perm filename PYLYSH.F79[F79,JMC] blob sn#489994 filedate 1979-12-16 generic text, type T, neo UTF8
Comments on his "Computation and cognition: Issues in the foundations
of cognitive science".

[There are also notes in my copy of the paper and on paper].

1. It isn't clear whether Pylyshyn claims that his issues have
practical or merely philosophical significance.

p.1 note 4 - It makes me nervous to ask "what constraints it [the
information processing approach] imposes on theory construction.
If someone proposes a theory that doesn't satisfy some a priori
constraint, then this fact should be noted, but all these journals
and societies shouldn't take a constraint as part of their raison
d'etre.

p.3 note 4 - P. says that the generalization that a person will flee
danger "can only be stated in terms of the agent's internal representation
of the situation".  I am not sure this is correct.  Can't the
situation be like that of thermodynamics in which it is stated
that bodies in contact tend to equalize temperature?  We need the
concept of temperature in order to state this, but temperature
is not a symbolic representation.  Similarly, couldn't the tendency
to flee danger be put in non-symbolic terms with the aid of
a suitable generalization?  Maybe this is what the behaviorists
try to do.  Since in general I agree with P. in supporting
cognitivism, this grumble merely
suggests that the justification for postulating symbolic representations
lies elsewhere.  Perhaps I am nervous about both P. and Bob Moore in
that I am imagining them to be postulating more explicit symbolism
than is necessary.