Announcements:

1. Sections will be held on Fridays, 11-12 and 12-1 in Soda 320.
 First sections will meet this Friday, January 24. Computer accounts will be handed out.

2. Notes for class  lectures will be posted on the web page by Thursday night for the preceding week. Also watch the web page for announcements and other information.

3. If any students are enrolled in the CS 198 course, that is the wrong course. Please enroll in any of the courses listed at the head of the syllabus.

4. Prerequisites for the course can be satisfied by CogSci 100 or CogSci 101, or courses in Linguistics, Psychology, or Neurobiology. Any student who hasn't completed a course in one of these fields should consult George or Jerry as soon as possible.

General Course Information:

1. The course grade will consist of 70% homework assignments, 15% midterms and 15% critical written commentary on an article form Behavioral and Brain Sciences Journal.

2. Regular assignments will include working with classical cognitive science experiments and the computational models discussed in the course as well as short assignments in cognitive linguistics and neurobiology.

Lecture Notes:

Basic questions which need to be asked for this course. The first 13 weeks of the course will consist of detailed discussion of the issues presented in this lecture.

1. How can a human brain learn, use and understand language? What does a brain have to be able to do to learn, use and understand language?

 Answering this question involves an understanding of how much of language is innate, how the brain stores knowledge, how the brain retrieves knowledge, how grammar is processed.
Also, we need a theory of concepts and memory. How are concepts structured? How is the structure represented neurally? How are abstract concepts learned? How are conceptual systems learned?
 Different kinds of memory need to be considered: semantic, episodic, long-term, short-term, explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) memory. Explicit memories are those which we retrieve consciously. Examples of implicit memory include our memories of how to walk, maneuver around obstacles and talk. Implicit memory is unconscious and very fast. We need a theory of human thought which can explain the, among other things, the kinds of categories which humans develop. Another consideration is human reasoning. What is the structure of reasoning? How can we think contradictory thoughts? How is imagination possible?  Finally, we need a theory of learning. How does the brain learn? What bio-chemical changes occur in the neurons when learning takes place?

2. How are language and thought related to perception and motor control?

  There is a myth that the mind is a computer. This concept of mind requires that the mind is independent of the body and can be studied independently of the body. The body doesn't affect the structure of language, concepts or reasoning. In such a theory, meaning is derived from the relation between formal, arbitrary symbols and objects in the real world, which have an inherent, true structure. Inference and reasoning are consequences of this structure.  This view of meaning does not bear out in the face of the Lowenheim-Skolem Theorem which states that for any set of axioms in first order logic, they can be satisfied by the set of natural numbers. So any set of axioms which claims to describe the inherent structure of the world (and thus meaning) can be satisfied by the set of natural numbers. The axioms themselves cannot represent meaning. In other words, a formal system underdetermines its interpretation. Philosopher Hillary Putnam's work discusses this problem at length.  In this course we will assert that meaning actually arises from the interaction of human bodies and brains with the outside world. In other words, human thoughts, concepts and language are influenced and structured by both the physical body and the environment and social systems in which we live. For instance, in this ourse we will demonstrate how a neural system responsible for body movements can be also be used to structure abstract concepts.

3. How does the neural structure of the brain shape language?

  How might neural firing mechanisms, spreading activation, etc. influence he structure of human language and thought?

Some other issues which were touched on briefly:

- An important issue for any theory of the mind is emotion and feelings. This course will not focus on emotions. Interested students should read Antonio Demasio's Descartes' Error.

- A further mind myth is the modularity of the brain. Some researchers have suggested that the various areas of the brain are extremely domain specific. They have specific functions which are independent of the functions of other "modules". The linguist Noam Chomsky assumed this position in asserting that language arises from a "language module" in the brain which is not learned but innate.  This course will assert that the brain is not modular, but that neural systems within the brain depend on other systems and any one system can be used for multiple functions.

- One more mind myth is that the mind is a statistical engine and reasoning is a search for statistical correlations. This theory is also false, as we'll see later on in the course.

Here are more myths which we wil try to disprove over the course of the semester:

The Mind = Computer assumption:
1. The mind is a computer (see above)
2. The brain is modular (see above)
3. The mind is a statistical engine (see above)
4. Nothing is known about the brain (so we can create brain-independent mind theories)
5. The mind can be adequately studied independently of the brain
6. The mind is an abstract symbol system
7. Memoryis a warehouse
8. The mind and body are disconnected (there is no overlap between them; they can be studied separately)
9. The mind is disembodied; there is diembodied intelligence
10. The mind is a program

The Mind = Formal Mathematical System assumption:
1. Reason is logic
2. Categories are classical (Aristotelian): category members satisfy necessary & sufficient conditions
3. Language is autonomous, independent and purely formal
4. Objectivism: objects and concepts exist and have meaning outside of human intelligence
5. Meaning is literal (non-metaphorical)
6. The mind is modular

Nature vs. Nurture:
1. Everything is genetic/ innate (rationalism, nature)
2. Nothing is genetic/innate (empiricism, nurture)

The mind is a Statistical Engine:
1. The mind is a PDP (parallel distributed processing) network (the meaning of PDP will be discussed later in class)
2. Reason is statistics
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

References: