{"id":40417,"date":"2020-11-30T16:55:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T16:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=40417"},"modified":"2020-11-30T16:55:26","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T16:55:26","slug":"the-computer-revolution-in-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=40417","title":{"rendered":"The computer revolution in philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"top\" \/>\n<p><em>by Aaron Sloman<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What are the aims of Science?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A central form of question in science and philosophy is &#8216;How is so and so possible?&#8217; Many scientists, especially those studying people and soci systems, mislead themselves and their students into thinking that science is essentially a search for laws and correlations, so that they overlook the study of possibilities. &#8211; p. 28<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Psychologists don&#8217;t normally ask these questions either: having been indoctrinated with the paradigm of dependent and independent variables, they fail to distinguish a study of the circumstances in which some behaviour does and does not occur, from a search for an explanation of that behaviour. &#8211; p. 31<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By trying to turn our explanations and theories into designs for working systems, we soon discover their poverty. The computer, unlike academic colleagues, is not convinced by fine prose, impressive looking diagrams or jargon, or even mathematical equations. If your theory doesn&#8217;t work then the behaviour of the system you have designed will soon reveal the need for improvement. &#8211; p.32<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the system cannot be broken down hierarchically into parts, then parts of those parts, until relatively simple concepts and facts are reached, it follows that anyone learning about the system has to learn many different interrelated things in parallel, tolerating confusion, oversimplifications, inaccuracies, and constantly altering what has previously been learnt in the light of what comes later. &#8211; p.32<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An issue which bothers psychologists is how we can tell whether a particular program really does explain some human ability, as opposed to merely mimicking it. The short answer is that there is never any way of establishing that a scientific explanation is correct. However, it is possible to compare rival explanations, and to tell whether we are making progress. &#8211; p.33<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hypotheses about the timits of possibilities (laws) lack this security, for they are constantly subject to revision as the boundaries are pushed further out by newly discovered (or created) possibilities. Explanations of possibilities and their limits frequently need to be refined or replaced, for the same reason. But this is all a necessary part of the process of learning and understanding more about what is possible in the world. (This is true of child development too.) It is an organic, principled growth. &#8211; p.41<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If forced to summarise all this in a single slogan, one could say. A major aim of science is to find out what sorts of things are and are not possible in the world, and to explain how and why. &#8211; p.43<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8216;Pure&#8217; science first discovers instances of possbilities then creates explanations of those possibilities whereas &#8216;applied&#8217; science uses explanations of possibilities to create instances. &#8211; p.44<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So concepts and symbols are tools for generating possibilities or questions for investigation. They have greater generative power than theories. The scientist who usefully extends the language science, unlike one who simply proposes a new theory using existing concepts and symbols, extends the hypothesis-forming powers of the scientists who understand him. In this sense conceptual advances are more profound. &#8211; p.49<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Science is served not only by extending and differentiating existing concepts: rejection of a concept or typology or mode of representation may also serve the aims of science by reducing the variety of dead-end questions and theories. &#8211; p.50<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So a good explanation of a range of possibilities should be definite, general (but not too general), able to explain fine structure, non-circular, rigorous, plausible, economical, rich in heuristic power, and extendable. &#8211; p.59<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The theory which explains the possibility of generating and understanding sentences need not specify all the interactions between the postulated mechanism and other aspects of the mind. So it need not provide a basis for prediction and control. &#8211; p.61<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is not possible to refute a scientific theory, if it merely explains possibilities, and entails or explains no impossibilities. &#8211; p.61<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Science and philosophy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The frantic pursuit of repeatability and statistically significant correlations is leased on a belief science is a search for laws, This can blind scientists to the need for careful description and analysis of what can occur, and for the explanation of its possibility. Instead they try to find what always occurs &#8211; a much harder task -and usually fail. Even if something is actually done by very few persons, or only by one, that still shows that it is possible for a human being, and this possibility needs explanation as much as any other established fact. &#8211; p.63<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Philosophers dig up what we all know (often without realising it), whereas scientists mostly try to extend what we know, about possibilities. &#8211; p. 71<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lack of substantial laws does not leave the human sciences without content, for there are many kinds of social and psychological phenomena whose possibility is well known and needs to be explained, even though the prediction and explanation of particular instances is out of the question, since it depends enormously on highly complex individual histories, decision-strategies, beliefs, interests, hopes, fears, ways of looking at things, and so on. To turn to the search for probabilistic or statistical laws, when the hope of universal laws has been abandoned, as so often happens, is to reject the opportunity to study and interpret the rich structure of particular cases as a way of finding out what possibilities they exemplify. &#8211; p.79<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It may turn out that the combination of skills and knowledge required to construct non-circular and rigorous explanations of any significant range of human possibilities cannot exist in any one scientist nor in any team of scientists, philosophers, and engineers, small enough to co-operate. Human possibilities may be too complex to be understood and explained by humans. But the time is not yet ripe for drawing this pessimistic conclusion, and even if it is true, that is no reason for not trying. &#8211; p.79<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Perception as a computational process<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Perceiving structure or meaning may include using knowledge to reject what is irrelevant (like background noise, or coincidental juxtapositions) and to construct or hallucinate what is not there at all. It is an active constructive process which uses knowledge of the &#8216;grammar&#8217; of sensory data, for instance knowledge of the possible structures of retinal images, knowledge about the kinds of things depicted or represented by such data, and knowledge about the processes by which objects generate sense-data. &#8211; p.192<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our present ignorance is not a matter of our not knowing which theory is correct, but of our not knowing how to formulate theories sufficiently rich in explanatory power to be worth testing experimentally. &#8211; p.196<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">More on A.I. and philosophical problems<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe only a subset of what constitutes a central administrator changes during such switches, for instance, a subset of the motivational store and a subset of the factual and procedural memory. Then personality has only partial continuity. &#8211; p. 222<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Kant recognised, intelligent learning from experience requires considerable prior domain-specific knowledge. What we are beginning to learn from such artificial intelligence research is the precise nature of the background knowledge required for various forms of visual perception. For instance, by designing working models we can explore such questions as: what sorts of knowledge about the geometry and topology of images does a visual system require? Which sorts of general knowledge about space and specific knowledge about particular sorts of objects can enable a rational system to find the best global interpretation of a mass of locally ambiguous evidence without wasting time exploring a host of unsatisfactory possibilities? How much prior knowledge of good methods of storing, indexing, and manipulating information is required? &#8211; p.226<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Aaron Sloman What are the aims of Science? A central form of question in science and philosophy is &#8216;How is so and so possible?&#8217; Many scientists, especially those studying people and soci systems, mislead themselves and their students into thinking that science is essentially a search for laws and correlations, so that they overlook &#8230; <a title=\"The computer revolution in philosophy\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=40417\" aria-label=\"Read more about The computer revolution in philosophy\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[621],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40418,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40417\/revisions\/40418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}