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84Information and representation in autonomous agentsCognitive Systems Research 1 (2): 65-75. 2000.Information and representation are thought to be intimately related. Representation, in fact, is commonly considered to be a special kind of information. It must be a _special_ kind, because otherwise all of the myriad instances of informational relationships in the universe would be representational -- some restrictions must be placed on informational relationships in order to refine the vast set into those that are truly representational. I will argue that information in this general sense is …Read more
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35The interactivist approach to development generates a framework of types of constraints on what can be constructed. The four constraint types are based on: (1) what the constructed systems are about; (2) the representational relationship itself; (3) the nature of the systems being constructed; and (4) the process of construction itself. We give illustrations of each constraint type. Any developmental theory needs to acknowledge all four types of constraint; however, some current theories conflat…Read more
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38Benny Shanon, the representational and the presentational: An essay on cognition and the study of the mind, hemel hempstead, hertfordshire, U.k.: Harvester wheatsheaf, 1993, ISBN 0-7450-1095-4; paramus, NJ: Prentice-hall, 1994, VI + 409 pp., $66.00 (paper), ISBN 0-13-302225- (review)Minds and Machines 10 (2): 313-317. 2000.
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229Social Ontology as ConventionTopoi 27 (1-2): 139-149. 2008.I will argue that social ontology is constituted as hierarchical and interlocking conventions of multifarious kinds. Convention, in turn, is modeled in a manner derived from that of David K. Lewis. Convention is usually held to be inadequate for models of social ontologies, with one primary reason being that there seems to be no place for normativity. I argue that two related changes are required in the basic modeling framework in order to address this (and other) issue(s): (1) a shift to an int…Read more
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180Process and emergence: Normative function and representationAxiomathes - An International Journal in Ontology and Cognitive Systems 14 135-169. 2004.Emergence seems necessary for any naturalistic account of the world — none of our familiar world existed at the time of the Big Bang, and it does now — and normative emergence is necessary for any naturalistic account of biology and mind — mental phenomena, such as representation, learning, rationality, and so on, are normative. But Jaegwon Kim’s argument appears to render causally efficacious emergence impossible, and Hume’s argument appears to render normative emergence impossible, and, in its…Read more
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37The interactivist approach to development generates a framework of types of constraints on what can be constructed. The four constraint types are based on: (1) what the constructed systems are about; (2) the representational relationship itself; (3) the nature of the systems being constructed; and (4) the process of construction itself. We give illustrations of each constraint type. Any developmental theory needs to acknowledge all four types of constraint; however, some current theories conflat…Read more
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77Levels of representationalityJournal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 10 (2): 179-215. 1998.The dominant assumptions -- throughout contemporary philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence -- about the ontology underlying intentionality, and its core of representationality, is that of encodings -- some sort of informational or correspondence or covariation relationship between the represented and its representation that constitutes that representational relationship. There are many disagreements concerning details and implementations, and even some suggestions…Read more
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75Variations in Variation and Selection: The Ubiquity of the Variation-and-Selective-Retention Ratchet in Emergent Organizational Complexity (review)Foundations of Science 8 (3): 215-282. 2003.The variation and selection form of explanationcan be prescinded from the evolutionary biologyhome ground in which it was discovered and forwhich it has been most developed. When this isdone, variation and selection explanations arefound to have potential application to a widerange of phenomena, far beyond the classicalbiological ground and the contemporaryextensions into epistemological domains. Itappears as the form of explanation most suitedto phenomena of fit. It is also found toparticipate …Read more
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76Function, anticipation, representationAIP Conference Proceedings 573 459-469. 2001.Function emerges in certain kinds of far-from-equilibrium systems. One important kind of function is that of interactive anticipation, an adaptedness to temporal complexity. Interactive anticipation is the locus of the emergence of normative representational content, and, thus, of representation in general: interactive anticipation is the naturalistic core of the evolution of cognition. Higher forms of such anticipation are involved in the subsequent macro-evolutionary sequence of learning, emot…Read more
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90An integration of motivation and cognitionIn L. Smith, C. Rogers & P. Tomlinson (eds.), Development and Motivation: Joint Perspectives, Leicester: British Psychological Society. pp. 41-56. 2003.
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459 The emergent ontology of personsIn Jack Martin & Mark H. Bickhard (eds.), The Psychology of Personhood: Philosophical, Historical, Social-Developmental and Narrative Perspectives, Cambridge University Press. pp. 165. 2012.
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