From owner-cse191-sp08-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Mon Feb 11 14:34:28 2008 Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:31:59 -0500 From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: 191: Brian Cantwell Smith To: CSE191-SP08-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: 191: Brian Cantwell Smith ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I mentioned in lecture today the idea that the meaning (or "semantics") of an expression in a language (or "syntax") is often given by a translation of that expression into another language that is more familiar. But that other language's expressions can then be translated into a 3rd language that's more familiar still, until we come to a stopping point (in the world? in the mind?) with something that has to be understood "by itself". Some of these ideas may be explored by this week's Computer Science & Engineering Distinguished Speaker: ======================================================================== Center for Cognitive Science and Department of Computer Science & Engineering University at Buffalo present a "double header": two lectures by: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Brian Cantwell Smith ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean and Professor, Faculty of Information Studies Canada Research Chair in the Foundations of Information Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science Professor of Communication, Culture and Technology University of Toronto Smith's homepages: http://www.ageofsignificance.org/people/bcsmith/ http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/content/view/648/364/ Smith's bibliography: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/briancantwellsmith.html photo: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/bcsmith-flyer.pdf Lecture #1: Wednesday, 13 February 2008; 2:00 p.m.; Park 280 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rehabilitating Representation ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ABSTRACT Representation has come in for a bad rap, in recent decades. In this talk I will argue for a radical reconstruction of (something like) representation, in order to: (i) capture what was right and powerful in cognitive science's original representationalist approach -- something that I believe we decry at our peril; (ii) avoid what was wrong -- perhaps even fatal -- about the classical conception; and (iii) do justice to the flood of intuitions that motivate situated, embodied, embedded, social, and even post-structuralist alternatives. Lecture #2: Thursday, 14 February 2008; 3:30 p.m.; 330 Student Union ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Computer Science & Engineering Distinguished Speakers Series: "Solving the Halting Problem (and Other Skulduggery in the Foundations of Computing)" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ABSTRACT It is easy to solve the halting problem: just use non-standard encodings. But non-standard encodings are illegal. As everyone knows, computability and complexity theory require the use of "reasonable" encodings to relate the marks on Turing machine tapes to the numbers they denote. That raises three questions: (i) if reasonable encodings are so important, why are they so little studied? (ii) what, exactly, does "reasonableness" consist in? (iii) where do these reasonableness constraints come from? Are they fundamentally physical, semantical, or mathematical? I will propose answers to all three questions. But doing so will require turning our understanding of the theory of computing upside down. ======================================================================== For further information, please contact: William J. Rapaport Colloquium Chair, Center for Cognitive Science Associate Professor of Computer Science Affiliated Faculty, Philosophy & Linguistics 201 Bell Hall | (716) 645-3180 x 112 Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering | fax: (716) 645-3464 University at Buffalo (SUNY) | rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu Buffalo, NY 14260-2000 | http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport Buffalo Restaurant Guide: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/restaurant.guide/ Good Things about Buffalo: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/buffalo.html ======================================================================== Complete Spring schedule @ www.cogsci.buffalo.edu/Activities/Colloquium/CLLQS08/2008spring.htm ========================================================================