Emma@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Emma Pease) (01/15/87)
The Semantics of Clocks
Brian Smith
January 22
Clocks participate in their subject matter. Temporal by nature, they
also represent time. And yet, like other representational systems,
clocks have been hard to build, and can be wrong. For these and other
reasons clocks are a good foil with which to explore issues in AI and
cognitive science about computation, mind, and the relation between
semantics and mechanism.
An analysis will be presented of clock face content and the
function of clockworks, and of various notions of chronological
correctness. The results are intended to illustrate a more general
challenge to the formality of inference, to widen our conception of
computation, and to clarify the conditions governing representational
systems in general.
Please note that this Thursday's Seminar will be in the Ventura
Trailer Classroom, not in Redwood G-19. Future Thursday Seminars will
also meet in the Ventura Trailer Classroom until a better room can be
found.