Semantika ja analüütiline filosoofia
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Code: ITV9070 "A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie." --Umberto Eco “I’m writing a book on magic,” I explain, and I’m asked, “Real magic?” By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. “No,” I answer: “Conjuring tricks, not real magic.” Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic. --Lee Siegel |
25. september
The seminar will take place at the standard room. During the seminar Tanel will attend the PhD defence of Richard Dreyling, and hence cannot be present. However, if possible, please record the sessions and I'll look through the recording later.
Recordings
Several recordings are available, but we do not plan to record all the lectures/seminars.
- A recording of the first lecture (4. sept) is available here (in Estonian).
- The teams recording of the second lecture/seminar. The telco link is inside the course teams group
- The teams recording at 25. Sept is available
Time, place, credits
Time: Every Wednesday 11:40 - 13:55
Normally we will have student presentations during the lecture time, along with planning following presentations and brief intros by the lecturer. We will follow the schedule
Location:
- Mostly: IT College building room ICO-219
- Sometimes: telco over teams (these will be announced a week earlier)
Credits: 6
The lectures will be in English, unless everybody understands Estonian, in which case they will be in Estonian.
The presentations in practice sessions can be given in English or Estonian, as you prefer.
The contents of practice sessions are presentations by students and their discussion. For all students, presence in the practice sessions is important and is accounted for in the final grade.
We will probably succeed with saving the videos of lectures: will check out during the first weeks.
The course will finish with a written exam. The materials below marked with a red E will be critical for studying for the exam, while the materials marked with blue L are also used but less important. Materials without such marks will not be used for the exam questions.
In order to be allowed to take the exam,
- each Ph.D student should give at least four presentations.
- each master student should give at least two presentations. In case it turns out we will have enough time, an additional third short presentation might be asked for as a bonus.
Presentations are not graded, but when they are determined not to be satfisfactory, they should be re-done.
The lecture times will be used for both
- Short intros to thematic blocks by Tanel
- Student presentations
NB! Presence at student presentations will be registered: failing to participate at many presentations will have a negative effect on the final grade.
Initial course plan, materials and topics
We consider several topics, starting from general ones and moving to more specific.
The main goal of the lectures is to make it easier to understand the concepts and ideas in the topics, in order to better understand the reading materials.
Intro, semiotics, philosophy
- Source for the first round of presentations: Tähendus, tõde, meetod.. Separate original articles can be found by googling.
Main materials:
- Semiotics for beginners. first half is obligatory. E
- Quine: Two Dogmas of Empiricism. E
- what is analytic philosophy.
- analytic/synthetic. E
- logical positivism.
- Problem of universals nominalism/realism. L
- functionalism. E
- phenomenology.
- Propp.
Useful to read/listen:
- philosophy bites podcasts. Start with this strongly recommended episode.
- Sam Harris with David Chalmers
- L Philosophy of Metzinger: background reading Self models and look, for example: Metzinger video
- Tractatus andTractatus: structured full text. L. Wittgenstein. Read a bit, along with a commentary
- Philosophical investigations: read the first 100.A A small summary of early vs late Wittgenstein
About the alphabet:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese
- comparison ja wiki and unicode
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_uniliteral_signs
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumae_alphabet
Notes on structuralism, deconstruction and friends:
- structuralism L, dekonstruktivism, dekonstrueerimise kiirõpetus, Derrida section, hermeneutics
- insheeption
- sympathetic magic: wiki, Frazer
Notes on Propp:
Notes on the Vienna circle and logical positivism:
- Main ideas: "First, experience is the only source of knowledge; second, logical analysis performed with the help of symbolic logic is the preferred method for solving philosophical problems."
- taust: analüütiline/sünteetiline, apriori/aposteriori
- classical positivism as the background: more here
- a small lecture about the Vienna cicle
- Vienna circle: good short overview ja a longish paper from the Stanfordi encyclopedia of philosohy and Vienna circle manifesto
- Logical positivism: good overview
- wiki logical positivism
Evolution of brain, intelligence and society
Sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and memetics.
Main material:
- Evolution: intro lecture.
- Sociobiology in wikipedia. E.
- Evolutionary psychology in wikipedia. E. You may also want to read more details in primer ja conceptual grounds
- Memetics in wikipedia. E
- Universal grammar L theory of Chomsky
Recommended overviews:
- wiki on the theories of origin of language
- overview of Chomsky theories of language evolution
- wiki on horizontal gene transfer
Recommended books:
- The Selfish Gene
- Guns, Germs and Steel
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Important papers:
- BRAIN EVOLUTION AND NEUROLINGUISTIC PRECONDITIONS L
- CO-EVOLUTION OF NEOCORTEX SIZE, GROUP SIZE AND LANGUAGE IN HUMANS L
- Precis of Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition L
- DNA seen through the eyes of a coder
- Epigenetics vt ka seda artiklit
Additional notes and recommendations, not obligatory:
- natural language and natural selection
- Language as an Adaptation to the Cognitive Niche
- Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?
- Agner Fog: cultural selection
- Buss lab publications
- Changizi publications: vt allpool peatükk ARTICLES AND BOOKS ntx Economically organized hierarchies in WordNet and the Oxford English Dictionary, citybrain, colorface, xray vision
- the brain from 25000 feet
- John Eccles: Evolution of consciousness
Brain science
For exam:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_neuroscience L
- https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cognitive_Psychology_and_Cognitive_Neuroscience/Memory L
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind E
Good general overviews:
- background reading for further reading or listening about brain
- https://grey.colorado.edu/CompCogNeuro/index.php/CCNBook/Main
- https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cognitive_Psychology_and_Cognitive_Neuroscience
- Neurons are Now More Complex than We Thought
Important podcasts:
- Brain Inspired: a podcast where neuroscience and AI converge. A somewhat newer and somewhat technical podcast. Also based on interviews, but with currently active top researchers about their current work.
- Brain science (see also the episodes page) : an old podcast series, still going strong. Basically interviews with important people in the field, many of them classics. Not very technical (mostly); recommended podcasts in BS, youtube lectures and background for these
- Some of the Lex Fridman podcast episodes are relevant, like Jeff Hawkins, Karl Friston, David Eagleman
General notes:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_neuroscience
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Workspace_Theory
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_cell
Read also:
Infinity, logic and philosophy of mathematics
The first topic is intro to the philosophy of mathematics, mainly the questions of infinity and unsolvability.
Materials to read:
- English intro: infinity, limits of computation and undecidability E
- in parallel, the same themes supporting text, written by the lecturer as an afterword to the book about Gödel's incompleteness theorems. You may try to use Google translate or some such for the English version: however, it is not a an obligagtory material.
- numbers, infinity and metaphors (in Estonian, very short, metaphorical)
- Ordinals: read from 6.2 Classifying the ordinals
- Russell paradox ja and longer from wikipedia
Videos have heads down:
- Intro lecture: 6. oct 2022, in Estonian.
- Seminar lecture: 6. oct 2022, in Estonian.
More about infinity and computability:
- Salvestus teamsis, 13. oktoober, in Estonian.
Helpful read: cardinality wikipedias. Read more about Gödel's incompleteness theorem from SEP: a part of a larger incompleteness-article.
A longer story about the philosophy of mathematics from SEP.
Nonclassical logics, related to the philosophy of mathematics:
- In Estonian: mitteklassikalised loogikad. Siin on pealeloetud jutuga variant: E downloadi ja vaata normaalses täisekraan-vaatamisreziimis, siis kuuled slaidide juures minu juttu.
- A good technical read from SEP about intuitionist logic.
- Estonian material and videos about modal logics: modaalsed loogikad L ja vaata eelmise aasta teamsi salvestust samast loengust
- Good half-hour presentations about axioms of modal logic and kripke semantics / possible worlds. A more philosophical take available in the series (playlist) from the same author, but long. Additionally useful presentation . SEP has good articles om modal logic and related philosophy, both highly technical.
More on nonclassical logics:
- modal logic in wikipeda
- philosophy around modal logic from SEP
- philosophy around intuitionistic logic from SEP L
Thinking and AI
Detailed arguments and counterarguments for the
Some good core stuff
- For starters Rodney Brooks's small AI series part 1, part 2 , part 3 , part 4 and predictions scorecard 2020
- Importantly, two interesting essays by Rodney Brooks from 2023 What Will Transformers Transform? L and Three Things That LLMs Have Made Us Rethink L
- Listen to Stuart Russell on AI dangers
Living classics from the lex fridman podcast:
- https://lexfridman.com/david-ferrucci/
- https://lexfridman.com/gary-marcus/
- https://lexfridman.com/david-silver/
- https://lexfridman.com/tomaso-poggio/
- https://lexfridman.com/richard-dawkins/
- https://lexfridman.com/noam-chomsky/
- https://lexfridman.com/nick-bostrom/
- https://lexfridman.com/jeff-hawkins/
- https://lexfridman.com/judea-pearl/
Semantics of natural language
We will look into both
- Vector semantics
- Semantics based on world model
Details will be added when the block starts
Dialog, pragmatics, uncertain knowledge
The first subject is dialogue pragmatics. Several related branches (have a brief look, but no need to read deeply unless you become interested):
- Speech acts L sentences doing something, not just conveying information
- Implicature L with Grice's maxims as a central theme
- Relevance theory further development of Grice's maxims
To start, certainly look/listen these short lectures:
- pragmatics and speech acts 11 minutes intro to the whole subject
- Grice's Maxims, Implicature, Presupposition: especially nice 12 minute more detailed lecture about Grice maxims
- Deceiving with words in case you did not listen before, do it now!
In case you just want to read original Grice:
- Logic and conversation: Grice himself about the maxims
- further examples, analyzed quite deeply
Have a look at
- Relevance theory, ie further development: 32 pages by main folks working on the subject
- Jurafsky & Martin chapter 26 Dialogue Systems and Chatbots the practical pre-LLM systems from their extremely good NLP book
Additionally, nice to listen and :
- NLP podcasti episode 89 about pre-LLM dialog systems
- Implicature Calculation, Pragmatics or Syntax, or both: more detailed analysis of implicature
- implicature with experiments
- very detailed with some focus on automatization
- dialogue pragmatics from SEP
- implicature from SEP
The next theme is uncertain information and probabilities: how to understand, write down and make conjectures.
General intro here as a part of this course.
Read this intro: Numeric uncertainty (L as explained next):
- Certainly up the the section "Different ways to encode confidences in logic", also looking at the wikipages pointed to
- Briefly look into the following sections, but do not focus or spend much time on these
Then read the first parts and have brief looks at the SEP articles:
Here are some of our papers on our system, about confidence and reasoning with exceptions.
Extra stuff
- A good Slate article about the background of the OpenAI soap opera.
- A famous killerbot warning video.
Presentations
Schedule
- 11. sept:
- Georg: Nick Boström Are we living in simulation. Vt taustaks Nick Boström (wiki) ja taust/analüüs wikis. Googelda juurde veel analüüse/arvamusi/vastuväiteid.
- Hannaliina: Quine: empirismi kaks dogmat. Linke: siin, siin. Vt ka taust/analüüs wikis.
- Eleriin: Confirmation bias, start with this article and search for more. Vaata lisaks wikist.
- 18. sept:
- Andres (tõstsin üle 11. septembrilt): Putnam: tähendus ja osutus. Meaning and reference. Lisaks tasub vaadata ülevaadet. Vaata ka Social_constructionism wikis ja ntx siin ja taustaks kindlasti Functionalism (SEP), Functionalism (wiki): Googelda artiklile juurde seletusi/analüüse.
- Danyil: neurons are more complicated than we thought.
- Viktoria: Strawson: tähendus ja tõde (meaning and truth). One fulltext here. Look at SEP about Strawson. There is a Robinson's podcast video episode about the Strawson approach (at ca 1:21) and another podcast episode about the context of Strawson/Austin debate on theme.
- Liisi: Intuitsionistlik loogika: näited teoreemidest, mis kehtivad klassikaliselt, kuid mitte intuitsionistlikult. Näiteid tõestustest, millel lihtne klassikaline, kuid keeruline intuitsionistlik tõestus (standardnäide: ruutjuur kahest on irratsionaalne, vt näiteks siit ja googelda juurde). Vaata intuitsionisliku loogika kohta wikist ja SEPist. NB! Intuitsionistlik loogika on oluline teema matemaatika filosoofias: Tanel teeb sellele hilisemates loengutes eraldi sissejuhatuse.
- 25. sept
- Raul (moved here from 18. sept): Dummett: Truth. One fulltext here. You may also want to read comments like this and background like this
- Kauri: Ramsey subjektiivne tõenäosusteooria. Full text of his paper. Important background: interpretations of probability, esp "The Subjective Interpretation" and specifically about Ramsey's views.
- Jonatan: antroopsusprintsiip. See the take by SEP. A good listen by a theoretical physicist is here. You may want to have a look at the book by Nick Boström, the classic full paper by Brandon Carter, and the full book by Barrow and Tipler. Related tidbit: there is a very early paper about the anthropic principle in microcosmos by Tanel, closely related to Boltzmann brain.
- 2 okt
- Rannar: Dennett: kvaalide kvainimine (quining qualia). Full text here. About the views of Dennett by himself and others. Some discussion on reddit. Wikipedia about qualia.
- Roman: How do bacteria and simple organisms communicate. Start with this TED talk and search for more. For example, a SciAm article, this is an in-depth paper, this handles bacteria working through insects.
- Marek: Frege: Frege tähendusest ja osutusest. Read an overview/background from wikipedia and Frege's own paper On Sense and Reference. There is a youtube video about the paper. See SEP on Frege, Frege's logic and wikipedia about Begriffsschrift (the book inventing predicate calculus).
- Mihkel: pragmatism. Start with the SEP article and search for more.
- Epp: Tarski: semantiline tõekontseptsioon. About Tarski. The original paper and the SEP explanations/details/background
- Hanna: solipsism. Certainly consider several types of solipsism, starting from wiki. See also methodological solipsism and methodological individualism in contrast to externalism of Putnam etc
- 9 okt
- Anzelika: infinity: Ordinaalid ja kardinaalid
- Otto: main points of Chomsky's theories of language
- Enrico: Paul Grice: "meaning" and overview of other important parts of Grice claims and theory
- Viktor: Frame problem
- 16 okt
- Lulof: will choose a topic
Enrico reserved for later dates, not scheduled yet: statistical machine translation, Kripke semantics of modal logics
To pick: Evolution of morals. alusta siit ja otsi ise edasi. Vaata ka wiki põhiartiklit ja lähedalt seotud altruismi teemat. Important background is sociobiology and evolutionary psychology.
Some themes for selection
Ideas for the first rounds from this book (search originals from the web):
- Putnam: tähendus ja osutus. (Meaning and reference)
- Quine: empirismi kaks dogmat. (Two dogmas of empiricism)
- Dummett: Truth.
- Tarski: semantiline tõekontseptsioon.
- Strawson: tähendus ja tõde
- Ramsey subjektiivne tõenäosusteooria.
Further:
- Analytic / synthetic vs apriori / aposteriori (Kant etc)
- Frege: Frege tähendusest ja osutusest.
- Dennett: kvaalide kvainimine (quining qualia).
- Paul Grice: "meaning" and overview of other important parts of Grice claims and theory.
- Nick Boström "are we living in simulation". http://www.simulation-argument.com/ and http://www.nickbostrom.com/
- Evolution of morals. alusta siit ja otsi ise edasi.
- Chomsky keeleteooria põhipunktid
- Mirror Neurons mh alustuseks brain science podcast 35 Mirror Neurons ja podcast 39 (Discusses the role of mirror neurons in imitation and language) pluss googelda veidi juurde.
- Frame problem in AI. Start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_problem and continue to find additional materials and examples.
- How do bacteria and simple organisms communicate. Start with this TED lecture.
- infinity: cardinals and ordinals.
- Overview of pragmatism as a philosophical school: main ideas, development etc.
- example of a proof which is classically easy but intuitionistically hard: irrationality around square root of two.
- Anthropic principle and the Boltzmann brain.
- modal logics S4 ja S5 and possible worlds (Kripke semantics).
- neurons.
- Research and give an overview of the state of the art in machine translation: top systems, their capacity and the main principles of how they work.
- Statistical principles in machine translation a la Google
- Confirmation bias, start with this article
- How do bacteria and simple organisms communicate. Start with this TED lecture
- Evolution of morals. alusta siit
- How do bacteria and simple organisms communicate. Start with this TED lecture
- Frame problem in AI. Start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_problem and continue to find additional materials and examples.
- Intuitsionistlik loogika: näited teoreemidest, mis kehtivad klassikaliselt, kuid mitte intuitsionistlikult. Näiteid tõestustest, millel lihtne klassikaline, kuid keeruline intuitsionistlik tõestus.
- Ordinaalid ja kardinaalid.
- Neuroimaging, auditory hallucinations, and the bicameral mind.pdf start here and download pdf
- Neurons are more complex than we thought, see here and here for starters.
- Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor?
- The Hyperbolic Geometry of DMT Experiences and see this for some background.
- Perception Without Representation
- Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic
Toorik ajakavast: läheb korrigeerimisele / täpsustamisele
11. sept: Andres: Putnam: tähendus ja osutus. (Meaning and reference) Georg: Nick Boström "are we living in simulation". http://www.simulation-argument.com/ and http://www.nickbostrom.com/ Hannaliina: Quine: empirismi kaks dogmat. (Two dogmas of empiricism) Eleriin: Confirmation bias, start with this article 18. sept Danyil: Evolution of morals. alusta siit ja o tsi ise edasi. Viktoria: Strawson: tähendus ja tõde Liisi: Intuitsionistlik loogika: näited teoreemidest, mis kehtivad klassikaliselt, kuid mitte intuitsionistlikult. Näiteid tõestustest, millel lihtne klassikaline, kuid keeruline intuitsionistlik tõestus. Raul: Dummett: Truth. 25. sept Kauri: Ramsey subjektiivne tõenäosusteooria. Jonatan: antroopsusprintsiip Rannar: Dennett: kvaalide kvainimine (quining qualia). Roman: How do bacteria and simple organisms communicate
2 okt Marek: Frege: Frege tähendusest ja osutusest. Mihkel: pragmatism Epp: Tarski: semantiline tõekontseptsioon. Hanna: solipsism 9 okt Anzelika: infinity: Ordinaalid ja kardinaalid