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Philosophy

Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation

In this book Gary William Flake develops in depth the simple idea that recurrent rules can produce rich and complicated behaviors.

System requirements:

- Apple Macintosh with a 68040 or better processor; Power Macintosh (PPC) recommended

- 16MB of free RAM (20MB recommended)

- approximately 25MB of free hard drive sapce

- 256 color, 640x480 pixel monitor or better

- MacOS System 7.5 or later

- QuickTime 3.0 or later

Optional:

- PlainTalk microphone (for voice recording)

- Macintosh text-to-speech (TTS) software

Philosophical Essays

A great deal of interest and excitement surround the interface between the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of psychology, yet the area is neither well defined nor well represented in mainstream philosophical publications. This book is perhaps the first to open a dialogue between the two disciplines. Its aim is to broaden the traditional subject matter of the philosophy of biology while informing the philosophy of psychology of relevant biological constraints and insights.

The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology

The authors of this book, a philosopher and a cognitive ethologist, approach their work from the perspective that many animals have minds and rich cognitive lives. They also believe that arguments about evolutionary continuity are as applicable to the study of animal minds and brains as they are to comparative studies of kidneys, stomachs, and hearts. Cognitive ethologists study the comparative, evolutionary, and ecological aspects of the mental phenomena of animals.

Core Readings

Concepts: Core Readings traces the develoment of one of the most active areas of investigation in cognitive science. This comprehensive volume brings together the essential background readings from philosophy, psychology, and linguistics, while providing a broad sampling of contemporary research. The first part of the book centers around the fall of the Classical Theory of Concepts in the face of attacks by W. V. O. Quine, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Eleanor Rosch, and others, emphasizing the emergence and development of the Prototype Theory and the controversies it spurred.

Classic Readings with a Contemporary Commentary
Edited by Nick Huggett

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language


What is language? How does it relate to the world? How does it relate to the mind? Should our view of language influence our view of the world? These are among the central issues covered in this spirited and unusually clear introduction to the philosophy of language.

A Reader


Vagueness is currently the subject of vigorous debate in the philosophy of logic and language. Vague terms—such as 'tall', 'red', 'bald', and 'tadpole'—have borderline cases (arguably, someone may be neither tall nor not tall); and they lack well-defined extensions (there is no sharp boundary between tall people and the rest). The phenomenon of vagueness poses a fundamental challenge to classical logic and semantics, which assumes that propositions are either true or false and that extensions are determinate.

It is now clear that the brain is unlikely to be understood without recourse to computational theories. The theme of An Introduction to Natural Computation is that ideas from diverse areas such as neuroscience, information theory, and optimization theory have recently been extended in ways that make them useful for describing the brain's programs. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the computational material that forms the underpinnings of the currently evolving set of brain models.

Analyses of Function and Design in Biology

Within the natural sciences, only biologists take seriously teleological statements about design, purpose, and adaptive function. Some biologists claim that to understand the complex morphological and behavioral traits of organisms we must say what they are for, which is to give a teleological explanation of why organisms have them. Others argue that the theory of natural selection, in providing statistical explanations for the same phenomena, obviates any need for teleological thinking.