Whit Schonbein

Sandia National Laboratories
  •  150
    Cognition and the power of continuous dynamical systems
    Minds and Machines 15 (1): 57-71. 2004.
    Traditional approaches to modeling cognitive systems are computational, based on utilizing the standard tools and concepts of the theory of computation. More recently, a number of philosophers have argued that cognition is too subtle or complex for these tools to handle. These philosophers propose an alternative based on dynamical systems theory. Proponents of this view characterize dynamical systems as (i) utilizing continuous rather than discrete mathematics, and, as a result, (ii) being compu…Read more
  •  62
    The Linguistic Subversion of Mental Representation
    Minds and Machines 22 (3): 235-262. 2012.
    Embedded and embodied approaches to cognition urge that (1) complicated internal representations may be avoided by letting features of the environment drive behavior, and (2) environmental structures can play an enabling role in cognition, allowing prior cognitive processes to solve novel tasks. Such approaches are thus in a natural position to oppose the ‘thesis of linguistic structuring’: The claim that the ability to use language results in a wholesale recapitulation of linguistic structure i…Read more
  •  78
    Varieties of Analog and Digital Representation
    Minds and Machines 24 (4): 415-438. 2014.
    The ‘received view’ of the analog–digital distinction holds that analog representations are continuous while digital representations are discrete. In this paper I first provide support for the received view by showing how it (1) emerges from the theory of computation, and (2) explains engineering practices. Second, I critically assess several recently offered alternatives, arguing that to the degree they are justified they demonstrate not that the received view is incorrect, but rather that dist…Read more
  •  26
    Some researchers claim that simulations of the emergence of communication in populations of autonomous agents provide empirical support for 'use' theories of meaning. I argue that this claim faces at least two major challenges. First, the empirical adequacy of such simulations must be justified, or the inference from simulation results to real-world linguistic behavior must be dropped; and second, the proffered simulations are in fact compatible with all of the competing theories of meaning surv…Read more