The PHIL 341 (Mind & Cognition) Home Page

The purpose of this page is to act as the central jumping off point to resources which may be useful for, or interesting to, students registered in the course. Hopefully, as the course progresses more links will be added, so feel free to bookmark this page and visit once in a while. Please e-mail suggested links, comments, etc. to istvan@USL.edu.

Course Media

• The phil341 mailing list. The purpose of this mailing list is to facilitate the discussion of course relevant topics outside the class room context. To join the list send an e-mail message, with a blank subject line to majordomo@usl.edu. On the first line of the message put the command,
  subscribe phil341

  and the software will automatically add you to the list. To unsubscribe, just follow the same procedure, but use the command "unsubscribe", rather than the command "subscribe". If you are not registered in the class, please contact istvan@usl.edu for permission before subscribing or sending messages to the list. Submissions to the list should be sent to phil341@usl.edu.

• usl.class.phil.341 Newsgroup In addition to the phil341 mailing list, there is also a Usenet newsgroup which is available locally. This provides another forum which can be used for discussing course related topics and sharing information. In order to access it, just point your favorite news reader at usl.class.phil.341. Another news group which is well worth keeping an eye on is comp.ai.neural-nets.

• Trajan 2.1 Shareware. Given that the main topic of this course is connectionist systems, it only seems reasonable that students should have an opportuntiy to 'get their hands dirty' (so to speak), by experiementing with connectionist networks. The Trajan 2.1 Shareware, from Trajan Software Ltd provides an excellent opportunity for students with access to computers running Windows 3.1 or higher to learn about connectionist networks for themselfs. The software can be downloaded from here.

• NeuroSolutions Demo Software. For those who have access to Windows95 machines, a truely excellent software product is available for download from the NeuroDimension company. This is a very sophisticated software, which includes a large number of detailed demonstrations and tutorials. The learning curve on this software may be quite steep though, so it is not for the faint of heart!

• Other software If neither of the above software packages are to your liking, or suit your operating systems, then you are free to explore other connectionist software possibilites. An extensive list of links to downloadable shareware, along with descriptions is available here.

Links

• What is AI? This link will take you to a thing I wrote for the E-zine The Scoop. It is basically a popularist piece. However, it gives an easy to read introduction to Artificial Intelligence. In addition, there are loads of links associated with the writing which are accessible on the footnotes. These links include classic papers and documents, important people, software available on the web and descriptions of classic AI systems.

• Connectionism Reconsidered: Minds, Machines and Models This link will take you to a short conference paper I recently finished. In the paper I make a (much too brief!) argument for a particular methodological stratergy for justifying connectionist research, using backpropogation learning. If the paper was longer, the argument could be much improved. I'd be grateful for any comments of suggestions on this (send to: istvan@USL.edu).

• What the #$*%! is a Subsymbol? This is another conference paper. I read it at the Society for Exact Philosophy conference in Montreal in May 1997. Be warned however, some of the details of the image files seems to have got lost - this rather spoils the effect of the paper. I'll see if I can fix the problem soon. In the meantime, you can look at the jittered density plots in the Connection Science paper which is on reserve in the library. This paper is the forerunner of a paper I am working on for publication which will have the title "What the <.070, .117, .099, .107, .033> is a Symbol?".

• Some Myths of Connectionism. This link will take you to a copy of a draft of a paper by Dr. Ish, which debunks some of the claims which have been made about connectionist systems. It is the assigned reading for the week beginning 29th of September.

• A Revisionist History of Connectionism An alternative perspective on the history of connectionism, which disputes some of the perspectives of standard historical versions. Includes some new material from the people involved in the history of AI and Cognitive Science.

• Example patterns for Trajan 2.1 Click on this link in order to download some pattern files for the Trajan 2.1 Shareware. You will be asked where you wish to save the file. Save it in the directory where the rest of the Trajan 2.1 shareware is saved. You will then need to unzip the file (using your favorite unzip utility -- if you don't have one, utilities can be easily downloaded, for example from http://www.shareware.com). Once you have unzipped the file, look at the file called ReadMe2.txt for further details. The two other files (3case.pat and xor.pat) are Trajan 2.1 pattern files for the three case problem which Bechtel and Abrahamsen discuss early on in the book (3case.pat) and the classic exclusive OR (XOR) problem (xor.pat). Feel free to experiment with these problems.

• How to Write a Philosophy Paper This link will take you to a page (in Canada!) which contains a brief guide on writing philosophy papers.

• How to Cite Information from the Internet This page provides a whole bunch of conventions which should be used when citing information (for example, in papers) which you have found on line.

• Dr. Ish's Introduction to Connectionism. This is a reasonably accessible introduction to the basic components and concepts which are important to connectionist systems. It includes a description of some of the kinds of processing units which can be employed.

• A Cognitive Science Bibliography This link will take you to a fairly extensive bibliography of interesting and useful texts about connectionism, cognitive science in general and artificial intelligence. The bibliography is arranged alphabetically by author.

• Bill Bechtel's Home Page. Bechtel (along with his wife Adel Abrahamsen) is the author of the main text for this course. If you wish to see what he looks like and find out more about him, follow this link.

Student Papers On-Line

• On An Open Cognitive Architecture by Shamus T. Fuller. This paper will be presented to the class on Monday the 17th of November. Comments should go directly to Shamus. They can be sent by clicking here.