Chapter 2

Question 1

What are the four different levels that information processing must be investigated at?

Answer 1

Computational (what kinds of information processing problems can be solved by a system), algorithmic (what procedures are being used by a system to solve a particular problem of interest), architectural (what basic operations are being used as the foundations for a specific algorithm), implementational (what physical mechanisms are responsible for bringing a particular architecture to life).

Question 2

Define: animism

Answer 2

Assigning lifelike properties to inanimate, but moving, objects

Question 3

Define: logicism

Answer 3

The idea that thinking is identical to performing logical operations

Question 4

Why was animism important for the development of scientific and mathematical methods?

Answer 4

Since the conception in animism is that of an animistic universe, operated by magic, it paved the way for the conception of a mechanical world operated by mathematics

Question 5

Seventeenth century and ‘machines and minds’

Answer 5

Seventeenth century: the rise of animism (Cartesian philosophy distinguished humans-as-machine/souls - Descartes); this is the source of the mechanical view, and also where arose the critical question of whether or not it was possible for human artifacts (ie. clockwork mechanisms) to become alive/intelligent.

Question 6

Eighteenth century and ‘machines and minds’

Answer 6

Eighteenth century: “living machines” came to public acclaim; Pierre and Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz and their elaborate clockwork androids; this challenge to our perception of what makes us human drew the attention of the Catholic Church, who then destroyed much of this type of work.

Question 7

Twentieth century and ‘machines and minds’

Answer 7

Late 1940’s: saw the first appearance of autonomous robots (Tortoises); provided “mimicry of life”.
Twentieth century: the digital computer! inspired by Catesian notion of rational, logical, mathematical thoughts (brought logicism to life); Alan Turing’s account of a universal machine was converted into working form (electrical computers) by the mid-twentieth century.
This theory became so popular, that machines could do any task using logicism, that a lot of cognitive science equated how these machines ran to how thinking works.

Question 8

What elements of Boole’s algebra are similar to out more modern binary logic?

Answer 8

Boole used multiplication to elect entities that shared properties defined by separate classes. He also recognized that if one multiplied a class with itself the result would simply be the original set again (the fundamental law of thought: xx = x).He realized that if he was to assign numerical quantities to this theory than it would only work for 1 and 0, and therefore it is a consequence of the fact that the fundamental equation of thought is of the second degree or rather that we perform the operation of analysis by division into pairs of opposites (dichotomies)

Question 9

What are truth tables?

Answer 9

They make explicit an approach in which primitive propositions (p, q, r, etc.) that could only adopt values of 0 or 1 are used to produce more complex expressions. These expressions are produced by using logical functions to combine simpler terms (using “truth-value systems”)

Question 10

Define: multiple realizations

Answer 10

The term used to recognize that different physical mechanisms can bring identical functions to life.

Question 11

Define: artifacts

Answer 11

Things which occur due to a device’s design but are not explicitly part of the design; the unintentional consequence of the designed procedure.

Question 12

Why are artifacts important?

Answer 12

Because in may cases artifacts are crucial sources of information that help us reverse engineer an information processor that is a “black box” because its internal mechanisms are hidden from view (especially considering the ‘many-to-one’ relationship)

Question 13

Define: black boxes

Answer 13

An object or system in which we can observe external behaviour but we are unable to directly observe the internal properties.

Question 14

What is a ‘many-to-one’ relationship?

Answer 14

In the case of the relationship between algorithm and mapping, it means that (in practice) a single input-output mapping can established by one of several different algorithms. In theory an infinite number of different algorithms exist for computing a single input-output mapping of interest.

Question 15

What type of evidence can artifacts provide?

Answer 15

Relative complexity evidence (it takes longer to do more complex processes), intermediate state evidence (determining the number and nature of the intermediate states between the input and the output), error evidence (also helps to explore intermediate states; when extra demands are placed on a system they are more likely to make errors, and these errors are often systematic, which reflects the underlying algorithm).

Question 16

Define: Ryle’s regress

Answer 16

An infinite amount of algorithmic steps; also know as the homunculus problem (where the homunculus is an intelligent inner agent), where one explains outer intelligence by appealing to what is in essence an inner homunculus (opens up the problem to an infinite number of ‘inner homunculus’ ‘).

Question 17

How do you solve Ryle’s regress/the homunculus problem?

Answer 17

Solving this type of problem requires explaining it in an algorithm that does not require further decomposition to be explained. To do so you need to have subfunctions which are simpler than the overall function that they work together to produce. The set of subfunctions that exist at the final level of decomposition belong to (what computer scientists call) the device’s architecture.

Question 18

What is the ‘new wave’ approach to reduction?

Answer 18

In the interest of determining whether a theory phrased in one vocabulary can be reduced to another theory laid out in a difference vocabulary; the idea is to create a third, intermediate theory that serves as a bridge between the first two (eg. between algorithmic and implementational, functional architecture is a bridge)

Question 19

In order to explain machines such as the modern-day computer, or logic machines (information-processing machines), what different vocabularies must be employed (the four different levels)?

Answer 19

1. the computational (what information processing problem is being solved by the device).
2. the algorithmic (what procedure or program is being used to solve this problem)
3. the architectural (from what primitive information capabilities is the algorithm composed)
4. the implementational (what physical properties are responsible for instantiating the components of the architecture)
   » you move from the abstract to the concrete level of analysis

Question 20

How does the four-levels of analysis translate to the study of cognitive science (in this example, memory)?

Answer 20

1. the computational: formal characteristics of the cognitive processes, in example, attempting to mathematically characterize the capacity of human memory
2. the algorithmic: using human memory experiments in an attempt to reverse engineer the process into more simplified ones (ie. episodic and semantic)
3. the architectural: that you can reverse engineer memory processes lead scientists to determine architecture (ie. what type of encoding processes are used)
4. the implementational: providing biological support for the processes (think H.M. and the hippocampus and STM into LTM)

Question 21

The notion of multiple levels of explanation in cognitive science is directly linked to which two key ideas?

Answer 21

1. that information processing devices invite and require this type of explanation
2. that cognition is a prototypical example of information processing

Question 22

Why was Boole’s algebra so important? What were it’s flaws?

Answer 22

It was important because it showed that algebra of symbols is possible, productive, and worthy of exploration. It’s flaws inspired later revision (the flaws being how it ignored certain mathematical consequences of his fundamental law of thought) which cleaned up his work, producing new logical systems which bridged nineteenth century logic and the binary logic of the twentieth century.

Question 23

How did the two-value algebra/truth tables rise based on Boole’s work

Answer 23

Pierce extended Boole’s secondary propositions by stipulating an additional algebraic law of propositions: x = 1 or x = 0. This is how truth tables are laid out and how the connection to binary logic came about (two-valued algebra)

Question 24

How were Jevons and Marquands’ work relevant to the transition from Boolean logic to modern day?

Answer 24

Utilized a set and its complementary (binary) and this notion of true/false (when a premise was applied, an abecedarium was either eliminated or it wasn’t)

Question 25

Why was Shannon’s master thesis so important?

Answer 25

Thesis title: a symbolic analysis of relay and switching circuitry. It detailed the link between Boolean algebra and electrical circuits, and it showed how mathematical logic could be used to design, test, and simplify circuits.