neuron-request@HPLABS.HPL.HP.COM ("Neuron-Digest Moderator Peter Marvit") (02/11/90)
Neuron Digest Saturday, 10 Feb 1990 Volume 6 : Issue 11 Today's Topics: Turing 1990 Colloquium, 3-6 April 1990, Sussex University Call for papers and referees - HICSS Proceedings book available NIPS-90 WORKSHOPS Call for Proposals NIPS-90 CALL For Papers connectionism & AI conf. Searle/Pinker: BBS Call for Commentators Send submissions, questions, address maintenance and requests for old issues to "neuron-request@hplabs.hp.com" or "{any backbone,uunet}!hplabs!neuron-request" Use "ftp" to get old issues from hplpm.hpl.hp.com (15.255.176.205). ------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Turing 1990 Colloquium, 3-6 April 1990, Sussex University From: Aaron Sloman <aarons%cogs.sussex.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK> Date: Sun, 04 Feb 90 19:11:17 +0000 I have been asked to circulate information about this conference. NB - please do NOT use "reply". Email enquiries should go to turing@uk.ac.sussex.syma ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TURING 1990 COLLOQUIUM At the University of Sussex, Brighton, England 3rd - 6th April 1990 This Conference commemorates the 40th anniversary of the publication in Mind of Alan Turing's influential paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". It is hosted by the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences at the University of Sussex and held under the auspices of the Mind Association. Additional support has been received from the Analysis Committee, the Aristotelian Society, The British Logic Colloquium, The International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, POPLOG, Philosophical Quarterly, and the SERC Logic for IT Initiative. The aim of the Conference is to draw together people working in Philosophy, Logic, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and related fields, in order to celebrate the intellectual and technological developments which owe so much to Turing's seminal thought. Papers will be presented on the following themes: Alan Turing and the emergence of Artificial Intelligence, Logic and the Theory of Computation, The Church-Turing Thesis, The Turing Test, Connectionism, Mind and Content, Philosophy and Methodology of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. Invited talks will be given by Paul Churchland, Joseph Ford, Robin Gandy, Clark Glymour, Douglas Hofstadter, J.R. Lucas, Donald Michie, Christopher Peacocke and Herbert Simon, while other prominent contributors include Robert French (Indiana), Beatrice de Gelder (Tilburg), Andrew Hodges (Oxford), Philip Pettit (ANU) and Aaron Sloman (Sussex). Anyone wishing to attend this Conference should complete the enclosed form and send it to Andy Clark, TURING Registrations, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, England, U.K., enclosing a STERLING cheque or money order for the total amount payable, made out to "Turing 1990". We regret that we cannot accept payment in other currencies. The form should be returned not later than Thursday 1st March, 1990, after which an extra fee of #5.00 for late registration is payable and accommodation cannot be guaranteed. The conference will start at lunchtime on Tuesday 3rd April, 1990, and will end on Friday 6th April after tea. Final details will be sent to registered participants in February 1990. Conference Organizing Committee Andy Clark (Sussex University), David Holdcroft (Leeds University), Peter Millican (Leeds University), Steve Torrance (Middlesex Polytechnic) ___________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAMME OF INVITED SPEAKERS Paul CHURCHLAND (UCSD) Title to be announced Joseph FORD (Georgia) CHAOS : ITS PAST, ITS PRESENT, BUT MOSTLY ITS FUTURE Robin GANDY (Oxford) HUMAN VERSUS MECHANICAL INTELLIGENCE Clark GLYMOUR (Carnegie-Mellon) COMPUTABILITY, CONCEPTUAL REVOLUTIONS AND THE LOGIC OF DISCOVERY Douglas HOFSTADTER (Indiana) Title to be announced J.R. LUCAS (Oxford) MINDS, MACHINES AND GODEL : A RETROSPECT Donald MICHIE (Turing Institute) MACHINE INTELLIGENCE - TURING AND AFTER Christopher PEACOCKE (Oxford) PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF CONCEPTS Herbert SIMON (Carnegie-Mellon) MACHINE AS MIND ____________________________________________________________________________ REGISTRATION DOCUMENT : TURING 1990 NAME AND TITLE : __________________________________________________________ INSTITUTION : _____________________________________________________________ STATUS : ________________________________________________________________ ADDRESS : ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ POSTCODE : _________________ COUNTRY : ____________________________ Any special requirements (eg. diet, disability) : _________________________ I wish to register for the Turing 1990 Colloquium and enclose a Sterling cheque or money order, payable to "Turing 1990", for the total amount listed below : Please ENTER AMOUNTS as appropriate. 1. Registration Fee: Mind Association Members #30.00 .............. (Compulsory) Full-time students #30.00 .............. (enclose proof of status - e.g. letter from tutor) Academics (including retired academics) #50.00 .............. Non-Academics #80.00 .............. Late Registration Fee #5.00 .............. (payable after 1st March) 2. Full Board including all meals from Dinner #84.00 .............. on Tuesday 3rd April to Lunch on Friday 6th April, except for Thursday evening OR All meals from Dinner on Tuesday 3rd April #33.00 .............. to Lunch on Friday 6th April, except for Thursday evening 3. Conference banquet in the Royal Pavilion, #25.00 .............. Brighton on Thursday 5th April OR Dinner in the University on Thursday 5th April #6.00 .............. 4. Lunch on Tuesday 3rd April #6.00 .............. 5. Dinner on Friday 6th April #6.00 .............. ______________ TOTAL # ______________ Signed ________________________________ Date ______________________ Please return this form, with your cheque or money order (payable to "Turing 1990"), to: Dr Andy Clark Turing 90 Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QH, England. ------------------------------ Subject: Call for papers and referees - HICSS From: Okan K Ersoy <ersoy@ee.ecn.purdue.edu> Date: Mon, 05 Feb 90 10:22:56 -0500 CALL FOR PAPERS AND REFEREES HAWAII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYSTEM SCIENCES - 24 NEURAL NETWORKS AND RELATED EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES KAILUA-KONA, HAWAII - JANUARY 9-11, 1991 The Neural Networks Track of HICSS-24 will contain a special set of papers focusing on a broad selection of topics in the area of Neural Networks and Related Emerging Technologies. The presentations will provide a forum to discuss new advances in learning theory, associative memory, self-organization, architectures, implementations and applications. Papers are invited that may be theoretical, conceptual, tutorial or descriptive in nature. Those papers selected for presentation will appear in the Conference Proceedings which is published by the Computer Society of the IEEE. HICSS-24 is sponsored by the University of Hawaii in cooperation with the ACM, the Computer Society,and the Pacific Research Institute for Informaiton Systems and Management (PRIISM). Submissions are solicited in: Supervised and Unsupervised Learning Issues of Complexity and Scaling Associative Memory Self-Organization Architectures Optical, Electronic and Other Novel Implementations Optimization Signal/Image Processing and Understanding Novel Applications INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING PAPERS Manuscripts should be 22-26 typewritten, double-spaced pages in length. Do not send submissions that are significantly shorter or longer than this. Papers must not have been previously presented or published, nor currently submitted for journal publication. Each manuscript will be put through a rigorous refereeing process. Manuscripts should have a title page that includes the title of the paper, full name of its author(s), affiliations(s), complete physical and electronic address(es), telephone number(s) and a 300-word abstract of the paper. DEADLINES A 300-word optional abstract may be submitted by April 30, 1990 by e-mail or mail. Feedback to author concerning abstract will be given by May 31, 1990. Six copies of the manuscript are due by June 25, 1990. Notification of accepted papers by September 1, 1990. Accepted manuscripts, camera-ready, are due by October 3, 1990. SEND SUBMISSIONS AND QUESTIONS TO O. K. Ersoy Purdue University School of Electrical Engineering W. Lafayette, IN 47907 (317) 494-6162 E-Mail: ersoy@ee.ecn.purdue.edu ------------------------------ Subject: Proceedings book available From: inesc!lba%alf@relay.EU.net (Luis Borges de Almeida) Date: Mon, 05 Feb 90 13:46:27 -0500 The proceedings volume of the EURASIP Workshop on Neural Networks (Sesimbra, Portugal, 15-17 Feb. 1990) is already available from Springer-Verlag. It has been published in their Lecture Notes in Computer Science series, and the complete reference is: Neural Networks EURASIP Workshop 1990 Sesimbra, Portugal, February 1990 Proceedings L. B. Almeida and C. J. Wellekens (Eds.) Springer-Verlag, 1990 The volume contains two invited papers, by Eric Baum and George Cybenko, and the full contributions to the workshop, which were evaluated by an international technical committee, resulting in the acceptance of only 40% of the submissions. Below is the table of contents. Have a good reading! Luis B. Almeida INESC Phone: +351-1-544607 Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843 P-1017 Lisboa Codex Portugal lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe) lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe) lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp) --------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I - Invited Papers When Are k-Nearest Neighbor and Back Propagation Accurate for Feasible Sized Sets of Examples? E.B. Baum Complexity Theory of Neural Networks and Classification Problems G. Cybenko PART II - Theory, Algorithms Generalization Performance of Overtrained Back-Propagation Networks Y. Chauvin Stability of the Random Neural Network Model E. Gelenbe Temporal Pattern Recognition Using EBPS M. Gori, G. Soda Markovian Spatial Properties of a Random Field Describing a Sthochastic Neural Network: Sequential or Parallel Implementation? T.Herve, O. Francois, J. Demongeot Chaos in Neural Networks S. Renals The "Moving Targets" Training Algorithm R. Rohwer Acceleration Techniques for the Backpropagation Algorithm F.M. Silva, L.B. Almeida Rule-Injection Hints as a Means of Improving Network Performance and Learning Time S.C. Suddarth, Y.L. Kergosien Inversion in Time S. Thrun, A. Linden Cellular Neural Networks: Dynamic Properties and Adaptive Learning Algorithm L. Vandenberghe, S. Tan, J. Vandewalle Improved Simulated Annealing, Boltzmann Machine, and Attributed Graph Matching L. Xu, E. Oja PART III - Speech Processing Artificial Dendritic Learning T. Bell A Neural-Net Model of Human Short-Term Memory Development G.D.A. Brown Large Vocabulary Speech Recogntion Using Neural-Fuzzy and Concept Networks N. Hataoka, A. Amano, T. Aritsuka, A. Ichikawa Speech Feature Extraction Using Neural Networks M. Niranjan, F. Fallside Neural Network Based Continuous Speech Recogntion by Combining Self Organizing Feature Maps and Hidden Markov Modeling G. Rigoll PART IV - Image Processing Ultra-Small Implementation of a Neural Halftoning Technique T. Bernard, P. Garda, F. Devos, B. Zavidovique Application of Self-Organizing Networks to Signal Processing J. Kennedy, P. Morasso A Study of Neural Network Applications to Signal Processing S. Kollias PART V - Implementation Simulation Machine and Integrated Implementation of Neural Networks: a Review of Methods, Problems and Realizations C. Jutten, A. Guerin, J. Herault VLSI Implementation of an Associative Memory Based on Distributed Storage of Information U. Rueckert Luis B. Almeida INESC Phone: +351-1-544607 Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843 P-1017 Lisboa Codex Portugal lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe) lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe) lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp) Luis B. Almeida INESC Phone: +351-1-544607 Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843 P-1017 Lisboa Codex Portugal lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe) lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe) lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp) Luis B. Almeida INESC Phone: +351-1-544607 Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843 P-1017 Lisboa Codex Portugal lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe) lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe) lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp) Luis B. Almeida INESC Phone: +351-1-544607 Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843 P-1017 Lisboa Codex Portugal lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe) lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe) lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp) Luis B. Almeida INESC Phone: +351-1-544607 Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843 P-1017 Lisboa Codex Portugal lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe) lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe) lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp) Luis B. Almeida INESC Phone: +351-1-544607 Apartado 10105 Fax: +351-1-525843 P-1017 Lisboa Codex Portugal lba@inesc.inesc.pt (from Europe) lba%inesc.inesc.pt@uunet.uu.net (from outside Europe) lba@inesc.uucp (if you have access to uucp) ------------------------------ Subject: NIPS-90 WORKSHOPS Call for Proposals From: Steve Hanson <jose@neuron.siemens.com> Date: Tue, 06 Feb 90 18:28:54 -0500 REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS NIPS-90 Post-Conference Workshops November 30 and December 1, 1990 Following the regular NIPS program, workshops on current topics on Neural Information Processing will be held on November 30 and December 1, 1990, at a ski resort near Denver. Proposals by qualified individuals interested in chairing on of these workshops are solicited. Past topics have included: Rules and Connectionist Models; Speech; Vision; Neural Network Dynamics; Neurobiology; Computational Complexity Issues; Fault Tolerance in Neural Networks; Benchmarking and Comparing Neural Network Applications; Architectural Issues; Fast Training Techniques; VLSI; Control; Optimization, Statistical Inference, Genetic Algorithms. The format of the workshop is informal. Beyond reporting on past research, their goal is to provide a forum for scientists actively working in the field to freely discuss current issues of concern and interest. Sessions will meet in the morning and in the afternoon of both days, with free time in between for the ongoing individual exchange or outdoor activities. Specific open or controversial issues are encouraged and preferred as workshop topics. Individuals interested in chairing a workshop must propose a topic of current interest and must be willing to accept responsibility for their group's discussion. Discussion leaders' responsibilities include: arrange brief informal presentations by experts working on this topic, moderate or lead the discussion, and report its high points, findings and conclusions to the group during evening plenary sessions, and in a short (2 page) summary. Submission Procedure: Interested parties should submit a short proposal for a workshop of interest by May 17, 1990. Proposals should include a title and a short description of what the workshop is to address and accomplish. It should state why the topic is of interest or controversial, why it should be discussed and what the targeted group of participants is. In addition, please send a brief resume of the prospective workshop chair, list of publications and evidence of scholarship in the field of interest. Mail submissions to: Dr. Alex Waibel Attn: NIPS90 Workshops School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail net address (if applicable) must be on all submissions. Workshop Organizing Committee: Alex Waibel, Carnegie-Mellon, Workshop Chairman; Kathie Hibbard, University of Colorado, NIPS Local Arrangements; Howard Watchel, University of Colorado, Workshop Local Arrangements; PROPOSALS MUST BE RECEIVED BY MAY 17,1990 Please Post ------------------------------ Subject: NIPS-90 CALL For Papers From: Steve Hanson <jose@neuron.siemens.com> Date: Tue, 06 Feb 90 19:32:57 -0500 CALL FOR PAPERS IEEE Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems -Natural and Synthetic- Monday, November 26 - Thursday, November 29, 1990 Denver, Colorado This is the fourth meeting of an inter-disciplinary conference which brings together neuroscientists, engineers, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, physicists, and mathematicians interested in all aspects of neural processing and computation. Two days of focused workshops will follow at a nearby ski area (Nov 30-Dec 1). Major categories and examples of subcategories for paper submissions are the following; Neuroscience: Neurobiological models of development, cellular information processing, synaptic function, learning and memory. Studies and analyses of neurobiological systems. Implementation and Simulation: Hardware implementation of neural nets. VLSI, Optical Computing, and practical issues for simulations and simulation tools. Algorithms and Architectures: Description and experimental evaluation of new net architectures or learning algorithms: data representations, static and dynamic nets, modularity, rapid training, learning pattern sequences, implementing conventional algorithms. Theory: Theoretical analysis of: learning, algorithms, generalization, complexity, scaling, capability, stability, dynamics, fault tolerance, sensitivity, relationship to conventional algorithms. Cognitive Science & AI: Cognitive models or simulations of natural language understanding, problem solving, language acquisition, reasoning, skill acquisition, perception, motor control, categorization, or concept formation. Applications: Neural Networks applied to signal processing, speech, vision, character recognition, motor control, robotics, adaptive systems tasks. Technical Program: Plenary, contributed and poster sessions will be held. There will be no parallel sessions. The full text of presented papers will be published. Submission Procedures: Original research contributions are solicited, and will be carefully refereed. Authors must submit six copies of both a 1000-word (or less) summary and six copies of a separate single-page 50-100 word abstract clearly stating their results by May 17, 1990. At the bottom of each abstract page and on the first summary page indicate preference for oral or poster presentation and specify one of the above six broad categories and, if appropriate, sub-categories (For example: POSTER-Applications: Speech, ORAL-Implementation: Analog VLSI). Include addresses of all authors at the front of the summary and the abstract and to which author correspondence should be addressed. Submissions will not be considered that lack category information, separate abstract sheets, the required six copies, author addresses or are late. Mail Submissions To: Mail Requests For Registration Material To: John Moody Kathie Hibbard NIPS*90 Submissions NIPS*90 Local Committee Department of Computer Science Engineering Center Yale University University of Colorado P.O. Box 2158 Yale Station Campus Box 425 New Haven, Conn. 06520 Boulder, CO 80309-0425 Organizing Committee: General Chair: Richard Lippmann, MIT Lincoln Labs; Program Chair: John Moody, Yale; Neurobiology Co-Chair: Terry Sejnowski, Salk; Theory Co-Chair: Gerry Tesauro, IBM; Implementation Co-Chair: Josh Alspector, Bellcore; Cognitive Science and AI Co-Chair: Stephen Hanson, Siemens; Architectures Co-Chair: Yann Le Cun, ATT Bell Labs; Applications Co-Chair: Lee Giles, NEC; Workshop Chair: Alex Waibel, CMU; Workshop Local Arrangements, Howard Wachtel, U. Colorado; Local Arrangements, Kathie Hibbard, U. Colorado; Publicity: Stephen Hanson, Siemens; Publications: David Touretzky, CMU; Neurosciences Liaison: James Bower, Caltech; IEEE Liaison: Edward Posner, Caltech; APS Liaison: Larry Jackel, ATT Bell Labs; Treasurer: Kristina Johnson, U. Colorado; DEADLINE FOR SUMMARIES & ABSTRACTS IS MAY 17, 1990 please post ------------------------------ Subject: connectionism & AI conf. From: ai-vie!georg@relay.EU.net (Georg Dorffner) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 90 17:21:28 -0100 Announcement and Call for Papers Sixth Austrian Artificial Intelligence Conference --------------------------------------------------------------- Connectionism in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science --------------------------------------------------------------- organized by the Austrian Society for Artificial Intelligence (OeGAI) in cooperation with the Gesellschaft fuer Informatik (GI, German Society for Computer Science), Section for Connectionism Sep 18 - 21, 1990 Salzburg, Austria Conference chair: Georg Dorffner (Univ. of Vienna, Austria) Program committee: J. Diederich (GMD St. Augustin, Germany) C. Freksa (Techn. Univ. Munich, Germany) Ch. Lischka (GMD St.Augustin, Germany) A. Kobsa (Univ. of Saarland, Germany) M. Koehle (Techn. Univ. Vienna, Austria) B. Neumann (Univ. Hamburg, Germany) H. Schnelle (Univ. Bochum, Germany) Z. Schreter (Univ. Zurich, Switzerland) Recently, connectionism is becoming more and more influential as a basic paradigm and method for artificial intelligence and cognitive science. Although there is an abundance of conferences on artificial neural networks - the basis of connectionism - only few meetings are devoted to modeling cognitive processes and building AI models with the novel approach. This conference is designed to fill this space. It will bring together works in the field of neural networks for AI problems, but also basic aspects of massive parallelism and theoretical implications of the new paradigm. The program will consist of submitted papers, workshops, invited talks and panels. IMPORTANT! The conference languages are German and English. Most of the conference will be held in German, though, but papers in English are welcome! Scientific program: papers on the following topics, among others, are solicited: - networks in practical AI applications - connectionist "expert systems" - localist (structured) networks - localist and self-organizing approaches - explanation and interpretation of network behavior - hybrid systems - knowledge representation in neural networks - representation vs. behavior - validity of learning mechanisms - parallelism in humans and machines - associative inferences - connectionism and language processing - connectionism and pattern recognition - network simulation software as AI tool - neural networks and genetic algorithms - philosophical and epistemological implications - neural networks and robotics Workshops: - massive parallelism and cognition (Ch. Lischka) - structured (localist) network models (J. Diederich) - connectionism in language processing The workshops consist of short persentations and intensive discussions on the specialized topic. Presentations are usually invited, but can also be submitted. They will be open to all participants at the conference. Panel: Explanation and transparency of connectionist systems ------------------------------------------------------------- All submissions for the scientific program should consist of no more than 10 pages, for the workshops of no more than 5 pages. Languages - as mentioned above - are German and English. All accepted papers will be printed in a proceedings volume. Send all submissions to: Georg Dorffner Dept. of Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence University of Vienna Freyung 6/2 A-1010 Vienna, Austria Deadlines: complete submission postmarked no later than March 15, 1990 April 30, 1990: Notification of acceptance / rejection June 1, 1990: Deadline for camera-ready paper System demonstrations are possible, if the conference chair is notified early. ------------------------------ Subject: Searle/Pinker: BBS Call for Commentators From: harnad@Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) Date: Thu, 08 Feb 90 20:07:30 -0500 Below are the abstracts of two forthcoming target articles [Searle on consciousness, Pinker & Bloom on language] that are about to be circulated for commentary by Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator on one of these articles (please specify which), or to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: harnad@clarity.princeton.edu or harnad@pucc.bitnet or write to: BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771] ____________________________________________________________________ (1) Searle: Consciousness & Explanation (2) Pinker & Bloom: Language Evolution - --------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) CONSCIOUSNESS, EXPLANATORY INVERSION AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE by John R. Searle Department of Philosophy University of Californai Berkeley CA Cognitive science typically postulates unconscious mental phenomena, computational or otherwise, to explain cognitive capacities. The mental phenomena in question are supposed to be inaccessible in principle to consciousness. I try to show that this is a mistake, because all unconscious intentionality must be accessible in principle to consciousness; we have no notion of intrinsic intentionality except in terms of its accessibility to consciousness. I call this claim the Connection Principle. The argument for it proceeds in six steps. The essential point is that intrinsic intentionality has aspectual shape: our mental representations represent the world under specific aspects, and these aspectual features are essential to a mental state's being the state that it is. Once we recognize the Connection Principle, we see that it is necessary to perform an inversion on the explanatory models of cognitive science, an inversion analogous to the one evolutionary biology imposes on pre-Darwinian animistic modes of explanation. In place of the original intentionalistic explanations we have a combination of hardware and functional explanations. This radically alters the structure of explanation, because instead of a mental representation (such as a rule) causing the pattern of behavior it represents (such as rule governed behavior), there is a neurophysiological cause of a pattern (such as a pattern of behavior), and the pattern plays a functional role in the life of the organism. What we mistakenly thought were descriptions of underlying mental principles in, for example, theories of vision and language, were in fact descriptions of functional aspects of systems, which will have to be explained by underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. In such cases what looks like mentalistic psychology is sometimes better construed as speculative neurophysiology. The moral is that the big mistake in cognitive science is not the overestimation of the computer metaphor (though that is indeed a mistake) but the neglect of consciousness. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) NATURAL LANGUAGE AND NATURAL SELECTION Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology Many have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have evolved as the byproduct of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of unknown laws of growth and form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is incompatible with Darwinian theory: Grammar shows no genetic variation, could not exist in any intermediate forms, confers no selective advantage, and would require more time and genomic space to evolve than is available. We show that these arguments depend on inaccurate assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers a clear criterion for attributing a trait to natural selection: complex design for a function with no alternative processes to explain the complexity. Human language meets this criterion: Grammar is a complex mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the claim that language is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: Communication protocols depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are shared. Consequently, the child's acquisition of language should differ systematically from language evolution in the species; attempts to make analogies between them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process. ------------------------------ End of Neuron Digest [Volume 6 Issue 11] ****************************************