[ programme | general abstract | outline | short biography ]
JEAN-NICOD LECTURES 2004
ZENON W. PYLYSHYN
THINGS AND PLACES
How the mind connects with the worldOutline of the lectures
Lecture 1: The empirical case for a nonconceptual link between things and representations: Indexing and Tracking . Background to the problem to be discussed in these lectures: The distinction between causal, demonstrative and conceptual relations, and an informal discussion of why some primitive nonconceptual relations are essential in perception. An introduction to the Visual Index (FINST) theory, Object Files and experimental investigations using multiple object tracking. Implications of this research program for the thesis of nonconceptual representation and for the nature of the initial causal connection between objects and symbolic representations.
Lecture 2: The basic ingredients of the mind-world relation: Individuation, selection, reference and predication. The nature of attentional selection. Why do we need selection and what do we select in the first instance? FINST Indexes as the mechanism for binding predicate-arguments and motor-command arguments to the objects of predication. Conceptual and nonconceptual content and Object Files . Causes and codes. Austen Clark and Feature Placing as the basis of sentience . The binding problem . What do FINSTs index; objects or spatiotemporal regions? More empirical findings concerning FINST Indexes and the role of Object Files and why it matters to philosophy of mind.
Lecture 3: Representing Space I: Nonconceptual content and the experience of space . The role of conscious experience in the study of perception. A survey of some approaches to the problem of how the mind assimilates and represents space and spatial relations. The strategy of internalizing external spatial properties: Natural constraints, psychophysical complementarity and "functional" space. The genesis of our sense of space: Poincaré's insights and the role of FINSTs. Is there a uniform spatial frame of reference? The case for multiple perceptual frames of reference and coordinate transformation as the origin of our "sense of space." [Video]
Lecture 4: Representing Space II: Shortcomings of "inner space" proposals and an alternative view . A short summary of the arguments about the spatial nature of mental images and the thesis that perception and imaginal reasoning make use of a spatial medium or internalized spatial constraints. A proposal for turning the problem of spatial cognition around and viewing it as involving the projection of mental contents onto spatial arrangements of objects in the world. FINST indexes (and their extension to other modalities, called Anchors) provide the needed mechanism for anchoring mental representations to perceived objects and their spatial properties, and thus for explaining the apparent spatial character of mental representations. The unsolved problems of representing space in the brain.
[Video]
Further information:
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