Representation and Computation
Maurizio Tirassa and Marianna Vallana, Cogprints, July 30, 2010.

If you want some heady reading for the weekend, this post on cognition and representation is the ticket. It offers a good development of the physical symbol system hypothesis and "the attempt to identify the code, or the codes, in which knowledge is supposedly represented." In particular, "What all of them appeared to have in common is the idea that mental representations are coded symbolically and are structured and computable." This is a view with which I disagree. To the extent that I am willing to countenance representations at all (and I'm sceptical here) I am more inclined to Searle's line of reasoning, "the most radical criticism of the classical view is the claim that the mind/brain is indeed a representational organ, but that the nature of representations is not that of a formal code." It's not a long paper, but it will keep you working for a while.

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Re: Representation and Computation

John King, August 3, 2010

I can't help wondering if it is possible for a mind that is symbolically coded, structured and computable to know that it is such. It seems to me that the proof (however hypothetical it may be) for this claim would result in an infinite regress with no conclusion ever reached. Sort a hall of mirrors problem for them as I see it.
-John [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: Representation and Computation

Stephen Downes, August 3, 2010

You have, in so many words, just described Gödel incompleteness theorem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

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