Symbolic systems

Blurb (Book Description from the Publisher website):
Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds explains the crucial role that human cognition research plays in the design and realization of artificial intelligence systems, illustrating the steps necessary for the design of artificial models of cognition. It bridges the gap between the theoretical, experimental and technological issues addressed in the context of AI of cognitive inspiration and computational cognitive science.

Beginning with an overview of the historical, methodological and technical issues in the field of Cognitively-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, Lieto illustrates how the cognitive design approach has an important role to play in the development of intelligent AI technologies and plausible computational models of cognition. Introducing a unique perspective that draws upon Cybernetics and early AI principles, Lieto emphasizes the need for an equivalence between cognitive processes and implemented AI procedures, in order to realise biologically and cognitively inspired artificial minds. He also introduces the Minimal Cognitive Grid, a pragmatic method to rank the different degrees of biologically and cognitive accuracy of artificial systems in order project and predict their explanatory power with respect to the natural systems taken as source of inspiration.

Providing a comprehensive overview of cognitive design principles in constructing artificial minds, this text will be essential reading for students and researchers of artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

U ovom radu nastojimo da ukažemo na ključne elemente razvoja lika Šekspirovog Otela kroz frojdovsku psihoanalizu koju obeležava tehnika razotkrivanja latentnog nesvesnog dela ličnosti tumačenjem onoga šta neko radi, ali, pre svega, onoga šta i kako neko kaže. Analiziravši govor Otela i drugih protagonista drame, konstatovali smo da reči koje Otelo vremenom počinje ili prestaje da upotrebljava odražavaju promene u njegovom mentalnom sklopu, stavu, pogledu na život i u odnosima sa drugim ljudima. Zaključili smo da jezik koji pojedinac koristi može pomoći da se bolje razumeju simbolički sistemi koji vladaju ustrojstvom te osobe ili zajednice kojoj pripada.
Ključne reči: psihoanaliza, Otelo, jezik, simbolički sistemi, latentno, pojavno, čovečnost

The concept of stigma is used to analyse religion and social identity in Japan. After the Pacific War, religion in Japan and the social identity it provided can be said to have been stigmatised. Today, religion is still highly visible and still used as a mark of social identity and, thus, the effects of stigmatisation might still seem to be problematic. It is shown that in order to overcome this stigma a discourse has emerged. The discourse is associated with a typical reaction to the kind of threat to social identity and esteem that stigma can bring. This is made sense of through a conceptualisation of stigma incorporating the work of Link and Phelan, Nelson Goodman, and Tajfel and Turner. The stigmatisation and destigmatisation of religion and analytic tools to investigate it are particularly relevant today given the demonisation of Islam. In the past century, the world was riven by two world wars. The latter ended in two atomic bombs falling on two unprepared Japanese cities with consequences that are as unimaginable as they are horrendous. This event hastened the end of the Pacific War. The Japanese surrendered. The Americans came ashore, put an end to the 'State Shinto' system, had the emperor renounce his divinity, and rewrote the constitution. This very process of restructuring Japan ultimately acted to stigmatise religion in Japan to some significant degree. Yet, it seems, today religion is still deeply embedded in the culture and still provides a social identity. A discourse has thus emerged that aims to destigmatise religion in Japan and the social identity it provides. This, it is argued, is done following patterns similar to those identified by social psychologists like Tajfel and Turner. The stigmatisation and destigmatisation of religion and analytic tools to investigate it are particularly relevant today given the demonisation of Islam.

This study presents the application of neutron tomography to the analysis of ironstone slabs found in a late Earlier Stone Age context (Fauresmith industry) at the back of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape Province, South Africa. These slabs have markings on the surface that might be anthropogenic, and thus significant to understanding the emergence of human symbolic behaviour. Neutron tomography proved to be an effective tool for distinguishing surface incisions from lines that are the expression of internal fissures in the rock.