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5Free at last! Free at last! Thank evolution, free at last!Artificial Intelligence 169 (2): 165-173. 2005.
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2Using regression-match graphs to control search in planningArtificial Intelligence 109 (1-2): 111-159. 1999.
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11Planning: What it is, what it could be, an introduction to the special issue on planning and schedulingArtificial Intelligence 76 (1-2): 1-16. 1995.
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2Building large knowledge-based systems: Representation and inference in the cyc projectArtificial Intelligence 61 (1): 53-63. 1993.
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15Planning and ActingCognitive Science 2 (2): 71-100. 1978.A new theory of problem solving is presented, which embeds problem solving in the theory of action; in this theory, a problem is just a difficult action. Making this work requires a sophisticated language for‐talking about plans and their execution. This language allows a broad range of types of action, and can also be used to express rules for choosing and scheduling plans. To ensure flexibility, the problem solver consists of an interpreter driven by a theorem prover which actually manipulates…Read more
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Computationally Constrained BeliefsJournal of Consciousness Studies 20 (5-6): 124-150. 2013.People and intelligent computers, if there ever are any, will both have to believe certain things in order to be intelligent agents at all, or to be a particular sort of intelligent agent. I distinguish implicit beliefs that are inherent in the architecture of a natural or artificial agent, in the way it is 'wired', from explicit beliefs that are encoded in a way that makes them easier to learn and to erase if proven mistaken. I introduce the term IFI, which stands for irresistible framework int…Read more
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56The digital computer as red HerringPsycoloquy 12 (54). 2001.Stevan Harnad correctly perceives a deep problem in computationalism, the hypothesis that cognition is computation, namely, that the symbols manipulated by a computational entity do not automatically mean anything. Perhaps, he proposes, transducers and neural nets will not have this problem. His analysis goes wrong from the start, because computationalism is not as rigid a set of theories as he thinks. Transducers and neural nets are just two kinds of computational system, among many, and any so…Read more
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29A Temporal Logic for Reasoning about Processes and PlansCognitive Science 6 (2): 101-155. 1982.Much previous work in artificial intelligence has neglected representing time in all its complexity. In particular, it has neglected continuous change and the indeterminacy of the future. To rectify this, I have developed a first‐order temporal logic, in which it is possible to name and prove things about facts, events, plans, and world histories. In particular, the logic provides analyses of causality, continuous change in quantities, the persistence of facts (the frame problem), and the relati…Read more
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1002Zombies are hypothetical creatures identical to us in behavior and internal functionality, but lacking experience. When the concept of zombie is examined in careful detail, it is found that the attempt to keep experience out does not work. So the concept of zombie is the same as the concept of person. Because they are only trivially conceivable, zombies are in a sense inconceivable.
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45What matters to a machineIn M. Anderson S. Anderson (ed.), Machine Ethics, Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 88--114. 2011.
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54Review of Aristotle's Laptop: The Discovery of Our Informational Mind by Igor Aleksander and Helen Morton (review)International Journal of Machine Consciousness 6 (1): 45-48. 2014.Drew McDermott, Int. J. Mach. Conscious., 06, 45 (2014). DOI: 10.1142/S1793843014400071.
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25Dodging the explanatory gap–or bridging itBehavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (5-6): 518-518. 2007.Assuming our understanding of the brain continues to advance, we will at some point have a computational theory of how access consciousness works. Block's supposed additional kind of consciousness will not appear in this theory, and continued belief in it will be difficult to sustain. Appeals to to experience such-and-such will carry little weight when we cannot locate a subject for whom it might be like something
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266Artificial intelligence and consciousnessIn Philip David Zelazo, Morris Moscovitch & Evan Thompson (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness, Cambridge University Press. pp. 117--150. 2007.
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549Logic is useful as a neutral formalism for expressing the contents of mental representations. It can be used to extract crisp conclusions regarding the higher-order theory of phenomenal consciousness developed in (McDermott 2001, 20007). A key aspect of conscious perceptions is their connection to the distinction between appearance and reality. Perceptions must often be corrected. To do so requires that the logic of perception be able to represent the logical structure of judgment events, that i…Read more
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23A vehicle with no wheelsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (1): 161-161. 1999.O'Brien & Opie's theory fails to address the issue of consciousness and introspection. They take for granted that once something is experienced, it can be commented on. But introspection requires neural structures that, according to their theory, have nothing to do with experience as such. That makes the tight coupling between the two in humans a mystery.
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40Erratum: "What does a Sloman want?"International Journal of Machine Consciousness 2 (2): 385-385. 2010.
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Yale UniversityRegular Faculty
New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |