Greg Detre
Monday, February 24, 2003
one thing I
don�t think dennett really considers (and it�s a pet topic of mine) is what it
means to be rational, that is, what it means to do what you ought to do
(other than perhaps what others would do in the same position�???)
which is why I feel that the intentional stance is one of consistency/systematicity/predictability
rather than rationality per se�
see what was said in class about this, by Deb I
think???
when
dennett decides to define a believer as one who is predictable according to the
intentional stance, is he simply redefining the term �believer� to be broader,
or is he saying something stronger than merely definitional???
look up
Cherniak on minimal rationality � it looks as though Dennett is covering
similar ground � what does Cherniak say about Dennett???
does
Dennett adequately address why all systems can�t be construed as intentional???
does he show why the intentional and physical stances can�t be collapsed
into each other??? can they, in fact???
see his discussion after the lecturn
what�s
wrong with interpretationism???
especially given that the consequences of strong realism are so
unpalatable???
would his
theory be much more interesting if there was some other means of employing the
intentional stance than the rational one we use???
is it possible that there could be???
I feel as
though dennett�s definition of rationality is basically a practical one � it is
rational to do that which you believe will satisfy your desires
but I don�t understand how we learn to attribute desires???
is it that we attribute those desires which, in conjunction with
attributed beliefs, are most predictive???
is this circular???
what�s
Dennett�s aim in this paper???
presumably as it says in the subtitle, describing the intentional
strategy, and why it works
definition
on page 72: �all there is to beign a true believer is being a system
whose behavior is reliably predictable via the intentional strategy, and hence all
there is to really and truly believing that p (for any proposition p)
is being an intentional system for which p occurs as a belief in the
best (most predictive) interpretation�
is there a
difference that I�m missing between our current/particular intentional strategy,
and the intentional stance in general???
consider
whether the intentional stance need be about rational systems, or merely
about systematic systems
should it really be called the �predictive stance�??? no, because then
you�re just back to the physical stance, aren�t you�???
he does say that �there may someday be other strategies for attributing
belief and desire and for predicting behavior, but this is the only one we all
know now�
discuss how
we are particularly good at predicting other people�s behaviour because:
they are similar to us???
evolution has given them basic goals, e.g. survival, comfort etc.
mention how
language adds an almost unnecessary specificity to our beliefs + desires
consider
his final conclusions about the language of thought
�My thesis
will be that while belief is a perfectly objective phenomenon (that apparently
makes me a realist), it can be discerned only from the point of view of one who
adopts a certain predictive strategy, and its existence can be confirmed
only by an assessment of the success of that strategy (that apprently makes me
an interpretationist).�
the whole
�zorking� discussion in Altmann is about how they learn syntactic categories,
right???
which presumably has to come first, before they can identify the unknown
name as a name
how is
it that children are able to make the right associations and not just associate
with whatever�s in their field of vision, or on the basis of the radio or their
parents� conversation?
exaggerated
intonation in child-directed speech attracts the child�s attention
but
some societies do not distinguish between child- and adult-directed speech
(though only a few)
plus,
how do they know which particular word/sound in the sentence to associate with
the object?
and
what if the child is not looking/attending to the object at the time? by the
time they do look, the corresponding sound will be over
the
problem is similar for associating words with events (verbs)
in the laboratory, the range of
things a new word could be associated with can be controlled
Markman
et al. (1980s):
the
child is shown unseen/unnamed objects, and then has to pick them out (usually)
for a demanding puppet
i.e.
guess the meaning of a new word, and demonstrate it by picking out an object
or, for
verbs, assigning a name to the puppet�s action, which the child has to repeat
when the puppet next repeats the action
using
puppets is fun for children, and so maximises their cooperation
two
main findings:
1. if children hear a new word for something, they assume that
it applies to the whole thing, and to the thing�s parts
2. if they already know the name of something, they assume
that a new word cannot apply to that same thing (so either to a part, or to
something else)
these
assumptions could be largely a result of:
�
primitive perceptual
sensitivities
�
associative learning
but
did the sound of the bell have meaning for Pavlov�s dogs in the same way that
the word �dinner� has meaning for Pavlov himself?
but
this still doesn't rule associative learning out as part of the language
learning process
children
are much more sophisticated in terms of what they can kinds of things they can
learn and under what circumstances
e.g.
in communicating about our mental world
it�s
not a simple/direct mapping from meaning to environment
verbs don't get learnt till later
is that their use is more complicated because:
although
the nouns used in speaking to infants refer to things in the here-and-now,
verbs do not necessarily do so
moreover,
the usage of verbs is more complicated, e.g. they often involve both a subject
+ object
this
may require learning a body of nouns first
Naigles
found that when two-year olds are shown a rabbit feeding a duck, and either
hear:
1. �the rabbit is zorking the duck�
2. �the duck is zorking�
they
interpret �zorking� to either mean �feeding� or �eating� � they appear to know
that they should be mapped onto the event that involves one/two of them � this
is important because:
1. it shows that children use the structure of the events they
see in the wrold to aid in their interpretation of the structure of the
sentences they hear
conversely,
they also use the structure of the sentences they hear to guide what they
should attend to in the world they see (Gleitman)
i.e.
they are not trying to map individual words somehow excised from the rest of
the utterance onto individual meanings somehow excised from the rest of the
world
2. it means that verbs are learned in conjunction with a
rudimentary knowledge of grammar
the
meaning of a verb involves knowledge about the ways in which different things
take part in the event described by that verb
adults,
and indeed children, rarely confuse which things are doing what
however, it takes until about six years old that children learn that the sequential order of description in the sentence need not map on to the temporal order of events
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/wiemer-hastings98inferring.html
http://www.ling.udel.edu/colin/courses/psycho_f97/readings.html
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/cmt-51/ltiweb/LARG/presentations/LARG-20010222-Rachel.ppt
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/ekako1/psychlang.html
Lois vs Paul Bloom???
ostensive naming???
what about calling a telephone a �hullo�???
see revision notes for L&C�
does Plunkett have a response???
doesn�t fast-mapping predate ToM??? (pg 43)
see Meltzoff & Gopnik�
very very early imitation � innate almost
so is Bloom arguing that babies are taking into account the other person�s knowledge of what they know??? (pg 43)
preadapt /pri:<schwa>"dapt/ v.t.M19. [f. PRE- 1 + ADAPT.] Adapt beforehand; spec. (Biol.) adapt (an organism) for life in future conditions different from those currently obtaining. Freq. in pass.T. H. EATON Some thecodonts were <nfasp>preadapted� in certain ways for the life of birds.preadaptive a. causing or characterized by preadaptation E20.preadap'tation n. the fact or condition of being preadapted; a feature which is an instance of this: L19.