Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T19:54:44.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Mind as a Control System*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Aaron Sloman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This is not a scholarly research paper, but a ‘position paper’ outlining an approach to the study of mind which has been gradually evolving (at least in my mind) since about 1969 when I first become acquainted with work in Artificial Intelligence through Max Clowes. I shall try to show why it is more fruitful to construe the mind as a control system than as a computational system (although computation can play a role in control mechanisms).

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 34 , March 1993 , pp. 69 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beaudoin, L. P. and Sloman, A. 1993, ‘A study of motive processing and attention’, in Sloman, A., Hogg, D., Humphreys, G., Partridge, D., Ramsay, A. (eds) Prospects for Artificial Intelligence. Amsterdam, IOS Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. 1978. Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. Harvester Press, Hassocks.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. 1984 Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. 1991. Consciousness Explained, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. J. 1979. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Lawrence Earlbaum Associates (reprinted 1986)Google Scholar
Ryle, G. 1949. The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Searle, J. R. 1980 ‘Minds brains and programs’ The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloman, A. 1978. The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy Science and Models of Mind. Hassocks Harvester Press and Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Sloman, A. and Croucher, M. 1981. ‘Why robots will have emotions’, in Proceedings 7th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Vancouver, also available as Cognitive Science Research Paper 176, Sussex University.Google Scholar
Sloman, A. 1985. ‘What enables a machine to understand?’ in Proceedings 9th International Joint Conference on AI, Los Angeles, pp. 995–1001. Also available as Cognitive Science Research Paper 053, Sussex University.Google Scholar
Sloman, A. 1986. ‘Reference without causal links’ in Proceedings 7th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, published as du Boulay, J. B. H., Hogg, D., Steels, L. (eds) Advances in Artificial Intelligence—II pp. 369–81. North Holland, 1987. Also available as Cognitive Science Research Paper 047, Sussex UniversityGoogle Scholar
Sloman, A. 1987. ‘Motives Mechanisms Emotions’, Cognition and Emotion 1, 3, pp. 217–234, reprinted in M. A. Boden (ed.) The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, ‘Oxford Readings in Philosophy’ Series Oxford University Press, pp. 231–247, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloman, A. 1989. ‘On designing a visual system: Towards a Gibsonian computational model of vision’, Journal of Experimental and Theoretical AI 1, 4, pp. 289–337, also available as Cognitive Science Research Paper 146, Sussex University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloman, A. 1992. ‘The emperor's real mind: review of Roger Penrose's, The Emperor's new Mind: Concerning Computers Minds and the Laws of Physics,’ Artificial Intelligence, 56, pp. 355–396, also available as Cognitive Science Research Paper, The University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Sloman, A. 1993. ‘Prospects for AI as the general science of intelligence’, in Sloman, A., Hogg, D., Humphreys, G., Partridge, D., Ramsay, A. (eds) Prospects for Artificial Intelligence. Amsterdam: IOS Press.Google Scholar