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Tue Oct 30 09:57:45 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Linguistics Colloquium this Fri Date: 30 Oct 2001 14:22:48 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 97 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rmd3o$4h4$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:113 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Linguistics Colloquium this Fri ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 13:35:10 -0500 (EST) From: Breton M Bienvenue Subject: Linguistics Colloquium this Fri Greetings, we haven't gotten to linguistics yet in the 575 class, but people might still find this interesting... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Breton Bienvenue e-mail: bmb@acsu.buffalo.edu Psycholinguistics Lab phone: (716) 645-3650 X377 Department of Psychology fax: (716) 645-3801 SUNY at Buffalo lab webpage: http://psychling.buffalo.edu Buffalo, NY 14260 personal webpage: http://www.buffalo.edu/~bmb -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 08:52:58 -0500 From: Colleen M. Fitzgerald To: UB-LING@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Linguistics Colloquium this Fri This Friday, Ted Gibson (MIT) will speak on "Resource demands and sentence complexity" at 3 pm in Baldy 684. A reception will follow. We also expect to have a dinner outing and a pizza lunch on Friday with Prof. Gibson. The abstract for the talk appears below. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Resource demands and sentence complexity Edward Gibson Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department of Linguistics and Philosophy MIT Why is sentence (1) so much harder to understand than sentence (2)? (1) The student who the professor who the scientist collaborated with had advised copied the article. (2) The scientist collaborated with the professor who had advised the student who copied the article. The two sentences mean the same thing, yet (1) is far more complicated than (2). In this presentation, I will present evidence from my lab for three independent factors in sentence complexity at play in sentences like (1) and (2): 1. Integration distance between syntactic dependents. The processing cost of integrating a new word w is shown to be proportional to the distance between w and the syntactic head to which w is being integrated. The syntactic dependents in (1) are generally much further apart than they are in (2), making (1) more complex. 2. Syntactic storage in terms of the number partially processed syntactic dependents. Our evidence suggests that complexity increases as the number of predicted syntactic dependents increases. This factor also predicts greater complexity for (1) relative to (2). 3. Information flow. Background information (such as the information in a restrictive relative clause) is comprehended more easily early in a sentence. In contrast to the other two factors, this factor makes the relative clause in (1) easier to understand than the relative clause in (2). Evidence for these three factors will be provided in the form of reading times and comprehension questionnaires across a variety of English materials. -- ************************************************************************ Colleen M. Fitzgerald, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Dept. of Linguistics 609 Baldy Hall University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo, NY 14260-1030 Email: cfitz@acsu.buffalo.edu Telephone: (716) 645-2177 ext. 727 Fax: (716) 645-3825 http://wings.buffalo.edu/linguistics/fitzgerald/ From - Tue Oct 30 09:57:56 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: INVERTED SPECTRUM Date: 30 Oct 2001 14:31:34 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 69 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rmdk6$4pr$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:114 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: INVERTED SPECTRUM ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few of you, including at least one student whose term paper is on this topic, have expressed interest in the inverted spectrum problem. There's an interesting paper on the web: Cole, David, "Inverted Spectrum Arguments" http://www.d.umn.edu/~dcole/inverted_spectrum.htm that unfortunately lacks a bibliography. I wrote to Cole, and he sent me this information: To: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: Inverted Spectrum Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 13:59:28 -0600 (CST) From: dcole@d.umn.edu Hi Bill, Glad to see others are thinking about inverted spectra. The classic source is is Locke's Essay. I have been meaning to look at a paper by David Lewis (something like "Mad Pain and Martian Pain") where I believe he discusses the same scenario I disucss in my paper - inverted pain-pleasure sensations. (In my paper I call this the "hedonic spectrum", and argue its inversion does not make sense.) Sydney Shoemaker has some thoughtful (as usual) papers on the spectrum inversion. Check also David Chalmer's big bibliography (online at his home page). Otherwise, here are some things I found useful on inverted spectrum: Block, N. 1990 “Inverted Earth” in Philosophical Persepectives, Vol 4. J. Tomberlin (ed) Ridgeview Publishing; reprinted in Block, Flanagan and Guzeldere 1997 BFG: Block, N., O. Flanagan and G. Guzeldere (eds) 1997 The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates. MIT Press Carruthers, P. 1996 Language, thought and Consciousness . Cambridge University Press Chalmers, D. 1997 The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford University Press Cole, D. 1990 “Functionalism and Inverted Spectra” Synthese 82, 207-220 Dretske, F. 1995 Naturalizing the Mind. Bradford Books, MIT Press Edelman, G. and G. Tononi 2000 A Universe of Consciousness. Basic Books Guzeldere, G. 1995 “Is consciousness the perception of what passes in one’s own mind?” in T. Metzinger (ed). Conscious Experience. Schoeningh-Verlag; reprinted in Block, Flanagan and Guzeldere 1997 Kosslyn, S. and O. Koenig 1995 Wet Mind: the New Cognitive Neuroscience. The Free Press, Simon and Schuster Lycan, W. 1996 Consciousness and Experience. MIT Press Rosenthal, D. 1990, 1997 “A Theory of Consciousness” Zif Technical Report, Bielfield Germany, adapted in Block, Flanagan and Guzeldere 1997 Weiskrantz, L. 1986 Blindsight: A Case Study and Implications. Oxford University Press From - Tue Oct 30 13:04:57 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: ARTIFICIAL LIFE ("ALIFE") Date: 30 Oct 2001 15:13:24 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rmg2k$5st$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:115 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ARTIFICIAL LIFE ("ALIFE") ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have added some references on Artificial Life ("ALife") to the Directory of Documents: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/directory.html From - Tue Oct 30 13:05:40 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!callisto.acsu.buffalo.edu!kochanec From: Tara R Kochanec Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: semantic networks Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 12:40:22 -0500 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 19 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: callisto.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: kochanec Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:116 I just thought i would mention that Collins and Quillian's model of semantic networking is generally discounted in cognitive psychology for several reasons. The network fails to account for the typicality effect for example---the sentence "robin is a bird" is faster than "turkey is a bird" to verify because the former is a more common sentence one would hear. Collins and Quillians model predicts these sentences take the same amount of time because the same distance is traveled. Also, violations of their proposed hierarchy are seen. For example, "a pig is an animal" is faster to verify than " a pig is a mammal"---basically, findings from the network are generally acounted for by familiarity. I am also weary of the Schneps network model in that it seems to be based on a construction of memory that is focused on English grammar rules. Much like Collinsw and Quillians model, it doesnt seem likely that all humans (with varying intelligence and experiences) have the same hierarchies in memory. In cognitive psych, spreading activation and exemplar models are generally more accepted Tara Kochanec From - Tue Oct 30 13:09:35 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: semantic networks Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 13:08:52 -0500 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 21 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BDEECB3.AA13A5DE@cse.buffalo.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:117 Tara R Kochanec wrote: > I just thought i would mention that Collins and Quillian's model of > semantic networking is generally discounted in cognitive psychology for > several reasons. Thanks for mentioning this. My main point was that semantic nets have been studied by both AI researchers and psychologists, so they fall squarely within cog sci. > I am > also weary of the Schneps network model in that it seems to be based on a > construction of memory that is focused on English grammar rules. Maybe; we use English grammar to transform sentences into SNePS nets, but the nets themselves as we actually use them don't follow English grammar much at all. More to the point, however, we SNePSers see ourselves as doing computational philosophy rather than computational psychology. From - Tue Oct 30 16:53:28 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu!mbp From: Marla B Perkins Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Origin of Music (Language and Sign Language) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 13:29:43 -0500 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 38 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: References: <9nnnf9$rnf$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> <3BA0E2F7.2029AEC7@cse.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: mbp In-Reply-To: Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:119 > > Now I'm not a linguistics expert, but I wouldn't think that just any vocal > sounds would be classified as a "language". Many animals produce vocal > noises (for instance dogs bark, and they bark in different ways depending > what they are feeling) but I don't think anyone considers that an actual > language. I would guess that to be considered a language, there has to be > some structure to the noises. And a certain kind of structure. Bee dances are structured, but as a linguist, I'd be very uncomfortable declaring bee dancing to be a language. In fact, syntax seems to be critical. The bee dances have a precise meaning-to-sign correlation; if you have A, it means 1; if you have B, it means 2, etc. > > Where do sign languages fit in this picture? > > There are specific signs for all kinds of things. Maybe an analogy would > be vocal noises are to language what pointing is to sign language? > Monkeys can point at things, and my dog will "paw" something she wants, so > would that be an appropriate analogy? Someone correct me if I'm wrong... Actually, it's important to distinguish between signs and sign languages. Sign languages are full languages, with dialects, grammatical markers, abstract concepts, etc. Signs are like the bee dances. If your dog paws at something, he's indicating that he wants something about that thing--this is'nt language, and it isn't anywhere near what happens in sign language (unless by sign language you were thinking of something like what Jonathan Swift mocked in _Gulliver's Travels_: carrying everything one would ever need to talk about around with one so that one can converse just by pointing to the relevant item--this isn't language). If the fire alarm goes off, we all know to evacuate the building: the sound is a sign, but we wouldn't confuse that with language or with sign language. Languages make use of signs, but there's a lot more going on. Marla From - Tue Oct 30 16:54:17 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu!mbp From: Marla B Perkins Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Semantics Nets and Individual Words Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 13:15:34 -0500 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 60 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: mbp Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:118 I had a hole in my notes that I'd like to remedy--on the program to make a robot to carry the red object outside the room, what were the three rules by which the robot could perform actions? Other thoughts (that I thought might be irrelevant to the lecture, so I'm bringing them up here): 1. If I (as a linguist who has had only one quasi-programming course from which I retain little other than a resolve never to do any more programming than absolutely necessary ever again as long as I live) want to do comp.sci/art.int. type stuff for my cog.sci. track courses, would I have to learn/do a great deal of programming? I'm interested in semantics networks/logic/knowledge representation, but I'd rather think about these things than have to program the computer. If I'd be required to program, I'll go with philosophy. Just so I can figure out my schedule for next semester and into the future. 2. Is proving logical equivalency enough to suggest that there may not be truly different ways of analyzing problems? Considering the Turing machines, lambda calculus, Markov, recursivity, etc. It seems to be difficult to come up with different stuff, but that may be a quirk in the minds of people who become logicians/mathematicians/computer programmers. Based on what I know about logic, I'd answer that question negatively, but then I'd have to ask why nothing truly different has thus far been done. 3. Going back to the material on scripts and their effectiveness for getting computers to respond appropriately in certain situations: what, if anything, are the script-advocates claiming that this means for human information processing? I'm always uncomfortable with the claim that if it works for a computer, it must be what people are doing. But I'm equally uncomfortable with the idea that what people say they're doing is actually what the people are doing--and programming a computer with a script would thus not accurately represent what happens in the human mind. For example, I think it may be entirely plausible to say that people are rarely cognitive but that they may come up with cognitive explanations for themselves if asked. Role of habit in cognition/behavior? 4. A thought on ethical questions: the point was made that perhaps it's specious to consider how we ought to treat a machine that can feel and think because in fact people treat one another terribly, but I don't think that makes the ethical considerations irrelevant: it merely extends them. There are ethical issues in how we treat one another. We all know we ought to be kind, but I'm sure if we were honest, we could each come up with an example of a time when we knew better but did worse. Considering the problems of how we should treat conscious machines (would cloned humans be AI?) doesn't dismiss the idea that we sometimes behave badly or imply that we have solved all ethical problems for interactions among ourselves--it only extends the idea that in fact we'd probably also treat our conscious machines badly, even though we think, depending on what we think of the machines, we should not. The problems aren't solved, just expanded. Is there a branch of ethics for computer science? Marla From - Tue Oct 30 16:54:25 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: REFERENCES FOR SUSAN UDIN'S GUEST LECTURE Date: 30 Oct 2001 20:13:15 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 8 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rn1kr$e4m$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:120 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: REFERENCES FOR SUSAN UDIN'S GUEST LECTURE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have put some references for Susan Udin's guest lecture on the web at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/guest.html From - Wed Oct 31 08:57:49 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: MORE ON INVERTED SPECTRA Date: 31 Oct 2001 13:55:31 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 37 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rovsj$ntv$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:121 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: MORE ON INVERTED SPECTRA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: rapaport@cse.Buffalo.EDU Subject: Re: Inverted Spectrum Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 01:07:17 -0600 (CST) From: dcole@d.umn.edu Bill, George Stratton did the classic experiment with goggles, published in Psych Review in July 1897. As I remember, Ivo Kohler did experiments in Austria in the 1930's, published at some point in Scientific American, probably elsewhere first. Someone was filmed undergoing the adaptation experience with the googles for a Moody Bible Institute film, Windows of the Soul - maybe an RCMP officer. I think he is filmed riding a motorcycle (I saw this when I was a high school freshman). I have references to some of these in a circa 1991 Synthese paper, Functionalism and Inverted Spectra. I describe these and some color altering experiments there. Hope you keeping right-side-up, cheers, d. Quoting rapaport@cse.Buffalo.EDU: > Thanks Dave. Were those the refs in your online paper? As I recall, > you once somewhere referred to an interesting study in which someone > wore inverting lenses. Do you have that ref? > > -Bill > From - Wed Oct 31 08:58:12 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Today! CogSci Colloq., K.Nicholas Leibovic Date: 31 Oct 2001 13:57:02 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 53 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rovve$nud$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:122 Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, October 31, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm "BRAIN AND VISION" K. Nicholas Leibovic, Ph.D. Department of Biophysical Sciences University at Buffalo Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3794 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Thu Nov 1 09:08:55 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: Semantics Nets and Individual Words Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 09:52:03 -0500 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 131 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3BE01013.5678AF79@cse.buffalo.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:124 Marla B Perkins wrote: > ... on the program to make a > robot to carry the red object outside the room, what were the three rules > by which the robot could perform > actions?http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/AIQ/aiq.html The complete AIQ Test, including the rules for the robot puzzle, are online at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/AIQ/aiq.html > 1. If I (as a linguist who has had only one quasi-programming course from > which I retain little other than a resolve never to do any more > programming than absolutely necessary ever again as long as I live) want > to do comp.sci/art.int. type stuff for my cog.sci. track courses, would I > have to learn/do a great deal of programming? Depends on what course you take. In some of my advanced courses, such as CSE 663: Advanced Topics in Knowledge Representation, which I'm teaching next semester--see: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/flyer.663.S02.html you would not have to do any programming, though you would need to be willing to do some representing (on paper) with SNePS nets. In other AI courses, you would need to do some programming. I don't know what programming language you previously tried to learn, but the courses that our research group handles (including CSE 572, Intro to AI, also being taught next semester, by Stuart Shapiro) are usually taught using Lisp, which you might find easier to use than whatever you may be familiar with (e.g., I know of some Philosophy grad students who have learned Lisp over the winter break, using Shapiro's self-study text). > 2. Is proving logical equivalency enough to suggest that there may not be > truly different ways of analyzing problems? Considering the Turing > machines, lambda calculus, Markov, recursivity, etc. It seems to be > difficult to come up with different stuff, but that may be a quirk in the > minds of people who become logicians/mathematicians/computer programmers. > Based on what I know about logic, I'd answer that question > negatively, but then I'd have to ask why nothing truly different has thus > far been done. Your last point is indeed one of the pieces of evidence in favor of the Church-Turing Thesis: no one has yet found any intuitively computable problem that cannot be computed by a Turing machine. There are, however, some people who believe that the Turing-equivalent notions of computability do not exhaust the intuitive notion. See, e.g., a series of papers by Carol Cleland: Cleland, Carol E. (1993), "Is the Church-Turing Thesis True?", Minds and Machines 3: 283-212. Cleland, Carol E. (1995), "Effective Procedures and Computable Functions", Minds and Machines 5: 9-23. Cleland, Carol E. (2001), "Recipes, Algorithms, and Programs", Minds and Machines 11: 219-237 Abstracts of her papers are on line at: http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/jrnltoc.htm/0924-6495 There is also a debate on relevant issues with cognitive computation in the following pair of papers: Fetzer, James H. (1998), "People Are Not Computers: (Most) Thought Processes Are Not Computational Procedures", Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 10: 371-391. - online at: http://rosina.catchword.com/vl=1626764/cl=50/nw=1/rpsv/catchword/tandf/0952813x/v10n4/s1/p371 Rapaport, William J. (1998), "How Minds Can Be Computational Systems", Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 10: 403-419. - online at: http://rosina.catchword.com/vl=1626764/cl=50/nw=1/rpsv/catchword/tandf/0952813x/v10n4/s3/p403 > 3. Going back to the material on scripts and their effectiveness for > getting computers to respond appropriately in certain situations: what, if > anything, are the script-advocates claiming that this means for human > information processing? I'm always uncomfortable with the claim that if > it works for a computer, it must be what people are doing. But I'm > equally uncomfortable with the idea that what people say they're doing is > actually what the people are doing... The best advice I can give you on this is to read the original psychological studies. One reference is: Schank, Roger C., & Abelson, Robert P. (1977), Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum). - BF311 .S378, in Lockwood, SEL, and Undergrad Libraries > For example, I think it may be entirely plausible to say that people are > rarely cognitive but that they may come up with cognitive explanations for > themselves if asked. Perhaps this underlies the Theory-Theory: maybe all we do is simulation, but we have a theory that we have a theory of mind? > (would cloned humans be > AI?) Probably not, since they would be "born" and develop in the same way that a "normally" conceived child would. I.e., they wouldn't be "programmed". > Is > there a branch of ethics for computer > science? Yes. Take a look at: AI Topics: Ethical and Social Implications http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/ethics.html and any of numerous texts and anthologies on "computer ethics" (just type "computer ethics" as a keyword in the Bison catalog). From - Thu Nov 1 09:09:05 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CASSIE CONVERSATION Date: 31 Oct 2001 14:11:28 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rp0qg$oa8$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:123 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: CASSIE CONVERSATION ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cassie Conversation has been posted to the Directory of Documents; go to: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/directory.html From - Mon Nov 5 09:47:46 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: KEYS AND BOXES PROBLEM Date: 2 Nov 2001 14:52:22 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 10 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9rubv6$rei$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:125 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: KEYS AND BOXES PROBLEM Summary: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The solution to the Keys and Boxes planning problem from the AIQ test is now on the web; go to the AIQ test section on the problem and link to "References" to see it. No cheating!! :-) http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/AIQ/aiq.html#keys From - Tue Nov 6 09:57:43 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: MENTAL IMAGERY Date: 6 Nov 2001 14:30:19 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 199 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9s8s5r$6o5$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:126 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: MENTAL IMAGERY ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mental imagery--what it is, whether it even exists at all--is a topic that we unfortunately won't have time to discuss this semester (but see MITECS for more information :-). If you're interested in this topic, you might be interested in the following forthcoming paper. ========================================================================= Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article Mental Imagery: In search of a theory by Zenon W. Pylyshyn http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Pylyshyn/Referees/ This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please reply by EMAIL within three (3) weeks to: calls@bbsonline.org The Calls are sent to 10,000 BBS Associates, so there is no expectation (indeed, it would be calamitous) that each recipient should comment on every occasion! Hence there is no need to reply except if you wish to comment, or to nominate someone to comment. If you are not a BBS Associate, please approach a current BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work to nominate you. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. A full electronic list of current BBS Associates is available at this location to help you select a name: http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/assoclist.html If no current BBS Associate knows your work, please send us your Curriculum Vitae and BBS will circulate it to appropriate Associates to ask whether they would be prepared to nominate you. (In the meantime, your name, address and email address will be entered into our database as an unaffiliated investigator.) To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the online BBSPrints Archive, at the URL that follows the abstract below. _____________________________________________________________ Mental Imagery: In search of a theory Zenon W. Pylyshyn Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science New Brunswick, New Jersey ABSTRACT: It is generally accepted that there is something special about reasoning that uses mental images. The question of how it is special, however, has never been satisfactorily spelled out, despite over thirty years of research in the post-behaviorist tradition. This article considers some of the general motivation for the assumption that entertaining mental images involves inspecting a picture-like object. It sets out a distinction between phenomena attributable to the nature of mind, to what is called the cognitive architecture, and ones that are attributable to tacit knowledge used to simulate what would happen in a visual situation. With this distinction in mind the paper then considers in detail the widely held assumption that in some important sense images are spatially displayed or are depictive, and that examining images uses the same mechanisms that are deployed in visual perception. I argue that the assumption of the spatial or depictive nature of images is only explanatory if taken literally, as a claim about how images are physically instantiated in the brain, and that the literal view fails for a number of empirical reasons Ð e.g., because of the cognitive penetrability of the phenomena cited in its favor. Similarly, while it is arguably the case that imagery and vision involve some of the same mechanisms, this tells us very little about the nature of mental imagery and does not support claims about the pictorial nature of mental images. Finally I consider whether recent neuroscience evidence clarifies the debate over the nature of mental images. I claim that when such questions as whether images are depictive or spatial are formulated more clearly, the evidence does not provide support for the picture-theory over a symbol structure theory of mental imagery. Even if all the empirical claims turned out to be true, the view that many people take them to support, that mental images are literally spatial, remain incompatible with what is known about how images function in thought. We are then left with the provisional counterintuitive conclusion that the available evidence does not support rejection of what I call the "null hypothesis"; viz., that reasoning with mental images involves the same form of representation and the same processes as that of reasoning in general, except that the content or subject matter of thoughts experienced as images includes information about how things would look. http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Pylyshyn/Referees/ ___________________________________________________________ Please do not prepare a commentary yet. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. We will then let you know whether it was possible to include your name on the final formal list of invitees. _______________________________________________________________________ *** SUPPLEMENTARY ANNOUNCEMENTS *** (1) The authors of scientific articles are not paid money for their refereed research papers; they give them away. What they want is to reach all interested researchers worldwide, so as to maximize the potential research impact of their findings. Subscription/Site-License/Pay-Per-View costs are accordingly access-barriers, and hence impact-barriers for this give-away research literature. There is now a way to free the entire refereed journal literature, for everyone, everywhere, immediately, by mounting interoperable university eprint archives, and self-archiving all refereed research papers in them. Please see: http://www.eprints.org http://www.openarchives.org/ http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december99/12harnad.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) All authors in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences are strongly encouraged to self-archive all their papers in their own institution's Eprint Archives or in CogPrints, the Eprint Archive for the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/ It is extremely simple to self-archive and will make all of our papers available to all of us everywhere, at no cost to anyone, forever. Authors of BBS papers wishing to archive their already published BBS Target Articles should submit it to BBSPrints Archive. Information about the archiving of BBS' entire backcatalogue will be sent to you in the near future. Meantime please see: http://www.bbsonline.org/help/ and http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) had only been able to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review. (Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential impact!). *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Please note: Your email address has been added to our user database for Calls for Commentators, the reason you received this email. If you do not wish to receive further Calls, please feel free to change your mailshot status through your User Login link on the BBSPrints homepage, useing your username and password above: http://www.bbsonline.org/ For information about the mailshot, please see the help file at: http://www.bbsonline.org/help/node5.html#mailshot *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* From - Tue Nov 6 09:57:51 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Science of Mind-Body Interactions Date: 6 Nov 2001 14:43:56 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 56 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9s8svc$70o$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:127 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Science of Mind-Body Interactions ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 22:41:05 +0100 Sender: Cognitive Sciences in the Humanities Discussions From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi Subject: DISCUSS: An Exploration of Integrative Mechanisms To: COGSCI-HUM@LISTSERV.UH.EDU Dear Cognitive scientists, Hello, On March 26 through 28, 2001, leading researchers from the behavioral and social sciences, biomedicine, cognitive science, and more explored about "Science of Mind-Body Interactions: An Exploration of Integrative Mechanisms" --the latest advances and emerging questions about mind-body connections discussed groundbreaking interdisciplinary researchand sounded out opportunities to put new discoveries to practical use. Keynote Address was from: Antonio Damasio, M.D., Ph.D.; (Conference keynote Speaker Antonio Damasio, M.D., Ph.D., is the M.W. Allen Professor and Head of the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa. He is the author of "The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness" and "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.") The Keynote speakers with other presenters discuss the following questions: How does the social world get literally "under our skin"? What are the mechanisms linking emotions and health? How does the brain mediate between events in our environment and changes in our autonomic, endocrine, and neurological functioning? Listen and see the streaming video at Please visit "Vital Connections: Science of Mind-Body Interactions" --A report on the interdisciplinary conference held at NIH March 26 - 28, 2001 at Thank you! Sincerely yours Arun Tripathi - From - Tue Nov 6 12:37:05 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: LEN TALMY'S GUEST LECTURE Date: 6 Nov 2001 15:04:02 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 10 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9s8u52$7n7$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:128 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: LEN TALMY'S GUEST LECTURE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some references for Len Talmy's guest lecture are now listed on the Directory of Documents, as well as an online version of one of Susan Udin's references. http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/directory.html http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/guest.html From - Wed Nov 7 09:09:14 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloq., Wed., Nov. 14, 2001, Keith Oatley Date: 6 Nov 2001 20:13:32 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 70 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9s9g9c$h16$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:129 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, November 14, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Keith Oatley, Ph.D. Centre for Applied Cognitive Science University of Toronto, Canada "Emotions and the Cognitive Psychology of Fiction" Fiction is typically highly structured. The goal of its writers can be thought of as offering materials to a reader (or audience member) so that they can construct and run cognitive simulations. Though such simulations run on minds rather than on computers, the analogy is close. Like computer simulations, fictions have aspects that correspond to (a) real-world models and (b) instructions as to how to compute over these models. In literary theory these aspects have been called fabula (the story world, or event structure) and siujhet (plot, or discourse structure). I will discuss two further aspects. One is the suggestion structure, which is based on priming and other such devices; it sets up resonances with the reader and prompts her or his own emotions and memories. The other is the realization: the enactment, or inner performance, of the fictional piece in the mind of reader as she or he runs the simulation in a way that-if the fiction is successful-involves the emotions. I shall present empirical evidence for some of these claims. This evidence includes demonstrations that people do indeed experience emotions when they read short stories, and that these emotions shape their understandings of, and reasoning about, the stories. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci/html/2001_fall.htm For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3794 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Nov 7 09:09:24 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CSE COLLOQ: JAN WIEBE: SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE Date: 7 Nov 2001 13:57:24 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 73 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9sbek4$j2v$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:130 ========================================================================= Jan Wiebe, the Computer Science & Engineering Colloquium speaker this Friday, is one of the first UB Cognitive Science PhD alumnae. Come hear her speak at 3:00 on Friday, Nov. 9!! The topic of her talk grew out of her doctoral dissertation. ========================================================================= TITLE: Learning Evaluative and Speculative Language from Corpora SPEAKER: Janyce M. Wiebe, University of Pittsburgh TIME: Friday, November 9, 3:00pm LOCATION: Knox 109 (light refreshments served after the talk in Bell 226) ABSTRACT: "Subjectivity" in natural language refers to aspects of language used to express opinions and evaluations. There are numerous applications for which knowledge of subjectivity is relevant, including genre detection, information extraction, summarizaton, and text categorization. To use subjectivity tagging in applications, linguistic clues must be found. As with many pragmatic and discourse distinctions, existing lexical resources are not comprehensively coded for subjectivity. The goal of our current work is learning subjectivity clues from corpora. The first part of the talk will describe efforts annotating subjectivity at different levels (expression, sentence, document) and what we learned by analyzing the results. The second part will describe generating and testing clues of subjectivity of various types. An interesting finding is that low frequency words and stop words, which are often discarded by NLP systems, can be useful for recognizing subjectivity. I will describe a straightforward method for automatically identifying collocational clues of subjectivity in texts, both fixed collocations and collocations in which one or more positions are filled by a word that is unique in the test data. In addition, a method will be described for identifying adjective and verb features using distributional similarity. The third part of the talk will examine the features working together in concert. The features, generated from different datasets using different procedures, exhibit an important consistency in performance in that they all do better and worse on the same test datasets. In addition, the density of subjectivity clues in the surrounding context strongly affects how likely it is that a word is subjective. Finally, we use the clues together to perform editorial recognition, to demonstrate the utility of the newly acquired knowledge. For more information, contact either: Dr. Jan Chomicki, Associate Professor Phone: (716) 645-3180 ext.103 Dept. of Computer Sci. and Engineering Fax: (716) 645-3464 201 Bell Hall, Box 602000 mailto:chomicki@cse.buffalo.edu University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260-2000 http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~chomicki or: William J. Rapaport Associate Professor of Computer Science & Adjunct Professor of Philosophy Member, Center for Cognitive Science Associate Director, SNePS Research Group (SNeRG) 201 Bell Hall (office: 214 Bell) | work: 716-645-3180 x 112 Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering | fax: 716-645-3464 University at Buffalo (SUNY) | home: 716-636-8625 Buffalo, NY 14260-2000 | rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CSE: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/ homepage: /~rapaport/ SNeRG: /sneps/ Buffalo Restaurant Guide: /restaurant.guide/ Center for Cognitive Science: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci/ From - Wed Nov 7 09:09:31 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CONSCIOUSNESS AND FUNCTIONALISM Date: 7 Nov 2001 13:58:57 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 44 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9sben1$j3d$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:131 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: CONSCIOUSNESS AND FUNCTIONALISM ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some of you might be interested in this online paper on consciousness: ----------------------------------------------------------------- PSYCHE: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CONSCIOUSNESS ----------------------------------------------------------------- CONSCIOUSNESS, VALUE AND FUNCTIONALISM William Seager Philosophy Division of Humanities University of Toronto at Scarborough Scarborough, Ontario, M1C 1A4 CANADA seager@utsc.utoronto.ca Copyright (c) William Seager 2001 PSYCHE, 7(20), November 2001 http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v7/psyche-7-20-seager.html KEYWORDS: consciousness, value, functionalism, token-identity theory, qualia COMMENTARY ON: Charles Siewert. (1999). *The Significance of Consciousness*. Princeton University Press. 392 pp. ISBN: 0691027242. Price: $US 42.50 hbk. ABSTRACT: Charles Siewert presents a series of thought experiment based arguments against a wide range of current theories of phenomenal consciousness which I believe achieves a considerable measure of success. One topic which I think gets insufficient attention is the discussion of functionalism and I address this here. Before that I consider the intriguing issue, which is seldom considered but figures prominently at the close of Siewert's book, of the *value* of consciousness. In particular, I broach the question of whether the value of consciousness has any impact on our theoretical understanding of consciousness. From - Thu Nov 8 13:07:52 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE THIS WEEKEND Date: 8 Nov 2001 17:48:20 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 152 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9segh4$d9q$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:132 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE THIS WEEKEND ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Graduate Student Conference November 8 Professional Conference November 9-10 ASSESSING THE AGE OF ANALYSIS: 20th Century Analytic Philosophy in Retrospect There is no registration fee. The conference is open to any interested parties. Speakers: Randall R. Dipert and Barry Smith (University at Buffalo) Avrum Stroll (University of California, San Diego) Nicholas Capaldi (University of Tulsa) Joseph Margolis (Temple University) Peter H. Hare (University at Buffalo) Jennifer Nagel (University of Toronto) Peter Hylton (University of Illinois, Chicago) Abstracts and further details are available on the regular conference website: www.neologic.net/ub All events are at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Road (adjacent, west, of the UB North campus) about 1/4 north of Maple Avenue, set back and on the left (west) side. To reach the Center, take I-290. Get off at Millersport Highway NORTH. Follow signs to Maple Avenue (an exit on your right). Turn LEFT (west) on Maple Avenue. Drive about 1/2 mile to the intersection with Sweet Home Rd (past Motel 6 on your right). Turn right and continue for about 1/2 mile. The Center is set back and has a gate with red letters that are clearly visible. There is ample free parking. Program GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE NOVEMBER 8 ==================================== November 8 (Th) Graduate Student Conference: The Age of Analysis Organizers: Steven Miller, Lowell Vizenor 10:00 - 11:00 Craig Fox, University of Illinois at Chicago "Re-evaluating Wittgenstein and The Vienna Circle" Commentator: Stephen Miller (UB) 11:00 - 12:00 Sorin Costreie, University of Western Ontario "On Proper Names: Frege vs Kripke" Commentator: Ryan Kohl (UB) 12:00 - 1:00 Lunch 1:00 - 2:00 John Mumma, Carnegie-Mellon University "Wittgenstein and Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics" Commentator: Leonard Jacuzzo (UB) 2:00 - 3:00 Reese Heitner, CUNY "From a Phono-Logical Point of View: Neutralizing Quine's Argument Against Analyticity" Commentator: TBD 4:00 - 5:00 Derek Brown, University of Western Ontario "Rigorization, And Meaning, And Perceptual Knowledge" Commentator: Lowell Vizenor (UB) ================================================ MAIN CONFERENCE ================================================= November 9 (Fri) All events 1:00 – 5:15 pm at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Road, Amherst NY 11:00 - 1:00 pm Lunch: To be arranged individually. SESSION I Session Chair: John T. Kearns(UB) 1:00 - 2:00 pm John T. Kearns, Chair, Department of Philosophy, UB D. Munroe Eagles, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, UB Randall R. Dipert (UB): The Issues: English-Language Analytic Philosophy Barry Smith (UB): Response and Further Issues in Continental Analytic Philosophy 2 - 3:30 Avrum Stroll (University of California, San Diego): Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy: Some Controversial Theses (Abstract and Paper available) 3:30 - 3:45 Break 3:45 - 5:15 Nicholas Capaldi (University of Tulsa) Assessing Analytical Philosophy (Abstract available) 6:30 - 7:00 Cash Bar, Buffalo Marriott (Room TBA) 7:00- Banquet, Marriott (Room TBA) Prepayment required at registration, Friday by 3:00. Non-Students: $30.00 Students: $15.00 November 10 (Sat) All events 9:00 am - 4:15 pm at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Road. SESSION II Session Chair: Morton Schagrin (SUNY Fredonia/Boston MA) 9:00 - 10:30 am Joseph Margolis (Temple University): The Resolution of Skepticism in Late Analytic Philosophy 10:30 - 10:45 am Break 10:45 am- 12:15 pm Peter H. Hare (UB): Pragmatism and Analytic Philosophy: Friends and Foes 12:15-1:30 pm Lunch in the Center for Inquiry Registration required (Saturday by 10:00 am) Non-Students: $10.00 Students: $5.00 SESSION III Session Chair: Charles Lambros(UB) 1:30-2:45 pm Jennifer Nagel (University of Toronto) The Carnap-Reichenbach Conception of the A Priori, Revisited (Abstract Available) 2:45-3:00 pm Break 3:00-4:15 Peter Hylton (University of Illinois at Chicago): Beginning in the Middle: How to Read Quine From - Mon Nov 12 11:06:53 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.676,sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CSE COLLOQ TODAY: JAN WIEBE, EVALUATIVE/SPECULATIVE LANGUAGE Date: 9 Nov 2001 14:09:07 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 74 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9sgo23$q12$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.676:77 sunyab.cse.575:133 =============================================================================== TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY TODAY =============================================================================== ========================================================================= Jan Wiebe, the Computer Science & Engineering Colloquium speaker this Friday, is a CSE alumna and one of the first UB Cognitive Science PhD alumnae. Come hear her speak at 3:00 on Friday, Nov. 9!! The topic of her talk grew out of her doctoral dissertation. ========================================================================= TITLE: Learning Evaluative and Speculative Language from Corpora SPEAKER: Janyce M. Wiebe, University of Pittsburgh TIME: Friday, November 9, 3:00pm LOCATION: Knox 109 (light refreshments served after the talk in Bell 226) ABSTRACT: "Subjectivity" in natural language refers to aspects of language used to express opinions and evaluations. There are numerous applications for which knowledge of subjectivity is relevant, including genre detection, information extraction, summarizaton, and text categorization. To use subjectivity tagging in applications, linguistic clues must be found. As with many pragmatic and discourse distinctions, existing lexical resources are not comprehensively coded for subjectivity. The goal of our current work is learning subjectivity clues from corpora. The first part of the talk will describe efforts annotating subjectivity at different levels (expression, sentence, document) and what we learned by analyzing the results. The second part will describe generating and testing clues of subjectivity of various types. An interesting finding is that low frequency words and stop words, which are often discarded by NLP systems, can be useful for recognizing subjectivity. I will describe a straightforward method for automatically identifying collocational clues of subjectivity in texts, both fixed collocations and collocations in which one or more positions are filled by a word that is unique in the test data. In addition, a method will be described for identifying adjective and verb features using distributional similarity. The third part of the talk will examine the features working together in concert. The features, generated from different datasets using different procedures, exhibit an important consistency in performance in that they all do better and worse on the same test datasets. In addition, the density of subjectivity clues in the surrounding context strongly affects how likely it is that a word is subjective. Finally, we use the clues together to perform editorial recognition, to demonstrate the utility of the newly acquired knowledge. For more information, contact either: Dr. Jan Chomicki, Associate Professor Phone: (716) 645-3180 ext.103 Dept. of Computer Sci. and Engineering Fax: (716) 645-3464 201 Bell Hall, Box 602000 mailto:chomicki@cse.buffalo.edu University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260-2000 http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~chomicki or: William J. Rapaport Associate Professor of Computer Science & Adjunct Professor of Philosophy Member, Center for Cognitive Science Associate Director, SNePS Research Group (SNeRG) 201 Bell Hall (office: 214 Bell) | work: 716-645-3180 x 112 Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering | fax: 716-645-3464 University at Buffalo (SUNY) | home: 716-636-8625 Buffalo, NY 14260-2000 | rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CSE: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/ homepage: /~rapaport/ SNeRG: /sneps/ Buffalo Restaurant Guide: /restaurant.guide/ Center for Cognitive Science: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci/ From - Tue Nov 13 14:14:21 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: LAKOFF ON METAPHORS FOR TERROR Date: 13 Nov 2001 17:57:44 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 10 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9srmuo$9vk$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:134 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: LAKOFF ON METAPHORS FOR TERROR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talk about perfect timing: I just found out about the following website that some of you might find of interest: Lakoff, George (2001), "Metaphors of Terror" http://www.press.uchicago.edu/News/911lakoff.html From - Wed Nov 14 09:15:57 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: WEBPAGE ON METAPHOR Date: 13 Nov 2001 19:55:41 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9srtrt$dl3$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:135 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: WEBPAGE ON METAPHOR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The webpage I showed in lecture today on metaphor, with some new references, is on the web at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/metaphor.html From - Thu Nov 15 09:09:12 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: DEIXIS Date: 14 Nov 2001 16:37:32 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 10 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9su6kc$q5b$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:136 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: DEIXIS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A webpage on the Deictic Center project that I began talking about on Tuesday, and that I'll continue talking about next Tuesday, including an online paper describing the project, is at: http://www.cse.Buffalo.EDU/~rapaport/dc.html From - Fri Nov 16 08:46:40 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: READINGS FOR HIGGINBOTHAM AND FRAKE Date: 15 Nov 2001 18:49:17 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 13 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9t12nd$j46$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:137 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: READINGS FOR HIGGINBOTHAM AND FRAKE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some supplementary reading for the guest lectures by Higginbotham and Frake are now on the web at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/guest.html or http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/directory.html From - Mon Nov 26 09:36:39 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CSE Colloq: Loui, Diaspora of a Mathematics of Argument Date: 26 Nov 2001 14:34:29 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 58 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9ttjtl$l2t$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:138 CSE Colloquium this Friday: TITLE: Diaspora of a Mathematics of Argument SPEAKER: Prof. Ronald. Prescott Loui, Washington University, St. Louis TIME: Friday, November 16, 3:00pm LOCATION: Knox 109 ABSTRACT: There has been a strong anti-intellectual bias in AI since "AI Winter" and the ensuing "Halpernization" of the field. One of the most significant possible shifts of paradigm, however, is the shift from logic to argument. It is an intellectual result of AI in the past decade and an idea which computer science exports to the I will trace the rise of process-based models of reasoning which culminate in the current models of argument: Keynes's influence on Wittgenstein, then through Waismann, Austin's on Hart, then Hart's new foundations for a half-century of social science through Rawls, Toulmin, Barry, Raz, Ladd-Chisholm-Pollock-Sosa, Gauthier-Searle, Wellman-Feinberg, then AI's flirtation with nonomonotonic reasoning, PROLOG, defeasible reasoning, and negation-as-failure. I will inventory some technical issues surrounding syntactic vs. explicit defeat, meta-argument, and the shifting burden of proof. I will discuss how argument affects the foundation of probability (Reichenbach-Kyburg-Pollock), the foundation of decision (Simon-Savage-Shafer-Tversky), models of legal reasoning (Cardozo-Levi-Raz-Sunstein-Bayles), models of belief revision and obligation (Hohfeld-von Wright-Alchourron), non-game-theoretic models of negotiation (Fisher-Pruitt-Sycara), and the informal logical traditions in rhetoric (Toulmin-Perelman-Walton). Finally, I will discuss possibilities for an argument-based description of fairness and an understanding of protocol-based gameplaying as computation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ronald P. Loui is Associate Professor of Computer Science at Washington University and an affiliate in the Legal Studies Program. This year he is co-editing a special issue of AI Journal on AI and Law, was conference chair of ICAIL (the international conference on AI and Law), and will be conference chair of SEP (the annual meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy). His web page is at http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~loui/ -- Sviatoslav Braynov Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science and Engineering State University of New York at Buffalo 210Bell Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 e-mail: sbraynov@cse.buffalo.edu home page: www.cse.buffalo.edu/~sbraynov tel: (716) 645-3180 ext 154 fax: (716) 645-3464 From - Wed Nov 28 09:04:13 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: TALMY CHAPTER ON RESERVE Date: 27 Nov 2001 17:42:00 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9u0j98$dbr$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:139 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: TALMY CHAPTER ON RESERVE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first chapter of Talmy's book is on online reserve for the course; check it out on Bison, or go to: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/guest.html From - Wed Nov 28 09:04:21 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloq., Gallagher, EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENT Date: 28 Nov 2001 13:53:55 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 79 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9u2q9j$lph$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:140 TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, November 28, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Shaun Gallagher, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Canisius Colloge, Buffalo EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENT IN A DEAFFERENTED SUBJECT Explanations of neonate imitation of facial gestures have been framed in terms of motor ability and intermodal perception (Meltzoff and Moore, 1977; 1993; 1995). Meltzoff and his colleagues have offered explanations that rely on concepts like an innate body schema, perception and action coupling, and the reproduction of movement based on matching proprioception to visual stimulus (Chaminade , Decety, and Meltzoff, in press; Decety, et al., 2001; Gallagher and Meltzoff, 1996). I want to ask whether imitation of facial gestures is given a full account in these terms, or whether there might be some other mechanism that needs to be considered. To provide a framework for this question, I examine a case where gesture is clearly dissociated from certain aspects of normal motor ability, that is, where gesture, as a form of expressive movement, is irreducible to instrumental or locomotive movement. The case is that of IW, a man who lives without the sense of touch and proprioception below the neck. IW has profound problems with both locomotive and instrumental movement. Without proprioception he is not capable of controlling his movement without conscious use of vision and cognitive effort. When he wants to pick up a glass from the table, for example, he must think through his movement, consciously calculating distance, trajectory, grip, pressure, etc. Despite these problems with movement, IW, with and without vision, is capable of conversational gestures that are in most regards normal. I will report on experiments that show in precise terms that this is the case. I will also offer a theoretical account (in contrast to motor theories of gesture) to explain why gestures are not reducible to instrumental or locomotive movement. If gesture is a form of expressive movement that is not reducible to instrumental or locomotive movement, and if imitation of gestures is also a form of expressive movement, then I want to suggest that neonate imitation of facial gesture is not fully accounted for by innate body schemas, or other terms that focus on movement alone. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3794 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Nov 28 09:04:30 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE (LAST ONE?) Date: 28 Nov 2001 13:59:38 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9u2qka$lv1$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:141 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: SYLLABUS UPDATE (LAST ONE?) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have update the syllabus, probably for the last time, to incorporate information on the final two CogSci Colloquia. Go to: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/syl.html From - Wed Nov 28 10:03:24 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: UPDATED LIST OF FRAKE REFERENCES Date: 28 Nov 2001 14:35:59 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 9 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9u2sof$mt5$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:142 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: UPDATED LIST OF FRAKE REFERENCES ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have updated the list of references from Chuck Frake on Pacific Island navigation. Go to: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/guest.html From - Thu Nov 29 09:01:51 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CogSci Colloq, 12/5, Allison Sekuler, VISUAL COMPLETION Date: 29 Nov 2001 13:54:20 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 67 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9u5emc$6kd$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:143 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, December 5, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Allison Sekuler, Ph.D. Department of Psychology McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada "VISUAL COMPLETION: A CASE STUDY IN GROUPING AND PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION" One of the most important goals of vision is to recognize objects so that we can interact appropriately with them. Our everyday experiences suggest that the visual system is finely tuned to achieve this goal: recognition seems to occur instantly and effortlessly. However, research in my lab and others reveals that perceptual organization and recognition are much more complex processes than our phenomenology would lead us to believe. This lecture focuses on one aspect of my research: The perception of partly occluded objects. Because the information reaching our eyes is often incomplete, occlusion represents a huge obstacle to our perception of the world. I will describe evidence that the visual system completes contours and makes use of those completed contours. I will also discuss the effects of spatio-temporal context on visual completion, and I will describe our approach to combining behavioural methods with neuroimaging. Our results suggest that completion acts as a grouping mechanism enabling observers to use the relevant parts of the stimulus more efficiently for shape discrimination and object recognition. In this sense, visual completion is conceptualized not as end in and of itself, but as means to an end. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3794 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Fri Nov 30 08:46:48 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!lucia.acsu.buffalo.edu!mbp From: Marla B Perkins Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: CRA Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 22:12:21 -0500 Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 32 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: lucia.acsu.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NNTP-Posting-User: mbp Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:145 I am not entirely clear that when it is argued that any implementation is as good as another that we are getting any closer, by any of them, to the abstraction. The physical and the computational implementations of mentality may be equally sufficient, but I'm not convinced that either of those is relevant to the abstraction except to say that there is an abstraction and that both implementations look like it in some way. What I'm thinking of here are Platonic forms. There are gazillions of chairs in the world, but none of them are the ideal of "chairness". In other words, there's something out there, even if immaterial, that is not and never can be implemented. Perhaps mentality is more of a Platonic form than any kind of implementation. Also, regarding the objection given to Searle of replacing one neuron at a time with equivalently functional computer chips, I thought I might recommend a better solution than Searle gave. It's in _The Logic of Common Nouns: An Investigation of Quantified Modal Logic_ by Anil Gupta (chapter 4). Gupta argues that identity across possible worlds need not be transitive with minor changes because he distinguishes between natural kind terms and artifact terms--the example of the neuron replaced with a chip would be an artifact term, and changes would occur within a single world, not across possible worlds, and thus would not be transitive. I have done a lousy job of explaining that--it's much more convincing and clear with the full argument and the precise definitions. But just to say that there are better ways to get around the objection, whether one accepts them or not. Marla From - Fri Nov 30 09:10:49 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!not-for-mail From: William J Rapaport Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Re: CRA Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:09:42 -0500 Organization: SUNY Buffalo Computer Science & Engineering Lines: 86 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <3C079326.96904DE0@cse.buffalo.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:146 Marla B Perkins wrote: > I am not entirely clear that when it is argued that any implementation is > as good as another that we are getting any closer, by any of them, to the > abstraction. "Any implementation is as good as another" in the sense that any 2 implementations of the same abstraction must exhibit all the properties of the abstraction (though of course each will have its own "implementation side effects"). Hence, if we have a neural implementation of cognition (e.g., the (human) brain) and a computational implementation (e.g., some future AI program being executed), then both can be said to "think" (or to have whatever cognitive property is under discussion). I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean by "getting closer to the abstraction", but if there are 2 implementations of an abstraction, then studying either of them should give us information about the abstraction; presumably, studying both will give us even more info, since then we can begin to eliminate the implementation- dependent side effects. > What I'm thinking of here are Platonic forms. There are gazillions of > chairs in the world, but none of them are the ideal of "chairness". In > other words, there's something out there, even if immaterial, that is not > and never can be implemented. Perhaps mentality is more of a Platonic > form than any kind of implementation. I think I agree: Abstractions are very much like Platonic forms, and I would argue that cognition properly understood is an Abstraction/Platonic form and moreover that that is the proper subject matter of cognitive science. It is the subject matter of, say, neuroscience to study its implementation in the (human) brain and the subject matter of AI to study its implementation in computers. > Gupta argues that identity across possible worlds need not > be transitive with minor changes I think most people who study possible worlds would agree that identity across them is not transitive. There are notions of "trans-world identity" (2 individuals in different possible worlds being "counterparts" of each other), but there are recognized problems with this. E.g., consider (the Biblical) Adam in possible world #1. Trade one of his properties with one of Noah's properties; call the resulting world possible world #2. Presumably, Adam in world 1 is identical (in some sense) with Adam in world 2. Continue doing this, one property at a time. Eventually, you'll have some world N in which Adam and Noah have traded places, so to speak. But would you then want to be committed to saying that Adam 1 = Adam N = Noah 1? Some references: 1.Identity through Possible Worlds: Some Questions (in Symposium: The Logic of Knowledge and Belief) Roderick M. Chisholm Nous, Vol. 1, No. 1. (Mar., 1967), pp. 1-8. available online from JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/ Lakoff, George (1968), ``Counterparts, or the Problem of Reference in Transformational Grammar'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club). Lewis, David (1968), ``Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic,'' \underline{Journal of Philosophy} 65: 113--126. (also available from JSTOR) So I take it that with each new chip replacing an old neuron in the Searle case, we'd have a new possible world, and the question is whether Searle at the end = Searle at the beginning. But this is a murky area, so I'm skeptical how much light it would shed on the problem. It is worth thinking about, however. -Bill Rapaport From - Wed Dec 5 08:54:20 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: TERM PROJECT INFORMATION Date: 5 Dec 2001 13:50:03 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 26 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9ul8mb$5he$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:147 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: TERM PROJECT INFORMATION ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please be sure to re-read the Term-Project Guidelines Writing Guide at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/term.project.guidelines.html http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/typing.info.pdf This is especially important with respect to such items as: cognitive-science relevance, required abstract, no cover page, proper formatting, etc. An index to all relevant documents is on the Term Project Information page at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F01/termproj.html From - Thu Dec 6 08:54:55 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: Today! CogSci Colloq., Allison Sekuler: VISUAL COMPLETION Date: 5 Dec 2001 15:02:10 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 70 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9ulcti$7c2$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:148 Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! Today! CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE University at Buffalo, State University of New York Wednesday, December 5, 2001 280 Park Hall North Campus 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm Allison Sekuler, Ph.D. Department of Psychology McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada "VISUAL COMPLETION: A CASE STUDY IN GROUPING AND PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION" One of the most important goals of vision is to recognize objects so that we can interact appropriately with them. Our everyday experiences suggest that the visual system is finely tuned to achieve this goal: recognition seems to occur instantly and effortlessly. However, research in my lab and others reveals that perceptual organization and recognition are much more complex processes than our phenomenology would lead us to believe. This lecture focuses on one aspect of my research: The perception of partly occluded objects. Because the information reaching our eyes is often incomplete, occlusion represents a huge obstacle to our perception of the world. I will describe evidence that the visual system completes contours and makes use of those completed contours. I will also discuss the effects of spatio-temporal context on visual completion, and I will describe our approach to combining behavioural methods with neuroimaging. Our results suggest that completion acts as a grouping mechanism enabling observers to use the relevant parts of the stimulus more efficiently for shape discrimination and object recognition. In this sense, visual completion is conceptualized not as end in and of itself, but as means to an end. Everyone is welcome to attend! Refreshments will be available. For more information please contact the Cognitive Science office at 645-3794 or by email at hhjones@buffalo.edu Heike Jones Administrative Assistant University at Buffalo Center for Cognitive Science 652 Baldy Hall Buffalo, NY 14260 P: (716) 645-3794 F: (716) 645-3825 Email: hhjones@buffalo.edu URL: http://wings.buffalo.edu/cogsci From - Wed Dec 19 09:26:40 2001 Path: acsu.buffalo.edu!rapaport From: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport) Newsgroups: sunyab.cse.575 Subject: FINAL GRADES Date: 18 Dec 2001 20:10:21 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo CSE Department Lines: 63 Distribution: sunyab Message-ID: <9vo7rd$5v8$1@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu NNTP-Posting-User: rapaport Xref: acsu.buffalo.edu sunyab.cse.575:149 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: FINAL GRADES ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have finished grading your term projects and computing your course grades. If you are in CSE, I will put your term project in your mailbox or mail folder. Otherwise, you can stop by any time I'm in my office to pick it up, either now or next semester (contact me first to make sure I'll be in); or else you can give me a campus or postal mailing address to send it to. ========================================================================= CSE/LIN/PHI/PSY 575 APY 526 Fall 2001 file: grades.18dc01 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Person Term Class Att. & Course Number Proj Participation Grade [CG := (TP +2*CA&P)/3] 10794829 I A IU 23060673 A A A 24243454 C A B+ 25487039 B+ A A- 25763230 A A A 25830424 B+ A A- 26067814 A- A A 26129249 A- A A 26281390 B+ A A- 26415173 C A B 26790357 C A B+ 27317592 B A A- 27596578 A A A 27891030 A A A 28346410 A A A 28497539 A- A A 28951058 A- A A 28981279 A A A 29075839 A A A 29093249 B+ A A- 29192039 D D D 29541925 B A A- 29542930 A A A 29590257 C+ A B+ 29632802 A A A 29646053 A A A 29671637 B+ A A- 29709593 A A A