- Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy Of Language, Semiotics, Evolutionary Psychology, Ethnomusicology, Wittgenstein, and 70 moreEmbodied Cognition, Music and Language, Social Neuroscience, Experimental philosophy, Charles S. Peirce, Music Therapy, Neurophenomenology, Anthropology of emotions, Mental Representation and Content, Pragmatics, Philosophy of Language and communication, Brazilian Music, Music and Emotions, Philosophy of the Emotions, Embodied Music Cognition, Peirce Pragmaticist Semiotics, Semiotics And Language, History of semiotics, Semiotics of mind, Ruth Millikan, Malleability of Thinking Styles, Cognitive Science, Peace and Conflict Studies, Intercultural Communication, Poetry, Conflict Resolution, Sociology of Music, Metaphilosophy, Autoethnography, Hermeneutics and Narrative, Intentionality, Experimental Music, Extended Mind, Concepts, Expressive Arts Therapy, Enactivism, Classical Guitar, Attitude change, Humor and laughter in education, Collective Intentionality, Cross-Cultural Communication, Music Improvisation, Experimental Culture Studies--creating cultures, their conflicts, their blends in lab settings, in situ settings, Musical Brain, Teleosemantics, Bossa Nova, Biosemiotics, Cheryl Misak, Tyler Burge, Enaction (Psychology), Functionalism, Jean Piaget, Deixis, Moral and Cognitive Reasoning, Millikan, Digital Humanities, Digital Libraries, Semantic Web technology - Ontologies, Ontology (Computer Science), Academic Publishing, Digital Media & Learning, Integrative Neuroscience, Cognitive Semiotics, Philosophy of Implicit Experience. Eugene Gendlin, Recognition memory, Metacognition, Phenomenology, Cognitive Sciences, Embodied and Enactive Cognition, Embodied mathematics, and Neuroinformaticsedit
- Driven by a general restlessness and perpetual curiosity, in particular about the varied perspectives people have and... moreDriven by a general restlessness and perpetual curiosity, in particular about the varied perspectives people have and can hold -- on life in general, and with respect to all sorts of other issues -- I have led a varied life. I majored in philosophy at Kenyon College, where I was first introduced to Wittgenstein and Peirce. After volunteering in a two rural community run alternative elementary schools in Maine, I did an MA in applied philosophy at Bowling Green State University, where I interned at a neighborhood conflict resolution agency and did a masters thesis on the Piagetian concept of reciprocity and consensus formation. I have taught English and studied (computer programming) abroad, in Mexico and Brazil. I have learned some classical guitar and have taken various music and improvisational theater courses. I have worked briefly as a software tester, technical writer and most recently as a translator. I am fascinated by music, particularly Brazilian music. I have written experimental poetry in English and Portuguese. In 2010, I returned to study philosophy & cognitive science, doing a second masters degree in Osnabrueck, Germany. I am particulary interested in how semiotics (Peircean and Millianean biosemantics) and Wittgenstein fit into the picture. I also wanted to explore more deeply the relations between language, culture, emotions and music. However, I have decided in recent years to focus on math, computer science, and computational linguistics, because of their central role in central activities in today's world.
Since the summer of 2017, I have begun to study (part-time) for a second Bachelors in Computer Science/Computational Linguistics at the University of Saarland, in Saarbrücken, Germany.edit - for 1985 MA Thesis in Philosophy (Bowling Green State University, Ohio): Donald Scherer (principal advisor), for 2005 Final Project in Java (UFTPR, Curitiba, Brazil): Hilton de Azevedo, for 2013 MSc. Thesis in Cognitive Science (University of Osnabrück, Germany): Uwe Meyer and Nikola Kompaedit
We describe and report on results of employing a new method for analyzing lay conceptions of intentional and unintentional action. Instead of asking people for their conceptual intuitions with regard to construed scenarios, we asked our... more
We describe and report on results of employing a new method for analyzing lay conceptions of intentional and unintentional action. Instead of asking people for their conceptual intuitions with regard to construed scenarios, we asked our participants to come up with their own scenarios and to explain why these are examples of intentional or unintentional actions. By way of content analysis, we extracted contexts and components that people associated with these action types. Our participants associated unintentional actions predominantly with bad outcomes for all persons involved and linked intentional actions more strongly to positive outcomes, especially concerning the agent. People's conceptions of intentional action seem to involve more aspects than commonly assumed in philosophical models of intentional action that solely stress the importance of intentions, desires, and beliefs. The additional aspects include decisions and thoughts about the action. In addition, we found that the criteria that participants generated for unintentional actions are not a mere inversion of those used in explanations for intentional actions. Associations between involuntariness and unintentional action seem to be stronger than associations between aspects of voluntariness and intentional action.
This thesis uses concepts developed by Ruth Millikan as part of her “biosemantic” theory of intentional signs to explain her theory of about what it means to identify the “substance” that is the object of one’s thoughts. It then applies... more
This thesis uses concepts developed by Ruth Millikan as part of her “biosemantic” theory of intentional signs to explain her theory of about what it means to identify the “substance” that is the object of one’s thoughts. It then applies these concepts and the theory to elucidate her analysis of identity statements. Finally, it develops and explores Millikan’s notion of “sameness marker” functioning, the notion being that there exist sameness markers in the mind or brain that allow people to recognize that the same substance is being encountered at different points of time. It relates this notion to Millikan’s theory of identification, on the one hand, and to her analysis of identity statements, on the other. Throughout the thesis, Millikan’s notions are contrasted with those she attributes to Frege.
Research Interests:
Gives a history of the concept of weak definiteness and a summary of the idea of semantic incorporation. Then compares and critiques various attempts (by Carlson, Aguilar-Guevara &. Zwarts, Bosch and Cieschinger) to apply the latter to... more
Gives a history of the concept of weak definiteness and a summary of the idea of semantic incorporation. Then compares and critiques various attempts (by Carlson, Aguilar-Guevara &. Zwarts, Bosch and Cieschinger) to apply the latter to help identify the cases of the former, in particular views about when the reference is to an abstract vs. a concrete subject.
Research Interests:
An exposition of Ruth Millikan's chapter 7, "Intensionality" of her 2002 Nicod Lectures. Adds an outline, background material on Frege and Quine and brings in concepts from Millikan's other lectures on such concepts as semantic mapping... more
An exposition of Ruth Millikan's chapter 7, "Intensionality" of her 2002 Nicod Lectures. Adds an outline, background material on Frege and Quine and brings in concepts from Millikan's other lectures on such concepts as semantic mapping functions, purposes and embedding.
Research Interests:
Clarification of the central themes of Ned Block's article “The Harder Problem of Consciousness.” In particular, explains why Block thinks that the question of whether a certain kind of robot is phenomenally conscious is relevant to the... more
Clarification of the central themes of Ned Block's article “The Harder Problem of Consciousness.” In particular, explains why Block thinks that the question of whether a certain kind of robot is phenomenally conscious is relevant to the question of what phenomenal consciousness essentially is, that is, with what, if anything, it can be identified in terms of natural properties investigated by the natural sciences and difficulties with collecting empirical evidence to determine which hypothesis is correct.