Notice

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Notice!

• Schedule has changed http//cs.joensuu.fi/pages/m
  arjomaa/mentrepr/theoretical.html
• i.e., more time to finish the mindmaps
• Digitised lectures at ftp//ftp.cs.joensuu.fi/kas
  mal/
• recordings will be available about 3 weeks
  after the publication
• Topics situation http//cs.joensuu.fi/marjomaa/M
  R04/topicsituation.htm

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The Proper Stuff
word
concept
thing
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Information modeling process

• starts by a request to get a certain kind of
  representation of some UoD
• explication of the task of modelling
• description of the new information needed
• the actual information acquisition and the
  combining of it with our previous information
  about the UoD
• the analysis of the collected information,
• the condensation of the analysed information,
• the representation of the condensed information.

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Three nice books

• Marjomaa Aspects of Relevance in Information
  Modelling
• Palomäki From Concepts to Concept Theory
• Crane The Mechanical Mind

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Concepts

• concepts are products of humans logical thinking
• the entity theories of concepts either sensible,
  mental entities such as innate ideas, images,
  thoughts, conceptions, etc., or supersensible
  entities such as universals, meanings, abstract
  objects, etc.
• dispositional theories of concepts concepts are
  dispositions

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We often model the world through language. In
natural languages the most central words have
been classified as nouns, adjectives, pronouns,
and verbs. From nouns we can derive proper names,
which stand for singular terms and refer to
singular things. Out of other nouns, adjectives,
and verbs we can form predicates and relations.
Pronouns can be seen as variables. Using this
strategy, fragments of ordinary language can be
translated into second-order logic. (Compare
Palomäki 1994 25.)
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Traditionally, there have been three general
types of attitudes towards the problem what
concepts are nominalism, realism and
conceptualism. Roughly, for an example,
concerning the existence of "redness",
nominalists tend to think that there are red
things, such as red balls, red houses, red
sunsets, but against realists, they claim that
there is no such a thing as "redness".
Conceptualists, on the other hand, say that there
are red balls, red houses, red sunsets, and
"redness" is just a product of human mind,
existing in some 'non-material world'.
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Palomäki (1994 31 ff.), furthermore,
distinguishes three types of conceptualism
constructive conceptualism, ramified constructive
conceptualism, and holistic conceptualism.
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"Conceptualism is a socio-biologically based
theory dealing with the human capacity for
systematic concept-formation. As capacities, or
cognitive structures based upon capacities,
concepts are neither mental images nor ideas in
the sense of particular mental occurrences. That
is, concepts are not individuals but, rather,
unsaturated cognitive structures. The saturation
of a concept results in a mental event, and if
explicitly exressed, in a speech act as well but
the concept itself is neither the mental nor the
speech act (as an event), but rather that which
accounts for the predicable or referential nature
of that act."- see Palomäki (1994 31 ff.)
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The Proper Stuff
word
concept
thing
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Pioneer 10

• What kind of a message You would have sent?! see
  Crane Mechanical Mind, pp. 8-9

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Popperian Worlds
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Theories of Representation
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General introduction
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Classifications of models
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Classifications of Models

• analogy models - idealized models - models in
  logical semantics
• physical vs. non-physical models
• real models - conceptual models - nominal models
• external - internal - mediating

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Analogy models

• (a) physical constructions (for example,
  prototypes, statues, miniatures, etc.)
• (b) comparisons, allegories and metaphors, which
  relate some definite parts of two different
  languages - or, rather, of two different
  "Wittgensteinian language-games"
• (c) schemes, which consist of, for instance,
  graphical or linguistic written signs there are
  two kinds of these
• - representational conceptual schemata (where we
  describe concepts)
• - definitional conceptual schemata (where we
  introduce new expressions referring to new
  concepts)

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Idealized models

• Idealized models represent the most relevant
  features of the entity to be modelled. There are
  two kinds of these models
• (a) mathematical models, by which we mean
  simplified and idealised mathematical theories
  concerning some definite portions of the reality
• (b) "caricatures", which tend to represent some
  of the most effective features of an entity of
  interest

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Models in logical semantics

• set-theoretical structures, where the formulas of
  some formal language are interpreted

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Physical vs. non-physical models

• physical models include physical constructions,
  conceptual schemata, and caricatures
• non-physical models can be further divided to
• - mental models, by which are meant mental
  representations, images, states of mind,
  conceptions, opinions, etc.
• - conceptual models, by which can be meant some
  kinds of "transcendental schema" (i.e. "abstract
  schemes" or "schemes outside time and space")
  connecting concepts or propositions together

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Special theories of representation
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On representations
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Classification of representations

• External Knowledge Representation
• Inner ("Mental") Representations
• Mediating ("Conceptual") Representations
• Multiperspective Representations

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External Knowledge Representation

• Ideal science
• Systems theory
• Reasoning
• Logic and Mathematics
• Structural writing

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Inner ("Mental") Representations

• Analogical representations
• Propositional representations
• Distributed representations
• Structural and functional mental models

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Mediating ("Conceptual") Representations

• Peirce, Popper, Damasio, Wilson, ...
• Conceptual aspects of semantic webs, schemes,
  scripts

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Multiperspective Representations

• Feynman
• Saja
• Toppano
• Multimedia
• Ethnocomputing