Form,interpretation, and the uniqueness of content: Response to Morris

In response to Michael Morris, I attempt to refute the crucial second premise of the argument, which states that the formality condition cannot be satisfied non-stipulatively in computational systems. I defend the view of representation urged in Meaning and Mental Representation against the charge that it makes content stipulative and therefore irrelevant to the explanation of cognition. Some other reservations are expressed.     

Connectionism isn't magic

Ramsey, Stich and Garon's recent paper Connectionism, Eliminativism, and the Future of Folk Psychology claims a certain style of connectionism to be the final nail in the coffin of folk psychology. I argue that their paper fails to show this, and that the style of connectionism they illustrate can in fact supplement, rather than compete with, the claims of a theory of cognition based in folk psychology's ontology. Ramsey, Stich and Garon's argument relies on the lack of easily identifiable symbols inside the connectionist network they discuss, and they suggest that the existence of a system which behaves in a cognitively interesting way, but which cannot be explained by appeal to internal symbol processing, falsifies central assumptions of folk psychology. My claim is that this argument is flawed, and that the theorist need not discard folk psychology in order to accept that the network illustrated exhibits cognitively interesting behaviour, even if it is conceded that symbols cannot be readily identified within the network.This paper was in part prepared whilst I was a Vacation Scholar at the Automated Reasoning Project, Australian National University. It was presented in its present form to the Department of Philosophy, Institute of Advanced Studies, ANU. I owe a deep gratitude to many people who read and commented on earlier drafts of this paper, especially Phillip Staines and Phillip Cam from UNSW, Ed Mares from the Automated Reasoning Project at the ANU, and Frank Jackson, Karen Neander and David Braddon-Mitchell from the Philosophy Department, IAS, ANU. All the paper's faults are, of course, mine.     

日本女作家吉屋信子的上海表象:以现地报告《战祸的北支上海行》为主线

针对抗日战争时期日本媒体的战争责任的问题,文章以活跃于大正和昭和年间的日本大众女作家吉屋信子各时期文学作品中的上海表象为线索,以吉屋的现地报告《战祸的北支上海行》为关注的焦点,分析了吉屋文学世界里所凝视的上海表象是“虚伪错误”的,而她提倡的中日两国通力合作的“共同幻想”也只是空洞的现实认识的记录而已.随着此种幻想的不断扩张,日本大众对已有一定倾向性的“上海负面形象”的认识也得以进一步的扩大.     

On the Logical Foundations of Compound Predicate Formulae for Legal Knowledge Representation

In order to represent legal knowledge adequately, it is vital to create a formal device that can freely construct an individual concept directly from a predicate expression. For this purpose, a Compound Predicate Formula (CPF) is formulated for use in legal expert systems. In this paper, we willattempt to explain the nature of CPFs by rigorous logical foundation, i.e., establishing their syntax and semantics precisely through the use of appropriate examples. We note the advantages of our system over other such systems and discuss the significance of CPFs with regard to the formalization of legal reasonings using examples from the United Nations Convention for the International Sale of Goods.     

Signed Systems for Paraconsistent Reasoning

We present a novel approach to paraconsistent reasoning, that is, to reasoning from inconsistent information. The basic idea is the following. We transform an inconsistent theory into a consistent one by renaming all literals occurring in the theory. Then, we restore some of the original contents of the theory by introducing progressively formal equivalences linking the original literals to their renamings. This is done as long as consistency is preserved. The restoration of the original contents of the theory is done by appeal to default logic. The overall approach provides us with a family of paraconsistent consequence relations.Our approach is semantical because it works at the level of the propositions; it deals with the semantical link between a proposition and its negation. The approach is therefore independent of the combination of the connectives that are actually applied to the propositions in order to form entire formulas.     

Can computers carry content ‘inexplicitly’?

I examine whether it is possible for content relevant to a computer's behavior to be carried without an explicit internal representation. I consider three approaches. First, an example of a chess playing computer carrying emergent content is offered from Dennett. Next I examine Cummins response to this example. Cummins says Dennett's computer executes a rule which is inexplicitly represented. Cummins describes a process wherein a computer interprets explicit rules in its program, implements them to form a chess-playing device, then this device executes the rules in a way that exhibits them inexplicitly. Though this approach is intriguing, I argue that the chess-playing device cannot exist as imagined. The processes of interpretation and implementation produce explicit representations of the content claimed to be inexplicit. Finally, the Chinese Room argument is examined and shown not to save the notion of inexplicit information. This means the strategy of attributing inexplicit content to a computer which is executing a rule, fails.I wish to thank Fred Dretske, JOhn Perry, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and suggestions. Earlier versions of this paper were read at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting in San Francisco in March, 1993, and at the 7th International Conference on Computing and Philosophy in Orlando in August, 1992.     

Pseudo-Stokes Vector Correlation From Complex Signal Representation of a Speckle Pattern and Its Applications to Micro-Displacement Measurement

Abstract:  As an improvement of the intensity correlation used widely in conventional electronic speckle photography, we propose a new technique for displacement measurement based on correlating Stokes-like parameters derivatives for transformed speckle patterns. The method is based on a Riesz transform of the intensity speckle pattern, which converts the original real-valued signal into a complex signal. In closest analogy to the polarisation of a vector wave, the Stokes-like vector constructed from the spatial derivative of the generated complex signal has been applied for correlation. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate the validity and advantage of the proposed pseudo-Stokes vector correlation technique over conventional intensity correlation technique.     

The Skeptical Explorer: A Multiple-Hypothesis Approach to Visual Modeling and Exploration

The primary intent of this work is to present a method for sequentially associating three-dimensional surface measurements acquired by an autonomous exploration agent with models that describe those surfaces. Traditional multiple-viewpoint registration approaches are concerned only with finding the transformation that maps data points to a chosen global frame. Given a parts-based object representation, and assuming that the view correspondence can be found, the problem of associating the registered data with the correct part models still needs to be solved. While traditional approaches are content to group segmented data sets that geometrically overlap one another with the same part, there are cases where this causes ambiguous situations. This paper addresses the model-data association problem as it applies to three-dimensional dynamic object modeling. By tracking the state of part models across subsequent views, we wish to identify possible events that explain model-data association ambiguities and represent them in a Bayesian framework. The model-data association problem is therefore relaxed to allow multiple interpretations of the object's structure, each being assigned a probability. Rather than making a decision at every iteration about an ambiguous mapping, we look to the future for the information needed to disambiguate it. Experimental results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the approach.     

“电脑医学博学士”普及机版的若干设计方法

“电脑医学博学士”（ＤＮＹＢ）是一个巨大的计算机辅助诊断咨询系统。它的核心是“疾病诊断标准的医学知识库”。程序的研制应用了我们设计的高密度知识表达方法，它包含了１０００１个诊断单元的诊断标准，描述了近５０００条诊断指标。这一巨型知识库首先在低价的普及型微机上实现，它能帮助提示典型疾病和辅助诊断学教学。这一知识库将不断完善和扩大。     

An analysis of specialist and non-specialist user requirements for geographic climate change information

The EU EuroClim project developed a system to monitor and record climate change indicator data based on satellite observations of snow cover, sea ice and glaciers in Northern Europe and the Arctic. It also contained projection data for temperature, rainfall and average wind speed for Europe. These were all stored as data sets in a GIS database for users to download. The process of gathering requirements for a user population including scientists, researchers, policy makers, educationalists and the general public is described. Using an iterative design methodology, a user survey was administered to obtain initial feedback on the system concept followed by panel sessions where users were presented with the system concept and a demonstrator to interact with it. The requirements of both specialist and non-specialist users is summarised together with strategies for the effective communication of geographic climate change information.