NEURAL MECHANISMS ONLINE

12 July 2019
15-17 - Greenwhich Mean Time
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Beate KRICKEL & Matej KOHAR

(Ruhr University Bochum)

Compare and Contrast:
how to assess the completeness of mechanistic explanation

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Abstract

Opponents of the new mechanistic account of scientific explanation argue that the new mechanists are committed to a ‘More Details Are Better’ claim: adding details about the mechanism always improves an explanation. Due to this commitment, the mechanistic account cannot be descriptively adequate as actual scientific explanations usually leave out details about the mechanism. In reply to this objection, defenders of the new mechanistic account have highlighted that only adding relevant mechanistic details improves an explanation and that relevance is to be determined relative to the phenomenon-to-be-explained. Craver and Kaplan (2018) provide a thorough reply along these lines specifying that the phenomena at issue are contrasts. In this paper, we will discuss Craver and Kaplan’s reply. We will argue that it needs to be modified in order to avoid three problems, i.e., what we will call the Odd Ontology Problem, the Multiplication of Mechanisms Problem, and the Ontic Completeness Problem. However, even this modification is confronted with two challenges: First, it remains unclear how explanatory relevance is to be determined for contrastive explananda within the mechanistic framework. Second, it remains to be shown as to how the new mechanistic account can avoid what we will call the ‘Vertical More Details are Better’ objection. We will provide answers to both challenges.

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28 June, Carlotta PAVESE [WEBINAR]

6/25/2019

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28 June 2019
15-17 - Greenwhich Mean Time
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Carlotta PAVESE

(Cornell University)

The Psychological Reality of Practical Representation

Abstract

We represent the world in a variety of ways: through percepts, concepts, propositional attitudes, words, numerals, recordings, musical scores, photographs, diagrams, mimetic paintings, etc. Some of these representations are mental. It is customary for philosophers to distinguish two main kinds of mental representations: perceptual representation (e.g., vision, auditory, tactile) and conceptual representation. This essay presupposes a version of this dichotomy and explores the way in which a further kind of representation – procedural representation – represents. It is argued that, in some important respects, procedural representations represent differently from both purely conceptual representations and purely perceptual representations. Although procedural representations, just like conceptual and perceptual representations, involve modes of presentation, their modes of presentation are distinctively practical, in a sense which I will clarify. It is argued that an understanding of this sort of practical representation has important consequences for the debate on the nature of know-how.

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14 June, Dan WEISKOPF [WEBINAR]

6/6/2019

14 June 2019

exceptionally at h 14-16 - Greenwhich Mean Time
(check your local time here)

Dan WEISKOPF

(Georgia State University)

Data Mining the Brain to Decode the Mind

Abstract

In recent years, neuroscience has begun to transform itself into a “big data” enterprise with the importation of computational and statistical techniques from machine learning and informatics. In addition to their technological applications (e.g., brain-computer interfaces and early diagnosis of neuropathology), these techniques promise to advance new solutions to longstanding theoretical quandaries. Here I critically assess whether these promises will pay off, focusing on the application of multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to the problem of reverse inference. I argue that MVPA does not inherently provide a new answer to classical worries about reverse inference, and that the method faces pervasive interpretive problems of its own. Further, the epistemic setting of MVPA and other “decoding” methods contributes to a potentially worrisome shift towards prediction and away from explanation in fundamental neuroscience.

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31 May, Abel WAJNERMAN PAZ [WEBINAR]

5/28/2019

31 May 2019
h 15-17 - Greenwhich Mean Time
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Abel WAJNERMAN PAZ

(University of Buenos Aires)

The Global Neuronal Workspace as an efficient broadcasting network

Abstract

I propose a possible development of the Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) model of access consciousness. Its initial motivation is that the model does not offer a clear distinction between the neural signatures associated with information broadcasting (which is the main function of the GNW) and those of other processes also related to consciousness, such as information integration. I suggest that a theoretically interesting and neurally plausible signature of broadcasting can be provided by using the graph-theoretic approach to information dissemination in communication networks. The theoretical appeal of this framework lies in the fact that, in addition to distinguishing between broadcasting and other relevant communication processes, it can possibly also contribute to identifying the GNW mechanism. I suggest that the approach can provide precise predictions regarding the communication algorithms and wiring diagram that the GNW would implement if it were an efficient broadcasting network.

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17 May, Vincente RAJA & Michael ANDERSON [WEBINAR]

5/8/2019

17 May 2019
h 15-17 - Greenwhich Mean Time
(check your local time here)

Vicente RAJA & Michael ANDERSON

(University of Western Ontario)

Behavior Considered as an Enabling Constraint