IntroCogSci1

7/27/2019 IntroCogSci1

1/50

Introduction to

Cognitive ScienceCOMP 20090

Tuesday 22 January 13


2/50

COMP 20090: Introduction to Cognitive Science

Organization

12 weeks - about12 topics

http://cogsci.ucd.ie/introtocogsci/

No set text: readings on the website

Fred Cummins, Room A1.1, Comp. Sci.

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


3/50


Evaluation

Mid-term exam, Thursday March 7th, Week 7

This exam will be held in class

Counts for 40%

Final exam, May

Counts for 60%



4/50


Lectures

Tuesday at 10 (Agriculture, G 15),

repeated at 11 (B004, Comp Sci Lecturetheatre) Thursday at 10 (AG., G 15),

repeated at 12 (B004, Comp Sci Lecturetheatre)



5/50


Doing this course

Come to lectures

Do required reading each week

Read beyond the required readings as your

interest takes you.



6/50




7/50


Minds

Brains

Behaviour

Spirit

Consciousness

Intellect

Soul



8/50


Brain



9/50


Behaviour



10/50


Make up your mind

It will blow your mindIn my minds eye....

One track mind

Absent minded

Put your mind at ease

An idle mind...A mind like a steel trap!

You must be out of your mind!!!



11/50


MIND, n.

A mysterious form of matter secreted by the

brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor

to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the

attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing

but itself to know itself with.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devils Dictionary



12/50


Mind/Brain and Mental/Physical is not a simpledistinction

Not all languages distinguish two classes here.

When discussing reality, or attempting to bescientific, it is wise to remember that much of thelanguage one uses is determined, not by facts, but by

the culture around one.



13/50


Aristotle, and Ancient Greece

Psyche: the form of an organism. What it is to be an X.to be a tree: growth, nourishment, metabolism....to be a bug: ditto + sensory perception/action

To be a human: Reason + lots of stuff we have incommon with animals (& plants?)

Biology is continuous with psychology, and

acknowledges the social nature of the human animal aswell.



14/50


Greek psycheis neither Mind nor Soul

There is no word for consciousness, nor does it

seem to have been a useful concept for the Greeks.

The soul (nous) is distinct, and may survive death



15/50


Ren Descartes (1596-1650)



16/50


Cogito, ergo sum....

The further the mind is taken away from its proper objects logic

and pure reason the more likely it is to fall into error.

The purpose of philosophy is to direct the mind away from the

confusing images of the senses towards the indubitable truths

contained within the mind itself.

Sources: www.philosophyonline.co.uk

This project led Descartes to conclude that the mind was a

completely distinct substance from matter....It is invisible, without

dimensions, immaterial, unchanging, indivisible and without limit.

This also had a religious agenda....

http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/


17/50


The mental and

the physical areseen as differentkinds of things. Howthey interact is one

big problem fordualism. Descartessuggested the pinealgland..



18/50


Cartesian Dualism

(Taoism)

ot to beonfused with...



19/50


Descartes placed conscious experience at theforefront of thinking about minds.

Some philosophers of mind call the subjectiveaspects of mental events qualia (or raw feels). There

is something that it's like to feel pain, to see a familiarshade of blue, and so on; The relationship betweenqualia and physical matter is deeply mysterious.

Could you imagine a being like your self in every way, butlacking qualia? (A zombie, according to Dave Chalmers)



20/50


Shades of Dualism

Interactionism

Epiphenomenalism

Psychophysic Parallelism

Source: wikipedia



21/50


Could mind and brain beidentical?

Phrenology

Source: wikipedia

See also required reading: Minsky Minds aresimply what brains do



22/50


Materialism Idealism



23/50


Thus far, we have seen a very few issues whichoccupy Philosophers of Mind

But philosophers do not work in splendid isolation.

The scientific study of all things mental constitutesthe discipline ofPsychology



24/50

Origins

Term coined: 1590

Experimental foundation:1879, Wilhelm Wundt,Leipzig

William James: 1890:

Principles ofPsychology

Beards are now optionalTuesday 22 January 13


25/50


Early Approaches

Analysis (reason)

Psychophysics

Experiments (e.g. hypnosis)

Introspection



26/50


Introspection



27/50


Behaviorism

Outlawed appeal to unobservable mental

states Attempted to be rigorous and scientific

Comes in a variety of forms and extremes

Most famous: B. F. Skinner



28/50


Minds

Brains

Behaviour



29/50


Superstitious Pigeons

Skinner introduced Operant Conditioning

Behaviour is modified as a result of itsconsequences (reward/punishment)

You burn yourself: you avoid fire

By providing food at unpredictable times,pigeons preferentially reproduced thebehavior that seemed to produce food.



30/50


One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about

the cage, making two or three turns betweenreinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into oneof the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath aninvisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developeda pendulum motion of the head and body, in which thehead was extended forward and swung from right to leftwith a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slowerreturn. (see readings...)



31/50




32/50




33/50


Stimulus........Response

Involuntary learning

Ivan Pavlov

Classical Conditioning



34/50




35/50




36/50


An Ointment Full of

Flies?

Mechanistic view of the human spirit

Denied much of the mental richness we allknow

Impoverished theory of learning

Has nothing to say about experience


The book: Verbal Behavior


37/50


The book: Verbal Behavior

To speak English is to have a

set of behaviors which allowyou to respond appropriatelyduring an English conversation.

Skinner the Empiricist

Behaviorist theories cannever account for how

children learn language.Language is usedcreatively, not parroted.

Chomsky the Rationalist



38/50


The Cognitive Revolution (post 1959)

Noam Chomsky:Language use and acquisition tells us that weare born with an innate readiness to learnand use language.

All humans possess a Universal Grammar.This dictates what the space of possiblelanguages is. A learner simply selects among

possible languages.



39/50


Jerry Fodor 1:

The Modularity of Mind

To describe the architecture of a mind, we should refer to its diversefunctions. Different functions are done by separate modules.

Modules devoted to individual functions (language, reasoning, ...) are

informationally encapsulatedand domain specific.



40/50


Jerry Fodor 1I:

The Language of Thought

Taking a lot of concepts from the theory of language,Fodor argued that thought is structured much likelanguage, or that thought is language

The thought I would like a pie has structure much likethe sentence I would like a pie.



41/50


Physical Symbol System Hypothesis (1963):A physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means of

general intelligent action.

(Alan Newell and Herb Simon)

Symbols are like words. They can only be combined in certain,regular, meaningful, ways. Moving symbols around changes theirmeaning.



42/50


Towers of Hanoi

A classic logic puzzle readily solved by early AI architectures(General Problem Solver, etc)



43/50


SHRDLUPerson: PICK UP A BIG RED BLOCK.Computer: OK.Person: GRASP THE PYRAMID.Computer: I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHICH PYRAMID YOUMEAN.Person (changing their mind): FIND A BLOCK WHICH ISTALLER THAN THE ONE YOU ARE HOLDING AND PUT IT

INTO THE BOX.Computer: BY "IT", I ASSUME YOU MEAN THE BLOCKWHICH IS TALLER THAN THE ONE I AM HOLDING.Computer: OK.Person: WHAT DOES THE BOX CONTAIN?Computer: THE BLUE PYRAMID AND THE BLUE BLOCK.Person: WHAT IS THE PYRAMID SUPPORTED BY?

Computer: THE BOX.Person: HOW MANY BLOCKS ARE NOT IN THE BOX?Computer: FOUR OF THEM.Person: IS AT LEAST ONE OF THEM NARROWER THANTHE ONE WHICH I TOLD YOU TO PICK UP?Computer: YES, THE RED CUBE.etc.

Terry Winogradca. 1970



44/50


Notice that Artificial Intelligence and much of cognitivescience focusses on our ability to reason.

This has been a constant since Rene Descartes (atleast).

Is reasoningthe most important (salient, central) feature

of your mental life?


Wh t b t C iti P h l ?


45/50


What about Cognitive Psychology?

Some hallmarks:

[1] Uses the scientific method, without unqualifiedrecourse to introspection

[2] Presupposes the reality of mental states, includingbeliefs, desires, and intentions

Much work in CP has accepted some version of the

Information Processing paradigm


Information Processing Paradigm


46/50


Brain: hardwareThoughts: softwareInputs: Perceptual processesOutputs: Behaviour (and othermental states)

CAUTION:THIS IS NO LONGER A UNIVERSALLYACCEPTED ORTHODOXY! This view co-exists withMANY alternatives. Cognitive Science is still young!

Information Processing Paradigm


S l ti l t d l t 1


47/50


Some relatively recent developments 1:

[1] Failure of Good Old FashionedArtificial Intelligence (GOFAI) to scale upto deal with interestingly real worldproblems.

Add-More-Facts just wont work...

...but massively data-drivenapproaches are deliveringresults (c.f. Google. . .)


S l ti l t d l t 2


48/50



[2] Development of some new modeling tools

Dynamical Systems Theory in Maths/Physics isbeing increasingly applied to problems in CognitiveScience

Good for describing most naturalsystems. Can they handle our mental

lives?


S l ti l t d l t 3


49/50



[3] Neuroscience has come a long way! Highquality brain imaging is now a reality.Understanding of basic nervous function hasincreased tremendously. We know more about the

real thing, so we dont have to make it up!!!

Important note: Neuroscience

investigates brains directly. Notminds.


Spare a thought for the alchemist!


50/50


Spare a thought for the alchemist!

Documents

IntroCogSci1