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Introduction to Cognitive Science Lecture #1 : INTRODUCTION

Introduction to Cognitive Science Lecture #1 : INTRODUCTION. Joe Lau Philosophy HKU. What is Cognitive Science?. An interdisciplinary science of mind and behavior. It is a science It studies mind and behavior It is interdisciplinary

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Introduction to Cognitive Science Lecture #1 : INTRODUCTION

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  1. Introduction to Cognitive ScienceLecture #1 :INTRODUCTION Joe Lau Philosophy HKU

  2. What is CognitiveScience? • An interdisciplinary science of mind and behavior. • It is a science • It studies mind and behavior • It is interdisciplinary • Cognitive science theories and explanations often invoke computations and representations.

  3. Mental Phenomena • From the mundane ... • Perception, language, reasoning, action, ... • To the abnormal and the bizarre • Cognitive impairments ( e.g. autism, prosopagnosia, Cotard delusion, … ) • and non-human species • Animal cognition

  4. Find your child ... Cape Cross, Namibia

  5. Why computation? • Assumption #1 : • Mental processes involve complex information processing. • Assumption #2 : • Complex information processing requires computations. • Conclusion : • Computations are necessary for explaining mental processes.

  6. What is computation? • Computation is (roughly) a rule-governed process which manipulates representations. • We have strong evidence that the brain is capable of carrying out massively parallel computations.

  7. Mental representations • MR = objects or states in the brain which encode information. • Don’t confuse : TREE

  8. Mundane reminder • “Tree” is a word, a representation. • It is a representation of a tree, a living thing, not a representation of “tree”. TREE represents

  9. Role of mental representations • Information has to be physically encoded so that they can be manipulated. • Memory / knowledge : storing representations • Thinking : causal sequence of representations • Two examples

  10. Visual Perception Topographical representation of visual stimulus in area V1

  11. VP VP NP V NP PP V discuss N PP discuss N P NP violence P NP violence on TV on TV Syntactic Disambiguation • “We shall discuss violence on TV.” • Two interpretations :

  12. Three Levels of Description • Three (kinds of) levels in describing a computational system : • Task : what the system is capable of doing (capacities) • Algorithm (software) : which computation procedures are used • Implementation (hardware) : how the computations are implemented

  13. Why Cogsci is Interdisciplinary • Horizontal and vertical diversity in mental capacities : • The mind can carry out lots of different tasks in different areas. • Each of these capacities can be studied at different levels. • Cogsci and psychology

  14. Relevance of cogsci • Scientific understanding • Education • Psychiatry • IT, AI • Design of computer interface • Voice recognition, data mining • Cybernetics

  15. Necessity and Sufficiency • Computations might be a necessary part of most if not all explanations of mental processes. • But computations themselves might not be sufficient (enough) to explain all mental processes. • Maybe some special features of the mind are due to neuro-physiological properties. • Sleep? Hormonal effects?

  16. Possibility of AI • AI = artificial intelligence • Computations might still be sufficient for mentality even if some aspects of the human mind can only be explained neuro-physiologically.

  17. Three Problems • Philosophers’ three major concerns : • Intentionality • Consciousness • Freewill

  18. Intentionality • Intentionality = aboutness, meaning, content • Language, knowledge, reasoning, beliefs, perception • The belief that 2>1 is a belief about numbers. • To be explained in terms of mental representations.

  19. Phenomenal Consciousness • Feelings, sensations, experience • Some mental states are both conscious and intentional • e.g. conscious thinking

  20. Freewill • What is freewill? • (A) Capable of making decisions + (B) ??? • Presumably (A) can be explained computationally. • What more is required?

  21. Can computers do X? • “Computers cannot have emotions / creativity / understanding / humour …” • To decide whether computers can have a mental state X, we need to : • Identify the conditions required for having X. • Decide which of the conditions are easy / difficult to be satisfied, and how.

  22. Can computers be creative? • What are the preconditions for creativity? • Generating ideas and hypotheses • Selecting and modifying the useful ones. • Both cognitive / intentional processes • No in-principle obstacles?

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