Tarski Alfred: LOGIC, SEMANTICS, METAMATHEMATICS (Clarendon,
1956)
A collection of the historical papers by Tarski, in particular
"On the concept of truth", which advanced the correspondence
theory of truth: a statement is true if it corresponds to real-
ity. Tarski's semantics has the goal of reducing all concepts to
physical concepts. All semantic concepts are defined in terms of
truth, and truth is defined in terms of satisfaction, and satis-
faction is defined in terms of physical concepts.
Tarski created the first model theory for quantified predicate
logic.
Taylor Charles: THE EXPLANATION OF BEHAVIOR (Routledge & Kegan,
1964)
Behavior is a function of the state of the system and its
environment; but what brings behavior about is its being required
to achieve the goals.
Thagard Paul: MIND (MIT Press, 1996)
A clear and well-organized textbook on cognitive science.
Thelen Esther & Smith Linda: A DYNAMIC SYSTEMS APPROACH TO THE
DEVELOPMENT OF COGNITION AND ACTION (MIT Press, 1994)
The book describes a theory of early human development (how
organic form is created, where does the information for the adult
reside, etc) that applies the theory of nonlinear dynamic systems
to biology and constitutes a landmark departure from cognitive
theories.
The processes that govern human development are the same that act
on the simplest organisms (and even some nonliving systems). They
are processes of emergent order and complexity, of how structure
arises from the interaction of many independent units. They
integrate organic ontogeny at every level, from morphology to
behavior.
Drawing from Edelman's neural darwinism, Bertalanffy's and
Laszlo's general systems theory, Haken's synergetics, and
Waddington's organismic metaphor, the authors prove that Piaget's
theory fails, that Chomsky's model of competence and performance
is flawed, that nativism is implausible, that cognition is con-
tinous across development, that Fodor's modules are illogical,
that Newell & Simon's information processing model is incomplete.
Only connectionism is salvaged, in virtue of its similarities
with dynamic systems (knowoledge as a pattern of activity, mental
life as only processes (not structures), but then discarded as
naif and insufficient.
By using Robert Cairn's analogy (evolution is to biology what
development is to psychology, i.e. the process behind the struc-
ture), the authors advance a theory of development that is as
opportunistic as evolution. Knowledge in the individual ori-
ginates in opportunistic and context-specific psychological
processes. The emphasis is on processes of change, on ever-active
self-organizing processes of living systems (analogous to selec-
tion algorithms).
Development appears to be orderly, incremental, directional
(towards nutritional independence and reproductive maturity). The
authors' theory, though, is that development is not driven by a
grand design: it is driven by opportunistic, syncretic and
exploratory processes. At a closer look, in fact, development is
modular and heterochronic (different organs develop at different
rates and different times), although the organism progresses as a
whole. Global regularities (and simplicity) somehow arises from
local variabilities (and complexities).
Development is not structured. Development is the outcome of the
interplay between action and perception within a system that, by
its thermodynamic nature, seeks stability. Performance emerges.
Cognition is an emergent structure, situated and embodied, just
like any other skill.
Knowledge for thought and action emerges from the dynamics of
pattern formation in the context of neural group selection. Per-
ception, action and cognition are rooted in the same pattern for-
mation processes. Categories arise (self-roganize) spontaneously
and reflect the experiences of acting and perceiving, i.e. of
interacting with the world. More precisely, categories are
created through the cross-relation of multimodal (hearing, see-
ing, feeling, etc) experiences. Unity of perception and action
is evident in category formation. The critical role of movement
in development is emphasized over and over: movement is a percep-
tual category. Beeing in the world "selects" categories.
"Meaning is emergent in perceiving and acting in specific con-
texts and in a history of perceiving and acting in contexts".
Development can be then viewed as the dymanic selection of
categories. Categories are but a specific case of pattern forma-
tion, but they also are the foundation of cognitive development.
Therefore, cognitive development is a direct consequence of pro-
perties of nonlinear dynamic systems, of self-configuring complex
systems.
These features are shared by all organisms.
Thom Rene': STRUCTURAL STABILITY AND MORPHOGENESIS (Benjamin,
1975)
The english translation of the seminal 1972 study that esta-
blished catastrophe theory as a mathematical tool to classify the
solutions of nonlinear systems in the neighborhood of stability
breakdown. The "ensembles de catastrophes" are hypersurfaces that
divide the parameter space in regions of completely different
dynamics. Therefore dynamics and form become dual properties of
nonlinear systems.
Tipler Frank: THE PHYSICS OF IMMORTALITY (Doubleday, 1995)
The "omega point theory" of the universe is a rigorous physical
proof of the existence of an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipo-
tent god and a proof of the likelihood that every human being
will eventually be resurrected. The book also contains a physi-
cal model of life in heaven, hell and purgatory, all based on
information theory, quantum mechanics and relativistic cosmology.
Tipler explores notions as varied as the Bekenstein bounds (the
upper limits on the number of distinct quantum states and on the
rate that changes of state can occur, i.e. the upper limit on
information density), the Taub universe (a universe that con-
tracts at different rates in different directions, in particular
collapsing in one direction while retaining the same size in the
others, thus leading to an oblate spheroid sphere shape), and the
omega point (the final singularity of the history of a closed
universe, the point of infinite information, which is neither
space nor time nor matter, but is beyond all of these and experi-
ences the whole of universal history all at once); all mixed with
Nietzsche's philosophy and Aquinas' theology.
His basic point is that life is information coding preserved by
natural selection: a being is alive if it encodes information and
such information is preserved over time by natural selection.
Given this definition of life, it is possible to compute how much
energy is sufficient and necessary to extend this process till
the very end of time. In a Taub collapsing universe, such energy
is available for free (as a consequence of temperature difference
in different directions, which becomes infinite as the universe
approaches its singularity) and life can use it to survive for-
ever. The finite singularity of the universe and eternal life
happen to coincide. It is the very collapse of the universe
(because it happens at different rates in different directions)
that permits life to continue forever. Gravitational shear (col-
lapse at different rates in different directions) is implied by
the chaotic nature of Einstein's gravitational equations.
Tipler points out that even cars and ideas are living beings, as
they encode information and they can self-replicate, albeit with
the help of another being (a factory or a mind). But another
being is often required by biological systems (many plants needs
a bee to replicate, males need females to replicate and so
forth).
Tipler diproves Penrose's proof that machines cannot be intelli-
gent. Tipler's definition of intelligence "is" the Turing test.
Tipler also disproves theorems of eternal return in physics:
Einstein's universe (closed, finite and unlimited) implied eter-
nal progress.
Toffoli Tom: CELLULAR AUTOMATA MACHINES (MIT PRess, 1987)
Touretzky David: THE MATHEMATICS OF INHERITANCE SYSTEMS (Morgan
Kaufman, 1986)
Touretzky's inheritance theory shows the similarities between
logical proof (which is a tree of formulas, with the theorem at
the root and the axioms as the leaves) and paths (sequences of
nodes) that are explored during a search within a network.
Touretzky argues that there is a natural partial ordering of
defaults in inheritance systems that is implicit in the hierarch-
ical structure of the inheritance graph: the inferential dis-
tance, which determines subclass/superclass ordering (a class is
a subclass of another class if there is an inheritance path from
the former to the latter). Touretzky claims that default rules
about subclasses should override default rules about the superc-
lasses that contain them. Subclasses override superclasses.
The best path in a network is the one that minimizes inferential
distance (as opposed to the shortest path method of traditional
inheritance systems, i.e., the shortest proof is not always the
best proof).
Trehub Arnold: THE COGNITIVE BRAIN (MIT Press, 1991)
Trehub offers a broad theory of how the brain works, based on
actual neural mechanisms.
Tulving Endel: ORGANIZATION OF MEMORY (Academic Press, 1972)
A collection of articles on memory. Tulving distinguishes between
episodic memory (which receives and stores information about tem-
porally dated episodes and temporal-spatial relations among them)
and semantic memory (organized knowledge about the world).
Episodic memory is a faithful record of a person's experience.
Tulving Endel: ELEMENTS OF EPISODIC MEMORY (Oxford Univ Press,
1983)
Tulving expands on his distinction of episodic and semantic
memories. Tulving now recognizes two higher level classes of
memory: procedural and propositional. Propositional memory can
be subdivided in episodic and semantic memories. A detailed con-
ceptual framework of episodic memory is provided, that details
processes of encoding and retrieval in episodic memory. Accessi-
bility of a piece of information depends on the conditions
("cues") under which that piece of information has been learned.
The remembering of events always depends on the interaction
between encoding and retrieval conditions (compatibility between
the "engram" and the "cue").
Tulving's experiments proved that intension and extension are
dealed with by two different types of memory: episodic memory
contains specific episodes of the history of the individual,
while semantic memory contains general knowledge applicable to
different situations. A perception relates extensional objects
with intensional concepts, and the speech act relates concepts
with words: between word and object there is only an indirect
relationship.
In a subsequent paper Tulving proposed to distinguish different
memory systems based on the following characteristics: kinds of
information they process, operations that can be performed,
neural substrates that are affected, timing of appearance in phy-
logenetic and ontogenetic development, and format of representa-
tion. A memory system can therefore be defined in terms of its
brain mechanisms, the information it processes and the principles
of its operation.
Turbayne Colin Murray: THE MYTH OF METAPHOR (Yale Univ Press,
1962)
Turbayne treats metaphor not as a linguistc phenomenon, but as a
philosophical one.
Descartes and Newton founded modern science on the basis of a
metaphysics of mechanism. Turbayne presents a different metaphor:
he treats events in nature as if they compose a language, and the
world as a universal language.
Turing Alan Mathison: MORPHOGENESIS (North-Holland, 1992)
A collection of historical papers by Turing. In "The chemical
basis of morphogenesis" (1952) he advanced the reaction-diffusion
theory of pattern formation, based on the bifurcation properties
of the solutions of differential equations.
Turing devised a model to generate stable patterns:
X catalyzes itself: X diffuses slowly
X catalyzes Y: Y diffuses quickly
Y inhibits X
Y may or may not catalyze or inhibit itself
Some reactions might be able to create ordered spatial schemes
from disordered schemes. The function of genes is purely cata-
lytic: they catalyze the production of new morphogenes, which
will catalyze more morphogenes until eventually form emerges.
Turing Alan: PURE MATHEMATICS (Elsevier Science, 1992)
A collection of historical papers by Turing.
In 1936 with his seminal paper "On computable numbers" Alan Tur-
ing defined computation as the formal manipulation of symbols by
the application of formal rules.
A Turing machine is capable of performing all the operations
that are needed to perform logical calculus: read current sym-
bols, process them, write new symbols, examine new symbols.
Depending on the symbol that it is reading and on the state in
which it is, the Turing machine decides whether it should move
on, backwards, write a symbol, change state or stop. Turing's
machine is an automatic formal system: a system to automatically
compute an alphabet of symbols according to a finite set of
rules.
The universal machine is a Turing's machine capable of simulating
all possible Turing's machines. It contains a sequence of sym-
bols that describes the specific Turing machine that must be
simulated. For each computational procedure the universal machine
is capable of simulating a machine that performs that procedure.
The universal machine is therefore capable of computing any com-
putational function.
Turing Alan: MECHANICAL INTELLIGENCE (Elsevier Science, 1992)
A collection of historical papers by Turing.
In "Computing machinery and intelligence" (1950) Turing proposed
a famous test to verify whether a machine is intelligent or not:
ask the same questions of a machine and a human being, without
being told which one is which, and if you can't tell which one is
which, then the machine is intelligent.
Turner Raymond: LOGICS FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (Ellis Hor-
wood, 1985)
A short, but clear, introduction to non-standard logics: modal
logic, epistemic logic, multi-valued logics, intuitionistic
logic, theory of types, non-monotonic reasoning, temporal logic
and fuzzy logic.
Turner Scott: THE CREATIVE PROCESS (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994)
A theory of creativity and a case-based computer prototype ("Min-
strel") that generates stories. Art is viewed as a problem solv-
ing activity, and an author as a problem solver who employs
knowledge encoded in cases. Creativity is an integrated process
of search and adaptation guided by creativity heuristics: it is
an extension of problem solving that is driven by the failure of
problem solving and creative alternatives are created by using
old knowledge in new ways.
The architecture employs for classes of goals: thematic goals
(development of the story theme, point, moral), concistency goals
(plausibility constraints), drama goals (artistic quality) and
presentation goals (effective style).
Turvey Michael: PERCEIVING, ACTION AND KNOWING (Lawrence Erl-
baum, 1977)
A psychological theory of how cognition and action interact. An
action can be performed in many different ways, i.e. the nervous
system has to deal with degrees of freedom. It solves the problem
through a hierarchical command structure. Every level of the
hierarchy adds detail to the overall goal of the action. Lower
levels have a degree of autonomy, higher levels exert control
over lower units by tuning the parameters that define the
features of the lower units and by tuning the pathways connecting
them.
Tversky Amos, Kahnemann Daniel & Slovic Paul: JUDGMENT UNDER
UNCERTAINTY (Cambridge University Press, 1982)
A collection of essays on heuristics and biases, as introduced by
Tversky. The fundamental assumption is that people rely on a
limited set of heuristic principles which greatly reduces the
task of assessing probabilities: representativeness (the degree
to which an event is representative of a class of events), avai-
lability (the degree to which past occurrences of an event can be
brought to mind) and adjustment (the degree to which the initial
approximate value must be changed). Representativeness can be
viewed as "connotative" distance, availability can be viewed as
"associative" distance.
People employ heuristics to answer questions such as: what is the
probability that an object belongs to a given class? that an
event originates from a given event? that a process will generate
a given event? Heuristics that affect the decision include prior
probabilities of outcome, sample size, predictability; but they
are not reflected in the theory of probability.
At the same time, deviations of subjective probability from
objective probability are systematic. Experiments show that peo-
ple predict by similarity (representativeness). Experiments also
show that causal inferences have greater efficacy than diagnostic
inferences.
Tversky criticizes probabilistic reasoning as a way to describe
human thinking as it is subject to "framing effects". Tversky &
Shafer offered a "constructivist" theory of probabilities in
which probabilities describe an ideal situation that can still be
related to the real situation.
Tye Michael: THE METAPHYSICS OF MIND (Cambridge University
Press, 1989)
There are no mental events (beliefs or desires) and no mental
objects (such as pain or images). Drawing from Sellar's "adver-
bial" theory of sensing, Tye develops his own "operator" theory
in which sensory adverbs are analyzable as predicate operators
added to a standard predicate calculus.
Tye thinks that the phenomenal aspects of experience ("what it is
like") are unrelated to their representational contents.
Tye Michael: THE IMAGERY DEBATE (MIT Press, 1991)
Tye proposes a unified theory of mental imagery that embraces
both the the visual stance and the linguistic stance, that tries
to bridge Stephen Kosslyn's pictorialism and Zenon Pylyshyn's
descriptionalism (the two main opposite schools of thought on
what kind of representational structures images exactly are).
Tye believes that the experimental evidence supports a mixed
theory of pictorialism and descriptionalism.
The book also provides a comprehensive introduction to the his-
tory of the debate, from Aristotle to Kosslyn, Pylyshyn, Marr and
Hinton.
Tye Michael: TEN PROBLEMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS (MIT Press, 1995)
Tye dramatically changes his theory of the mind, admitting that
phenomenal aspects of mental life are representational and that
they are not ti be found in neural events.
First, Tye lists ten problems of phenomenal consciousness, such
as ownership (feelings are private to an individual, i.e. "why
can't anyebody else feel my feelings?") and perspectival subjec-
tivity (feelings can be understood only by individuals who have
felt them), and more traditional issues such as duplicates and
inverted qualia.
Then he develops a theory of the mind that solves all problems:
phenomenal states are both perspectival and physical. All
experiences have representational content, not just perceptual
ones. For example, emotions are sensory representations of
bodily changes. Sensory states represent external features in
the sense that they track the presence of those features ("causal
covariation theory").
All experiences and all feelings represent things and their
phenomenal aspects are to be understood in terms of what they
represent.
Ulanowicz Robert: GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT (Springer-Verlag, 1986)
In order to explain growth and development (not only of individu-
als, but also of ecosystems, societies and economies), the book
introduces a new thermodynamic quantity: "ascendency" is a
phenomenological measure increasing with ecological succession
and decreasing in stressed ecosystems. Ascendency reflects the
ability of a system to prevail against other configurations.
The second law of thermodynamics is interpreted as stating the
impossibility, for any ecosystem component, to convert its ener-
getic and material inputs into ordered biomass, i.e. that a frac-
tion of it is always dissipated. Ecological systems are none-
quilibrium systems. Prigogine's theorem is invoked to show that
near equilibrium forces and flows of a steady state system tend
to minimize entropy production.
Growth and development are formalized through the concept of net-
works of (energetic and material) flows. This formalization
applies to all levels of the biological hierarchy, from cells to
biosphere, and even to nonbiological systems. Network of flows
can be reduced to elements of linear algebra and a calculus of
measured flows can be reduced to information theory, once infor-
mation is defined as the magnitude of decrease in uncertainty
(uncertainty being the logarithm of the probability of the out-
come).
The process of growth and development is eventually summarized in
a variational principle (ascendency is maximized subject to a set
of conservation constraints). Such principle of "optimal ascen-
dency" specifies the influence of higher-scale events on the
lower levels of the hierarchy. Fitness must be redefined as the
ability of organisms to play a coherent role in the network of
ecological processes.
Ullman Shimon: THE INTERPRETATION OF VISUAL MOTION (MIT Press,
1979)
A computational theory of how the sensory input of the eye ori-
ginates a representation of the environment in the mind is
divided into two problems: the "correspondence" problem (recog-
nizing a piece of the image as an individual object in motion)
and the 3-d interpretation problem. The former is solved by
reducing the image to a set of tokens and applying similarity-
based reasoning to them. The latter is solved by the interplay of
a "structure from motion" process and a "motion from structure"
process.
Underwood Geoffrey: ASPECTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS (Academic Press,
1982)
A monumental (three volumes) collection of articles on conscious-
ness written by psychologists.
Unger Peter: IDENTITY, CONSCIOUSNESS AND VALUE (Oxford Univ
Press, 1991)
Unger indulges in all sorts of thought experiments about personal
identity. What happens i a brain is replaced or exchanged? Can
one person fade into another?
Survival of personal identity over time requires continous physi-
cal realization of it by a physically continous succession of
realizers beginning with the current one. Physical continuity
entails properties such as gradual replacement of matter (e.g.,
most cells in the body are continously replaced) and constitu-
tional cohesion (adhesion of the parts, at the smallest level).
Valiant Leslie: CIRCUITS OF THE MIND (Oxford University Press,
1994)
Valiant's "neuroidal model" attempts to explain the brain's pro-
digious capability to store and process information by assuming
that neurons and neural connections have an internal structure
which matters. Each neuroid is a linear threshold element, aug-
mented with states and a timing mechanism (to reflect the syn-
chronized rhythmic behavior of the cortex). Valiant assumes that
a cognitive substrate made of a few elementary functions drives
the neuroidal net. When one of these functions is activated by
interaction with the environment, a neural circuit is modified,
and such a change contributes to successive action in the
environment. A detailed computational model is worked out.
Valiant starts by providing neurobiological details about the
neocortex
Van Benthem Johan: THE LOGIC OF TIME (Kluwer, 1991)
In this 1983 essay Van Benthem believes that time should not be
studied only with either the instant-based ontology or the
interval-based ontology, but that both should be used at the same
time. Ontological plurality is necessary to couple any theory of
time with theories of other domains.
The second part of the book deals with temporal discourse.
The book covers all the main formal approaches to time in a very
technical and comprehensive manner.
Van Benthem Johan: A MANUAL OF INTENSIONAL LOGIC (Univ Of Chi-
cago Press, 1988)
Intensional logic is useful for semantically explaining inten-
sional contexts in natural language through multiple reference.
Intensional logic provides tools such as tense, modality and con-
ditionals. Formal descriptions are given of applications such as
temporal logic and intuitionistic logic.
Van Benthem Johan: LANGUAGE IN ACTION (MIT Press, 1995)
A lucid treatise on the logical foundations of categorial grammar
that covers a broad spectrum, from lambda calculus to the theory
of types, from proof theory to model theory. In the last chapter
the author advances the concept of a "logic of information", with
a modal logic of information patterns (to deal with the static
structure of information representation) and a relational algebra
of control (to deal with the dynamic structure of information
processing) and a type-theoretic dynamic logic that integrates
the two aspects.
Varela Francisco, Thompson Evan & Rosch Eleanor: THE EMBODIED
MIND (MIT Press, 1991)
Following Merleau-Ponty's philosophical thought, the authors
argue in favor of a stance that views the human body both as
matter and as experience, both as a biological entity and a
phenomenological entity. Drawing inspiration from buddhist medi-
tative practice, they tackle the nonunified character of the self
and propose an "enactive" approach to cognition: cognition as
embodied action (or enaction), evolution not as optimal adapta-
tion but as "natural drift". In the context of emergence and
self-organization, the book finds scientific evidence for the
emergent formation of direct experience without the need to posit
the existence of a self. The mind is selfless. "Self" refers to a
set of mental and bodily formations that are linked by causal
coherence over time. The self as the homunculus inside our head
is an illusion. At the same time the world is not a given, but
reflects the actions in which we engage, i.e. it is "enacted"
from our actions (or structural coupling) and filtered by our
common sense.
Organisms do not adapt to a pregiven world. Organisms and
environment mutually specify each other. Organisms drift natur-
ally in the environment. Environmental regularities arise from
the interaction between a living organism and its environment.
The world of an organism is enacted by the history of its struc-
tural coupling with the environment. Perception is perceptually
guided action (sensorimotor enactment). Cognitive structures
emerge from the recurrent sensorimotor activity that enables such
a process. Perceptually guided action is constrained by the need
to preserve the integrity of the organism (ontogeny) and its
lineage (phylogeny).
Varela Francisco: PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGICAL AUTONOMY (North Hol-
land, 1979)
The book merges the themes of autonomy of natural systems (i.e.
internal regulation, as opposed to control) and their informa-
tional abilities (i.e., cognition) into the theme of a system
possessing an identity and interacting with the rest of the
world.
The organization of a system is the set of relations that define
it as a unity. The structure of a system the set of relations
among its components. The organization of a system is indepen-
dent of the properties of its components. A machine can be real-
ized by many sets of components and relations among them. Homeos-
tatic systems are systems that keep the values of their variables
within a small range of values, i.e. whose organization makes all
feedback internal to them. An autopoietic system is a homeostatic
system that continously generates its own organization (by con-
tinously producing components that are capable of reproducing the
organization that created them). Autopoietic systems turn out to
be autonomous, have an identity, are unities, and they compensate
external perturbations with internal structural changes. Living
systems are autopoietic systems in the physical space. The two
main features of living systems follow from this: self-
reproduction can only occur in autopoietic systems, and evolution
is a direct consequence of self-reproduction.
Every autonomous system is organizationally closed (they are
defined as a unity by their organization). An autonomous system
cannot be described without describing its observer. Varela
presents a computational framework (the calculus of indications)
within which features of processes of systems (such as distinc-
tion, whereby unities are differentiated, recursion and self-
reference, whereby unities are constructed) can be formalized. A
unity becomes specified through operations of distinction (neces-
sary conditions on the relations among its components) by an
observer in the tradition. The input/output paradigm is replaced
by a circular paradigm, which follows from the closure thesis.
The structure constitutes the system and determines its behavior
in the environment; therefore, information is a structural
aspect, not a semantic one (there is no need for a representation
of information). Information is "codependent". Mechanisms of
informatin and mechanisms of identity are dual. The cognitive
domain of an autonomous system is the domain of interaction that
it can enter without loss of closure. An autonomous unit always
exhibits two aspects: it specifies the distinction between itself
and not-itself, and deals with its environment in a cognitive
fashion. Every autonomous system (ecosystems, societies, brains,
conversations) is a "mind" (in the sense of cognitive processes).
Von Bertalanffy Ludwig: GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY (Braziller, 1968)
A textbook, introduction and history (by the inventor himself) to
the discipline of general systems, which emerged out of the need
to explain phenomena in a variety of fields and out of the need
to provide a unified view on all types of systems. General sys-
tems theory was born before cybernetics, and cybernetic systems
are merely a special case of self-organizing systems.
The classical approach to the scientific description of a
system's behavior can be summarized as the search for "isolable
causal trains" and reduction to atomic units. This approach is
feasible under two conditions: 1. that the interaction among the
parts of the system be negligible and 2. that the behavior of
parts be linear. Von Bertalanffy's "systems", on the other hand,
are those entities ("organized complexities") that consist of
interacting parts, usually described by a set of nonlinear dif-
ferential equations. Systems theory studies principles which
apply to all systems, properties that apply to any entity qua
system. Alternatives to system theory include compartment theory
(which views a system as a set of units upon which boundary con-
ditions and transport processes bear), set theory, graph theory,
information theory, automata theory, game theory, decision
theory, etc.
Basic concepts of systems theory are introduced: every whole is
based upon the competition among its parts; individuality is the
result of a never-ending process of progressive centralization
whereby certain parts gain a dominant role over the others;
General systems theory looks for laws that can be applied to a
variety of fields (isomorphisms of lawin different fields), par-
ticularly in the biological, social and economic sciences (but
even history and politics).
A subset of general systems theory is open systems theory. A
change in entropy in closed systems is always positive: order is
continually destroyed. In open systems, on the other hand,
entropy production due to irreversible processes is balanced by
import of negative entropy (as in all living organisms). If an
organism is viewed as an open system in a steady state, a theory
of organismic processes can be worked out.
Even better, a living organism can be viewed as a hierarchical
order of open systems, where each level maintains its structure
thanks to continuous change of components at the next lower
level. Living organisms maintain themselves in spite of continu-
ous irreversible processes and even proceed towards higher and
higher degrees of order.
The author also examines Whorf's hypothesis and the relativity of
categories (which are assumed to depend on both biological and
cultural factors)
Von Neumann John: THE COMPUTER AND THE BRAIN (Yale Univ Press,
1958)
Von Neumann describes the neural system of the brain from a
mathematical point of view, i.e. viewed as an automaton, using
techniques and concepts of the digital computer.
Von Neumann John: THEORY OF SELF-REPRODUCING AUTOMATA (Princeton
Univ Press, 1947)
In this postomous book Von Neumann explores the idea that a
machine could be programmed to make a copy of itself.
Life is a particular class of automata. Life's main property is
the ability to reproduce. Von Neumann's automaton was conceived
to absorb matter from the environment and process it to build
another automaton, including a description of itself. Von
Neumann's idea of the dual genetics of self-reproducing automata
(that the genetic code must act as instructions on how to build
and organism and as data to be passed on to the offspring) was
basically the idea behind what will be called DNA: DNA encodes
tha instructions for making all the enzymes and the protein that
a cell needs to function and DNA makes a copy of itself every
time the cell divides in two.
Von Neumann indirectly understood other properties of life: the
ability to increase its complexity (an organism can generate
organisms that are more complex than itself) and the ability to
self-organize.
When a machine (e.g., an assembly line) builds another machine
(e.g., an appliance), there occurs a degradation of complexity,
whereas the offsprings of living organisms are at least as com-
plex as their parents and their complexity increases in evolu-
tionary times. A self-reproducing machine is a machine that pro-
duces another machine of equal of higher complexity.
By representing an organism as a group of contigous multi-state
cells (either empty or containing a component) in a 2-dimensional
matrix, Von Neumann proved that a Turing-type machine that can
reproduce itself could be simulated by using a 29-state cell com-
ponent.
Turing proved that there exists a universal computing machine.
Von Neumann proved that there exists a universal computing
machine which, given a description of an automaton, will con-
struct a copy of it, and, by extension, that there exists a
universal computing machine which, given a description of a
universal computing machine, will construct a copy of it, and, by
extension, that there exists a universal computing machine which,
given a description of itself, will construct a copy of itself.
Vosniadou Stella & Ortony Andrew: SIMILARITY AND ANALOGICAL REA-
SONING (Cambridge University Press, 1989)
A collection of papers from a workshop.
Lance Rips focuses on the distinction between deep (based on
underlying properties) and perceptual (surface) similarity. Rips
opposes famile resemblance models of categorization with a model
of inference to the best explanation.
Lawrence Barsalou emphasizes the instability of concepts that
affects both intra-category and inter-category similarity.
Ryszard Michalsky presents a theory of concept definition whereby
concept meaning is defined by a base concept representation and
an inferential concept interpretation.
Analogical reasoning is discussed by Dedre Gentner, whose
structure-mapping process relies on relational commonalities
rather than mere similarities of features. three principles:
Vygotsky Lev: MIND IN SOCIETY (Harvard Univ Press, 1968)
Vygotsky thinks that higher mental functions have social origins.
Language is a system of signs that the individual needs in order
to interact with the environment and only afterwards it is
interiorized and can be utilized to express thought. The meaning
of a word is initially a purely emotional fact. Only with time
it will acquire a precise reference to an object and then an
abstract meaning.
Child development is a sequence of stages that lead to the
transformation of an interpersonal process into an intrapersonal
process.
Children think by memorizing, while adults memorize by thinking.
In children something is memorized, in adults the individual
memorizes something. In the former case a link is created
because of the simultaneous occurrence of two stimuli. In the
latter case the individual creates that link. Remembering is
transformed into an external activity. Humans are then able to
influence their relation with the environment and through that
environment change their own behavior. The mastering of nature
and the mastering of behavior are interdependent.
Vygotsky Lev: THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE (MIT Press, 1964)
Thought and speech have different roots and only later in onto-
genesis they get entwined. The relationship between thought and
speech varies therefore at different developmental stages of the
child.
Waddington C.H.: PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT AND DIFFERENTIATION
(Macmillan, 1966)
By analyzing the processes of differentiation in time (histo-
genesis), in space (regionalization) and in shape (morphogenesis)
during embryo development, Waddington argues that development
must be genetically determined, as a ball rolling into
progressively-deepening valleys as time progresses. Once they
start, developmental processes become more and more stable and
more and more differentiated. The "epigenetic landscape" depicts
the process of "canalization" (increasing differentiation of tis-
sues and organs during embryogenesis).
Wagman Morton: COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND CONCEPTS OF MIND (Praeger,
1991)
A general introduction to the themes of artificial intelligence
and cognitive science, from Turing's test to problem solving in
production systems, from conceptual dependency systems to learn-
ing systems. Each historical system/project of artificial intel-
ligence (BORIS, CYRUS, ACT, LEX, AM, BACON) is briefly described,
together with its cognitive implications.
Waldrop Mitchell: MAN-MADE MINDS (Walker, 1987)
An accessible introduction to the ideas, the history and the sys-
tems of artificial intelligence.
Waldrop Mitchell: COMPLEXITY (Simon & Schuster, 1992)
Complexity is presented as a discipline that can unify the laws
of physical, chemical, biological, social and economic phenomena
through the simple principle that all things in nature are driven
to organize themselves into patterns. The book, written in plain
english, focuses on the Santa Fe` Institute school of thought.
Lots of biographies and a history of the field.
Waltz David: SEMANTIC STRUCTURES (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989)
A collection of articles on natural language processing. Michael
Dyer discusses BORIS, a system for story understanding based on
Schank's conceptual dependency. Wendy Lehnert discusses "plot
units" for discourse analysis.
Way Ellen Cornell: KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND METAPHOR (Kluwer
Academic, 1991)
Metaphor is the essence of our ability to represent the world, to
assimilate new knowledge into the old. Metaphor is better suited
than logic to represent knowledge.
Still, metaphor presents a number of obvious problems: how to
determine its truth value (literally, metaphors are almost always
false) and how to recognize an expression as a metaphor (meta-
phors have no consistent syntactic form).
Way claims that literal language is not context-free either.
Literal and figurative language are both context-dependent.
Figurative cannot be reduced to literal, because literal is not
primitive either. What determines literal or figurative speech
is the intent of the speaker to select a particular perspective
of a type hierarchy and how the concepts which are employed in
the speech relate to how they are located in the hierarchy.
The perspective intended by the speaker is revealed by the con-
text, which is represented by a "mask" on the type hierarchy. If
the perspective invoked by the context complies with the classif-
ication of natural kinds, speech is literal.
Sentences translate into conceptual graphs, and conceptual graphs
relate the concepts of the sentence to a type hierarchy. The
meaning of a concept is a partial function of its location in a
type hierarchy.
The type hierarchy changes dynamically because of the continous
change in cultural and social conventions.
Way's formalism is based on Sowa's conceptual graphs, modified so
that more perspectives ("masks") are possible. Way's model of
metaphor is based on Black's interactionist model (metaphor
involves a transfer of knowledge and actually creates similar-
ity).
Webelhuth Gert: GOVERNMENT & BINDING THEORY (MIT Press, 1995)
A collection of articles by authoritative researchers who
describe different approaches to equip Chomsky's universal gram-
mar with constraints. The editor surveys progress made in the
field since its invention.
The other articles provide an updated view on current research.
Drawing from Fillmore's cases and Gruber's thematic relations,
Edwin Williams discusses "theta theory" (the theory of thematic
roles with respect to a predicate, or theta roles). James Huang
examines the relationship between syntax (linguistic form) and
semantics (logical form).
Weber Bruce, Depew David & Smith James: ENTROPY, INFORMATION AND
EVOLUTION (MIT Press, 1988)
The thesis of this book is that biological phenomena are governed
by laws that are purely physical. Evolutionary change results
from the interplay of two elementary and independent processes:
genetic variation and differential reproduction (natural selec-
tion).
A number of essays provide historical surveys of nonequilibrium
thermodynamics applied to evolutionary and ecological topics.
By focusing on entropy, structure and information, the essays of
this book shed some light on the relationship between cosmologi-
cal evolution and biological evolution. Thanks to the advent of
non-equilibrium thermodynamics, it is now possible to bridge
thermodynamics and evolutionary biology. This step might prove
as powerful as the synthetic theory of evolution, which merged
the Mendelian genetics (a theory of inheritance) and evolutionary
biology (a theory of species).
Equilibrium is the state of maximum entropy: uniform temperature
and maximum disorder. Entropy is a measure of disorder and it
decreases with time, according to the second law of thermodynam-
ics.
Steven Frautschi points out that there is a striking parallelism
between the evolution of the expanding universe and the evolution
of life on earth: because life on earth has a steady free energy
source (the sun), it does not need to come to equilibrium and may
even evolve away from it (as it did when it created more and more
complex beings, such as ourselves); because the universe has a
steady free energy source (the uniform expansion itself), it does
not need to come to equilibrium and may even evolve away from it
(as it did when it created more and more complex clumps of
matter, such as galaxies). Biological evolution and universe
evolution are consequences of nonequilibrium processes.
Dilip Kondepudi analyzes Louis Pasteur's discovery that living
systems prefer molecules with a certain handedness (all proteins
are made of L-amicoacids and genetic material is made of D-
sugars), actually that this molecular asymmetry is the only
difference between the chemistry of the living and of the dead
matter. By looking for the origins of biomolecular chirality
(i.e., of chiral-symmetry breaking in chemical systems), he finds
similarities with parity violation in weak interactions and
posits a fundamental asymmetry of the universe.
Lionel Johnson thinks that emergent properties of biological sys-
tems reflect a response both to the physical environment in which
the systems are currently existing and to the changing environ-
ments in which they have existed over the course of evolutionary
time. Emergent properties include that: diversity increases over
time (i.e., the number of species existing in the world during
any one time period has increased over evolutionary time), diver-
sity increases from the poles to the equator, complexity of evo-
lutionary lines increases over time, the production/biomass ratio
(a measure of the rate of energy flow through an ecosystem rela-
tive to the energy accumulated in the biomass, i.e. a measure of
the rate at which new material must be produced to replace that
lost through natural death, i.e. a measure of the rate of energy
dissipation, i.e. a measure of the rate of entropy production)
declines over time. Johnson defines diversity in a fashion simi-
lar to Shannon-Weaver's definition of information, which is simi-
lar to Boltzmann's definition of entropy.
Eric Schneider shows that the initial stages of ecological suc-
cession are involved in growth and maximization of free energy
and structure (Lotka's power law) while later stages involve the
development of complexity and efficiency, which in turn require
minimization of entropy production.
Lionel Harrison suggests that increases of biological order can
be explained in terms of kinetic theory as the result of diffu-
sion and self-catalysis.
Depew and Weber survey the problems encountered by neo-darwinism:
the relation with theories of the origin of life, the complex
structure of the genome, the punctuated pattern of the archeolog-
ical record, etc.
Weinberg Steven: DREAMS OF A FINAL THEORY (Pantheon, 1993)
Weinberg, a theoretical physicist who was awarded the Nobel prize
for the unification of the electromagnetic and weak forces,
believes that a unified theory of all theories exists that would
explain the behavior of all animate and inanimate systems in the
universe. Such a "grand grand" unification theory should arise
from today's theories of elementary particles, and from quantum
theory in particular. Weinberg discusses at length the super-
string theories as the first step towards such a unification pro-
cess. Weinberg does not seem to consider the mind a system worth
of studying, therefore he never mentions the discrepancies
between today's Physics and the disciplines that study the mind.
The reader is left with the feeling that, if such a grand-grand
unification theory is possible, it is highly unlikely that a phy-
sicist will ever discovered it, even by mistake. In his previous
book, "The First Three Minutes", Weinberg stated: "The more the
universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless". I
would suggest that he replaces the word "it" with the word "Phy-
sics".
Weld Daniel & DeKleer Johan: QUALITATIVE REASONING ABOUT PHYSI-
CAL SYSTEMS (Morgan Kaufman, 1990)
A collection of seminal papers on qualitative reasoning, which
follows Daniel Bobrow's book with the same title: a general sur-
vey of the state of the art by Ken Forbus, Pat Hayes' new updated
"naive physics manifesto", Johan DeKleer's "A qualitative physics
based on confluences", Ken Forbus' "Qualitative process theory"
and Benjamin Kuipers' "Qualitative simulation". Each of the
classical papers is revised and followed by an update that pro-
vides more details.
Also includes Brian Williams' "Temporal qualitative analysis" and
James Allen's "Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals",
which provide techniques for reasoning about events taking place
over time.
Boi Faltings introduces a graph of places that share important
features. For examples, places where parts touch each other are
more relevant to the development of the world. Common sense per-
ceives the world as connections between its parts.
Wellman Henry: THE CHILD'S THEORY OF MIND (MIT Press, 1990)
Human knowledge is organized around naive theories that encompass
specific domains. Such theories provide constraints for daily
actions. One such theory is the theory of the mind (of the mental
world of thoughts, beliefs, fantasies, reasoning, etc). The book
analyzes how children develop a commonsense understanding of the
mind.
Wexler Ken & Culicover Peter: FORMAL PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION (MIT Press, 1980)
A study of "learnability" (the process by which a child learns a
natural language when placed in the appropriate environment) in
the context of Chomsky's theory (that the child has innate
universale principles, or a "universal grammar", with open
"parameters" that are set by experience).
Whorf Benjamin Lee: LANGUAGE, THOUGHT AND REALITY (MIT Press,
1956)
A collection of essays by Whorf.
All higher thinking is dependent upon language. Language influ-
ences thought because it contains a hidden metaphysics. The
structure of the language influences the way its speakers under-
stand the environment.
Whorf formulated the principle of linguistic determinism: gram-
matical and categorial patterns of language embody cultural
models. Language contains an implicit classification of experi-
ence, and the language system as a whole contains an implicit
world view. Every language is a culturally determined system of
patterns that creates the categories by which individuals not
only communicate but also think. Language therefore influences
thinking.
Wicken Jeffrey: EVOLUTION, INFORMATION AND THERMODYNAMICS
(Oxford Univ Press, 1987)
Wicken thinks that the most general entities subject to natural
selection are neither genes nor populations but information pat-
terns of thermodynamic flows, such as ecosystems and
socioeconomic systems. Natural selection is not an external
force, but an internal process such that macromolecules are
accrued in proportion to their usefulness for the efficiency of
the global system.
Wicken distinguishes between order (a statistical concept refer-
ring to the regularity in a sequence) and organization (which
involves spatio-temporal and functional relationships among
parts). Thermodynamics can only account for for the generation of
structural complexity, but not for functional organization.
Wicken proposes a generalized Lotka law: for any evolving system
strategies that focus resources into the system while stabilizing
its energetic interconnections will be preferred. Such a process
increases biomass/throughput ratios and decreases specific
entropy production.
Wicken aims at bridging Darwin and Boltzmann by showing that the
thermodynamic forces underlying the principles of variation and
selection begin their operation in prebiotic evolution and lead
to the emergence and development of individual, ecological and
socioeconomic life. The prebiosphere is treated as a nonisolated
closed system in which energy sources create steady thermodynamic
cycles. Some of this energy is captured and dissipated through
the formation of ever more complex chemical structures. Soon
autocatalytic systems capable of reproduction appears. Living
systems are but "informed autocatalytic systems".
Wiener Norbert: CYBERNETICS (John Wiley, 1948)
This is the book that launched a formal study of "intelligent"
machines. Wiener recognized the importance of feedback for any
meaningful behavior in the environment: a system that has to act
on the environment must be able to continously compare its per-
formed action with the intended action and then infer the next
action from their difference. Feedback is crucial for homeos-
tasis, which is crucial for survival.
Wiener emphasized that communication in nature is never perfect:
every message carries some involuntary "noise" and in order to
understand the communication the original message must be
restored. This leads to a statistical theory of amount of infor-
mation. A theory of information turns out to be the dual of a
theory of entropy, another statistical concept: if information is
a measure of order, entropy is a measure of disorder.
Wiener understood the essential unity of communication, control
and statistical mechanics, which is the same whether the system
is an artificial system or a biological system. This unitarian
field became "cybernetics".
The second edition, in 1961, added a chapter on self-reproducing
machines and one on self-organizing systems.
Wierzbicka Anna: SEMANTICS, CULTURE, AND COGNITION (Oxford
University Press, 1992)
Language is not just a tool for communication, but a tool to
express meaning. To what extent meaning is language-independent
depends on to what extent is is innate and to what extent it is
shaped by culture. Meaning can be transferred from one language
to another to some degree, but not fully. There exist a broad
variety of semantic differences among languages (even emotions
seem to be cultural artefacts), but a few semantic primitives
have been proposed. Such universal semantic primitives make up a
semantic metalanguage that could be used to explicate all other
concepts in all languages.
Wierzbicka therefore explores the languages of the world for the
building blocks of emotions, moral concepts, names, etc.
Wierzbicka Anna: THE SEMANTICS OF GRAMMAR (Benjamins, 1988)
Language is a tool to communicate meaning, semantics is the study
of meaning encoded in language, syntax is a piece of semantics.
Corresponding to the three types of tools employed by language to
convey meaning (words, grammatical constructions and illocution-
ary devices), linguistics can be divided in lexical semantics,
grammatical semantics and illocutionary semantics. The division
in syntax, semantics and pragmatics makes no sense because every
element and aspect of language carries meaning. Meaning is an
individual's interpretation of the world. It is subjective and
depends on the social and cultural context. Therefore, semantics
encompasses lexicon, grammar and illocutionary structure.
Grammatical semantics is divided in semantics of syntax and
semantics of morphology. A metalanguage is defined to express the
meaning of an expression.
Wierzbicka also proves that constructions peculiar to a language
embody a view of the world specific to the culture of that
language. Therefore, she argues for an "ethno-syntax".
Wilensky Robert: PLANNING AND UNDERSTANDING (Addison Wesley,
1983)
A pragmatic essay on planning techniques applied to natural
language understanding.
Wilks York: THEORETICAL ISSUES IN NATURAL LANGUAGE (Lawrence
Erlbaum, 1989)
A collection of articles on techniques for natural language pro-
cessing, including connectionist models, discourse theory and
approaches to metaphor.
Wilks discusses his "preference semantics", which expouses a
constraint-based approach. Natural language understanding comes
from the integration of language constraints (syntactic and
semantic) with context contraints. One type of semantic con-
straint is "preferences". Similar to Schanks' expectations, they
restrict the selection of senses of lexical entities. In
preference semantics each sense of a word is associated to a
structured semantic formula. During parsing formulas are bound
together into templates and syntax plays a minor role. Semantic
deviance considers a metaphor as a violation of restriction rules
within a context. Metaphors are intentionally ungrammatical.
Williams George: ADAPTATION AND NATURAL SELECTION (Princeton
University Press, 1966)
Williams' principle of parsimony requires that biological adapta-
tions be explained at the lowest level possible. Therefore, Wil-
liams treats the gene as the fundamental unit of replication. The
most fundamental consequence of selection is differential repli-
cation of genes.
The gene is selected through an interaction with the environment
at different environmental levels. At the genetic level the
environment is the population gene pool, i.e. the other genes.
The somatic level in an intermediary level that has to do with
the succession of somatic stagesin which a gene expresses itself:
its selection depends on its mean success at different stages.
The ecological level is the environment, which can be viewed as
the strategy employed by nature against the organism. The concept
of fitness is appropriate at all epigenetic levels.
By analyzing a number of cases of supposed group selection, Wil-
liams proves that group selection is not a significant factor.
Natural selection originates from reproductive competition among
individuals, and ultimately genes. A gene is selected on the
basis of its ability in producing individuals that can maximize
the gene's representation in future generations.
Organisms are built according to a design carried out by genes,
which are potentially immortal.
Wilson Edward Osborne: SOCIOBIOLOGY (Belknap, 1975)
A general and monumental introduction to sciobiology, the discip-
line that studies the biological basis of social behavior.
Wilson thinks that evolutionary theory can illuminate the social
behavior of animals and humans. Apparently altruism is detrimen-
tal to personal fitness, but it evolved by natural selection for
a utilitaristic reason: altruism helps genes as a global pool,
even if at the expense of the survival of a specific individual.
Altruism is just another step, beyond personal survival and
reproduction, in the program to proliferate maximally the genes
of an organism.
An organism is a mere gene-transporting device: its primary func-
tion is not even to reproduce itself, but to reproduce genes.
The mind itself is engineered to perpetuate DNA. The brain is a
machine whose goal is to maximize fitness in its environment.
All aspects of social behavior are defined formally. For example,
Wilson interprets communication as the process that makes it pos-
sible for the behavior of an animal to influence the behavior of
another animal. The biological functions and the origins (in
ritualization) of communication are discussed at length. Causes
and effects of changes in social behavior are analyzed drawing
from a multitude of examples.
The ultimate determinants of social organization are phylogenetic
inertia (the set of properties shared by a population that fix
the extent to which its evolution can be deflected in another
direction and the amount by which its evolution rate can be
altered) and ecological pressure (the set of all environmental
factors that operate on the population).
A central tenet of sociobiology is that all aspects of human cul-
ture and behavior are coded in the genes and have been molded by
natural selection. Wilson is after a biological explanation for
everything: religion, ethics, and ultimately for the history of
mankind. His program is to identify universals in human
societies, e.g. define human nature; the assume that the univer-
sals are coded in the human genotype; and that universals have
been selected by evolution.
Wilson Edward Osborne: THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE (Harvard University
Press, 1992)
Diversity is crucial to the existence of life as it is. At the
same time it is fascinating that so much diversity is created in
the biosphere. Diversity is the key to survival of the larger
organisms, the ones at the top of the energy and biomass pyram-
ids. The origin of biological diversity is a side product of evo-
lution, which is made of two parallel processes, one of vertical
change in the original population and one, dependent on the
former, of splitting of the original population (speciation). The
origin of species (which Darwin did not explain) is due to the
evolution of structural differences (hereditary isolating mechan-
isms) that prevents the production of fertile hybrids between
populations. Such differences arise as traits that adapt species
to the environment. Two basic levels in biological diversity can
be identifies: genetic variation within species and differences
among species.
By surveying adaptive radiation (the spread of species of common
ancestry into different niches) and evolutionary convergence (the
occupation of the same niche by outcomes of different adaptive
radiations), Wilson proves that oportunity causes an explosion of
species formation.
The book, written in colloquial english, is an excellent intro-
duction to modern themes of evolutionary biology. Rather than
offering a textbook view of firm theories, it continously shows
the limits of our current knowledge. The last part deals with
ethical issues.
Wilson Edward & Lumsden Charles: GENES, MIND AND CULTURE (Har-
vard Univ Press, 1981)
Wilson mellows down his original stand on the mind as a mere
gene-transporting machine and attempts a unified theory of biol-
ogy and social sciences, from genes to mind to culture, positing
a strong coupling between genetic and cultural evolution.
Culture is the product of the interaction of all the mental and
physical artifacts of a population. Human culture is a form of
"euculture", which involves reification (the production of con-
cepts and the continous reclassification of the world, including
the ability to symbolize) besides teaching, imitation and learn-
ing (which are present in many other animals). A culture is
perceived through its "culturgens" (behaviors and artifacts), the
basic units of inheritance in cultural evolution. Each indivi-
dual is genetically endowed with epigenetic rules to process cul-
turgens. These rules assembly the mind of the individual. They
include genetically determined sensory filters and cognitive
faculties, and affect the probability of transmitting a culturgen
as opposed to another. Epigenesis is defined as the process of
interaction between genes and the environment during development.
Epigenetic rules affect both primary functions such as hearing
and secondary functions such as mother-infant bonding and incest
avoidance.
One or more culturgens are favored by the epigenetic rules.
Eucultural species evolve towards a type of cultural transmission
in which a dual shift occurs in time ("gene-culture coevolu-
tion"): change in the epigenetic rules due to shifts in the genes
frequency and change in culturgen frequencies due to the epi-
genetic rules. The two shifts exhert a mutual influence.
The epigenetic rules exhibit genetic variation, thereby contri-
buting to the variance of cognitive traits within a population.
The fitness of the individuals differ depending on their minds'
behaviors. Therefore the population as a whole tends to shift
towards the most efficient epigenetic rules.
The general model is one in which the offspring learn to "social-
ize" from their age peers and parent generation. They evaluate
the culturgens and assimilate them depending on their epigenetic
rules; and then use the outcome to exploit the environment.
The authors review evidence from daily habits that suggest a
relation between genes and culture.
Winograd Terry: LANGUAGE AS A COGNITIVE PROCESS (Addison Wesley,
1983)
A textbook for natural language processing: grammars, parsing,
transformations, ATNs, case grammar, lexical-functional grammar,
generalized phrase-structure grammar. Techniques are detailed for
computer implementation.
Winograd Terry: UNDERSTANDING NATURAL LANGUAGE (Academic Press,
1972)
A description and discussion of a natural lnaguage understanding
program (SHRDLU) based on an integrated model of syntax, seman-
tics and inference and applied to the blocks world.
Winograd Terry & Flores Fernando: UNDERSTANDING COMPUTERS AND
COGNITION (Ablex, 1986)
Drawing from Heidegger's phenomenology and Maturana's cognitive
biology, Winograd denies that intelligence can be due to
processes of the type of production systems, i.e. to the sys-
tematic manipulation of representations. Intelligent systems
act, don't think. They think when action does not yield the
desired result. Only then do they decompose the situation and try
to infer action from knowledge.
In language the role of the listener is emphasized for the active
generation of meaning. Language is ultimately based on social
interactions, as proved by the speech act theory of Austin and
Searle.
The book concludes that the program of Artificial Intelligence
must be changed to view the computer merely as a tool to improve
the life of humans.
Winson Jonathan: BRAIN AND PSYCHE (Anchor Press, 1985)
Winson believes in a connection between the neurophysiological
processes of the brain (specifically, of the hippocampus) and the
unconscious, which lends Freud's psychoanalytical theories bio-
logical plausibility.
Dreams are the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious.
There is a biologically relevant reason to dream: a dream is an
ordered processing of memory which interprets experience that is
precious for survival. Dreaming is a sort of off-line processing
essential to learning. The Freudian subconscious is the phylo-
genetically ancient mechanisms involving REM sleep, in which
memories and strategies are formed in the prefrontal cortex.
Winston Patrick: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (Addison Wesley, 1993)
Third edition of one of the earliest textbooks on artificial
intelligence.
Wittgenstein Ludwig: PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS (Macmillan,
1953)
One of the milestone books of modern philosophy, it contains a
wealth of ideas.
Foremost is the theory of family resemblance. A category like
"game" does not fit the classical idea of categories being closed
by clear boundaries and defined by common properties of their
members. What unites the category is family resemblance, plus
sets of positive and negative examples; and boundaries may be
extended at any time.
About language in generale, Wittgenstein argues that to under-
stand a word is to understand a language and to understand a
language is to master the linguistic skills.
Wittgenstein systematically demolishes all pre-existing theories
of meaning. In particular, he abandons Frege's notion of sense
(and any intensionalist notion of sense).
Wolfram Stephen: CELLULAR AUTOMATA AND COMPLEXITY (Addison-
Wesley, 1994)
A collection of papers by Wolfram from 1982 to 1986. A number of
studies present a general mathematical model for cellular auto-
mata viewed as discrete self-organizing dynamical systems. They
can be organized in four classes, which behave respectively like
limit points, limit cycles, chaotic attractors and universal com-
putating machine. Their evolution is almost always irreversible.
Entropies and Lyapunov exponents measure the information content
and rate of information transmission in cellular automata.
Wood Mary McGee: CATEGORIAL GRAMMARS (Routledge, 1993)
A short, compact but very technical manual that summarizes the
state of the art in categorial grammars.
Categorial grammars, which originated from the logic of
Adjukiewicz (1935) and the algebraic calculus of Joachim Lambek
(1958), represent semantics directly in syntax. Categorial gram-
mars represent a refinement of phrase-structure grammars as they
assign an internal structure to category symbols. The set of
categories is defined recursively: if X and Y are categories,
then any function from X into Y is also a category.
The book sketches the history of the field, from Bar-Hillel to
Montague. The various types of categorial grammars, from Lambek
calculus to more complex variants, are introduced.
Woods William: SEMANTICS FOR A QUESTION-ANSWERING SYSTEM (Gar-
land, 1967)
This question-answering system employed the first computational
model for natural-language semantic interpretation. It defined a
procedural semantics and introduced the ATN grammar.
Wright Larry: TELEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS (Univ of California
Press, 1976)
This "etiological analysis of goals and functions" employs a
slight variation of Charles Taylor's definition of behavior (a
goal-directed function of the state of the system and the
environment). Wright thinks that any feature of a species exists
because it was needed to overcome natural selection. Evolution is
the fundamental criterion to determine the function of a pro-
perty.
Yager Ronald & Zadeh Lotfi: AN INTRODUCTION TO FUZZY LOGIC
APPLICATIONS (Kluwier Academic, 1992)
A collection of articles that mainly deals with knowledge-based
applications of fuzzy logic.
Zadeh Lotfi: FUZZY LOGIC APPLICATIONS (Kluwer Academics, 1992)
Zadeh's 1965 article "Fuzzy Sets" applied Lukasiewicz's mul-
tivalued logic to sets, so that elements belong to a set to dif-
ferent degrees.
In classical logic inference is performed symbolically, regard-
less of the meaning of the formulae. In fuzzy logic statements
are translated into elastic constraints and the meaning is com-
puter directly via nonlinear techniques.
The degree of truth is a measure of the coherence between a pro-
position about the world and the state of the world. The meaning
of a proposition is the constraint that limits (explicitly or
implicitly) the values of the variables in that proposition.
Zadeh defines a procedure to compute the meaning, i.e. that con-
straint, through non-linear programming techniques. A proposition
can be true, false, partially known or vague with a degree of
vagueness.
Zadeh's theory of fuzzy quantities assumes that things are not
necessarily true or false, but things have degrees of truth.
Fuzzy logic is a multi-valued logic that extends classical logic.
Fuzzy logic can explain paradoxes such as the one about removing
a grain of sand from a pile of sand (when does the pile of sand
stop being a pile of sand?). In fuzzy logic each application of
the inference rule erodes the truth of the resulting proposition.
As for Duhem's principle of incompatibility, the certainty that a
proposition is true decreases with any increase of its precision.
A fuzzy set is a set of elements that belong to a set only to
some extent. Each element is characterized by a degree of
membership. An object can belong (partially) to more than one
set, even if they are mutually exclusive. Each set can be subset
of another set with a degree of membership. A set can belong
(partially) to one of its parts.
A distribution of possibilities (relative to a variable) projects
the universe of discouse (relative to that variable) in the con-
tinous unitary interval. The distribution specifies what is
epistemically possible, i.e. the values admissable for that vari-
able. The value of the distribution for a term T of discourse
expresses the degree of preference that is attributed to the
expression "the value of the variable is T", i.e. the degree of
possibility of T for that variable.
Zeki Semir: A VISION OF THE BRAIN (Blackwell, 1993)
An investigation of the visual cortex from a neurobiological
viewpoint lead Zeki to argue that perception and comprehension of
the world occur simultaneously thanks to reentrant (reciprocal)
connections between all the specialized areas of the visual cor-
tex. Since the visual cortex constitutes a large part of the
cerebral cortex, the same properties are likely to hold for the
rest of the cortex. It appears then that the function of the
sensory parts of the visual cortex is to categorize environmental
stimuli.
The brain copes with a continually changing environment by focus-
ing on a few unchanging characteristics of objects out of the
numberless ever-changing bits of information that it receives
from those objects. The brain basically is programmed to make
itself as independent as possible from world changes. The brain
cannot simply absorb information from the environment, it must
process it to extract those constant features that represent the
physical essence of objects.
Zimmermann Hans: FUZZY SET THEORY (Kluwer Academics, 1985)
A thorough introduction to the theory of fuzzy sets. The second
part deals with applications in several fields.