Connectionist Epistemology

Introduction

Connectionism - the use of neural networks for knowledge representation and inference - has profound implications for the representation and processing of information, because it provides a fundamentally new view of knowledge. This research seeks to understand connectionist epistemology, for its applications in artificial intelligence, cognitive science and neuroscience.

Publications (reverse chronological order)

  1. “Protophenomena: The Elements of Consciousness and their Relation to the Brain” [html, doc].

  2. “Transcending Turing Computability” [postscript] Technical Report UT-CS-01-473, November 12, 2001. handouts and slides for a talk are also available.

  3. “Contextual Back-Propagation” [postscript] Technical Report UT-CS-00-443, September 12, 2000.

  4. “Neurophenomenological Constraints and Pushing Back the Subjectivity Barrier” [compressed postscript, postscript] Technical Report UT-CS-99-419, April 20, 1999. Extended version of commentary in Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22, pp. 961-963.

  5. “The Protophenomenal Structure of Consciousness, with Especial Application to the Experience of Color: Extended Version” [postscript], Technical Report CS-99-418, March 1999 (revised April, 2002). Extended version of a paper presented at International Conference on Consciousness in Science and Philosophy '98, Charleston, IL, November 6-7, 1998.

  6. “Mixing Memory and Desire: Want and Will in Neural Modeling” [compressed postscript postscript, pdf], by Bruce MacLennan, invited paper for the Fifth Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics, The Brain and Values, October 18-20, 1996; published in Brain and Values: Is a Biological Science of Values Possible, Karl H. Pribram (Ed.), Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998, pp. 31-42. (The postscript mathematics looks funny with some viewers, but seems to print OK. Send me mail if you have problems. Unfortunately, the mathematics in the published version of the paper is completely garbled.)

  7. “The Protophenomenal Structure of Consciousness, with Especial Application to the Experience of Color” [postscript], Technical Report CS-98-397, August 19, 1998. Also available as hypertext. Summary of paper to be presented at International Conference on Consciousness in Science and Philosophy '98, Charleston, IL, November 6-7, 1998.

  8. “Finding Order in our World: The Primacy of the Concrete in Neural Representations and the Role of Invariance in Substance Reidentification (Extended Version)” [compressed postscript], Technical Report CS-97-378, November 26, 1997; extended version of a commentary to appear in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Also available as hypertext.

  9. "The Elements of Consciousness and their Neurodynamical Correlates," by Bruce MacLennan, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 3 (1996), Nos. 5/6, pp. 409-424. Reprinted in Explaining Consciousness: The Hard Problem, Jonathan Shear (Ed.), Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995-7, pp. 249-66. Available as hypertext and in postscript form.
    An expanded version of this paper, including an appendix describing a mathematical model of protophenomena, is available as a technical report, “Protophenomena and their Neurodymanical Correlates” (CS-96-331), in hypertext and in postscript form. Also available in CogPrint archives
  10. Previous (now superceded) version of “The Elements of Consciousness and their Neurodynamical Correlates,” [in hypertext form] by Bruce MacLennan.

  11. “Continuous Formal Systems: A Unifying Model in Language and Cognition,” by Bruce MacLennan. Appears in the proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Architectures for Semiotic Modeling and Situation Analysis in Large Complex Systems, August 27-29, 1995, Monterey, CA. A slightly extended version is available as a technical report.

  12. “The Investigation of Consciousness Through Phenomenology and Neuroscience” by Bruce MacLennan. Invited contribution, Scale in Conscious Experience: Is the Brain Too Important to be Left to Specialists to Study? Joseph King & Karl H.Pribram (Eds.), Mahwah: Lawrence-Erlbaum, 1995, pp. 25-43.

  13. “Words Lie in Our Way,” by Bruce MacLennan, Minds and Machines, special issue on "What is Computation?" Vol. 4, No. 4 (November 1994), pp. 421-437.

  14. “Continuous Computation and the Emergence of the Discrete” [ pdf, uncompressed postscript, compressed postscript, gzipped postscript], by Bruce MacLennan, invited contribution, Origins: Brain & Self-Organization, edited by Karl Pribram, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994, pp. 121-151. Also University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Department of Computer Science Technical Report CS-94-227, March 24, 1994, 41 pp.

  15. “Grounding Analog Computers” [html] by Bruce MacLennan, June 1993. (commentary on S. Harnad, “Grounding Symbols in the Analog World with Neural Nets”), by Bruce MacLennan, Think 2, June 1993, pp. 48-51. Reprinted in Psycoloquy 12 (52), 2001. Also postscript and pdf.

  16. “Image and Symbol: Continuous Computation and the Emergence of the Discrete” [ compressed postscript, postscript, pdf], by Bruce MacLennan, invited contribution for book, Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks: Steps Toward Principled Integration, edited by Vasant Honavar and Leonard Uhr, New York, NY: Academic Press, 1994, pp. 207-240. Also University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Department of Computer Science Technical Report CS-93-199, December 18, 1992 (revised August 5, 1993), 33 pages. A proposed theoretical construct (the simulacrum) for connectionist models analogous to the calculus in symbolic models.

  17. “Continuous Symbol Systems: The Logic of Connectionism” [compressed postscript, postscript, pdf], by Bruce MacLennan, Neural Networks for Knowledge Representation and Inference, edited by Daniel S. Levine and Manuel Aparicio IV, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994, pp. 83-120. Also University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Computer Science Department technical report CS-91-145, September 1991, 47 pages. This paper presents a preliminary formulation of continuous symbol systems and indicates how they may aid in understanding the development of connectionist theories.

  18. “Visualizing the Possibilities” (review of Johnson-Laird & Byrne’s Deduction), by Bruce MacLennan, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 2 (June 1993), pp. 356-357.

  19. “Characteristics of Connectionist Knowledge Representation,” by Bruce MacLennan, Information Sciences 70 (1993), pp. 119-143. Also University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Department of Computer Science Technical Report CS-91-147, November 1991, 22 pages. We present a construct, called a simulacrum, which has a similar relation to connectionist knowledge representation as the calculus does to symbolic knowledge representation. [ps, pdf]

  20. “Research Issues in Flexible Computing: Two Presentations in Japan,” by Bruce MacLennan, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Department of Computer Science Technical Report CS-92-172, September 4, 1992, 17 pages. The text of two presentations made in Japan both of which deal with the Japanese “Real World Computing Project” (informally known as the “Sixth Generation Project”)

  21. “The Discomforts of Dualism” (review of Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics), by Bruce MacLennan, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13, No. 4 (December 1990), pp. 673-674.

  22. “Causes and Intentions” (commentary on Dennett’s The Intentional Stance), by Bruce MacLennan, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 11, No. 3 (September 1988), pp. 519-520.

  23. “Logic for the New AI,” by Bruce MacLennan, Aspects of Artificial Intelligence, J. H. Fetzer (ed.), Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1988, pp. 163-192. [pdf, ps]

  24. “Field Computation and Nonpropositional Knowledge,” by Bruce MacLennan, Naval Postgraduate School Technical Report NPS52-87-040, September 1987, 31 pages. [pdf, ps]
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Last updated: 2007-11-24.