mind and language: ontology and neuroscience
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Mental Functioning and the Ontology of Language
Barry SmithOctober 1, 2012
with thanks to Janna Hastings
Mental Functioning is Neural Functioning: Towards a Unified Ontology of
Mind, Brain, and Behavior
Gwen A. Frishkoff
Department of Psychology NeuroInformatics CenterGeorgia State University University of Oregon
Outline of Talk• What is a mental process?
– A view from cognitive psychology– The Mind–Brain problem and three proposed
solutions (ontology views)
• A neurophsysiological framework for understanding mental processes– Levels of brain, levels of mind– What are mental representations “about”?
(Proposed solution to problems of subjectivity, aboutness)
What is a Mental Process? A view from cognitive psychology
Short-term memory Cognitive control
Motor control,Action
Sensation, Perception
Long-term MemoryHabits & Skills
How do we know any of this?
That is, where did the components of the standard model come from?
mental
processes
• Mental processes cannot be observed.* • They must be inferred based on what we can observe.
What can we observe?...
*We can revise this assumption later (if Mind = Brain)
The mind as a black box
X
• Physical processes in body Behavior (response type, accuracy, reaction time)
• Physiological processes in brain Neural activity and correlates of neural activity (blood flow to brain regions)
What we can observe… and How
A schematic of Helmholtz’s apparatus for measuring the time course of muscle contraction and the propagation velocity of the nerve impulse. Source: Bennett, 1999.
A 256-channel electrode “net” that is used to measure brain electrical activity (EEG)
CogPO!
“A mental process is a neural process.”
• Avoids Mind-Body dualism
• More precise than other two solutions
• Gives ready framework for comparative neurophysiology & comparative cognition
• Knowledge of brain structure & function informs understanding of mental function (and dysfunction)
ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR
Mental Functioning Ontology (MF)
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braininendocrine
gland
Mental Functioning Ontology (MF)
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brain endocrine gland
ENVI
RON
MEN
T
Aboutness
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brain endocrine gland
ENVI
RON
MEN
T
Levels of brain, levels of mind
Mesulam, 1990
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Representation, monitoring and control of internal environment
(“self”)
Representation, monitoring and control of bodily interface to
external environment(“real world”)
Levels of brain, levels of mind
Mesulam, 1990
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Representation, monitoring and control of internal environment
(“self”)
Representation, monitoring and control of bodily interface to
external environment(“real world”)
Note use of “sneer” quotes – “real world”,
“self”
Mental representations: What are they “about”?
Peripheral (sensory-motor) parts of the body are “mapped” to (represented by) an orderly set of discrete regions within sensory and motor cortex.
Sensoy-motor maps in the brain
The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis monitors and controls internal bodily functions, such as blood circulation, breathing, digestion, stress, and arousal.
Maps of the internal milieux
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Shimon Edelman’s Riddle of Representation
two humans, a monkey, and a robot
are looking at a piece of cheese;
what is common to the representational processes in their visual systems?
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Answer:
The cheese, of course
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The real cheese
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Perception of internal (bodily)
environment(“self”)
Perception of external
environment/sensory input(“real world”)
Mental processes, states, and representations
or objects or processes inside the body
or objects or processes inside the body
objects and processes inside and outside the body play a role here too
external targets
internal and external features causally relevant to perception, nociception, etc.
all o
f the
se to
geth
er
form
the
envi
ronm
ent
external targets
internal and external features causally relevant to perception, nociception, etc.
the arrow of aboutness
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Brentano-Husserl approach to intentionality
intentionality can be mediated by language
“food”
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Brentano, Husserl, Chisholm Searle: the primacy of the intentional
linguistic expressions have meanings, because there are mental experiences which have aboutness
Roderick M. Chisholm, “The Primacy of the Intentional”, Synthese, 61, 1984, 89-109
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the primacy of language (Sellars …): mental experiences are about objects because words have meaning
meaning
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to understand the aboutness of the mental, study the semantics of language (model theory)
meaning
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language comes later than mental aboutness
What is a Mental Process? A view from cognitive psychology
Short-term memory Cognitive control
Motor control,Action
Sensation, Perception
Long-term MemoryHabits & Skills
All of this is present before there is language
Thesis: aboutness is a primitive relation between a mental process and a target
external to that mental process
Problems for this thesis: 1. mismatch2. non-existence
1. mismatch of content to target
“poison”
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• the apple is poisonous• the apple is not poisonous
two phenomenologically identical mental experiences
1. mismatch of content to target
“poison”
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• the apple is poisonous• the apple is not poisonous
two neurologically identical mental experiences
2. there is no target
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“unicorn”
Information artifacts, too, involve aboutness, and the same 3 kinds of
mismatchBFO:Continuant
BFO:Independent Continuant
BFO:Dependent Continuant
BFO:Generically Dependent Continuant
Information Content Entity
can be copied
concretized ina bearer
is about something(anything)
$64,000 problem of providing a coherent account of intentionality
Neurology-based solution: we are never directed towards real objects in any case, but only to “real objects” Let us find an easier, neutral, route to building an ontology which does not rest on finding a solution to this problem
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Ontological traffic rule:
to build an ontology of the types of entities in a complex domain, focus on the canonical instances
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Canonical fear
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canonical fear
fear
EMOTION COMPONENT CHARACTERISTIC FOR FEARAction tendency Fight-or-flightSubjective emotional feeling Negative, tense, powerlessBehavioural response Characteristic fearful facial
expressionCharacteristic appraisal Something (some real thing) in
my environment is dangerous to me
subtype
Canonical and non-canonical fearCanonical fear gives rise to action tendencies that are conformant to a perceived danger
Phobias = dispositions giving rise to non-canonical fear, e.g. laridaphobia
Another case involving non-canonical fear: people taking pleasure in watching horror films
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Canonical pain & variantsPCT: pain with concordant tissue damage: the patient experiences pain of the evolutionarily most basic sort = pain in response to concordant tissue damage
Variant painPNT: pain with peripheral trauma but discordant (elevated) relative to tissue damage: there is peripheral trauma, but the patient is experiencing pain of an intensity that is discordant therewith;NN: neuropathic nociception: no peripheral trauma, but the patient is experiencing pain in result of a neuropathic disorder in the nociceptive system.
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Pain-related phenomena without pain
PBWP: pain behavior without pain: there is a cry or report of pain, but no pain is being experienced (a fact which may or may not be detectable by an external observer)TWP: Tissue-damage without pain: tissue damage normally of the sort to cause pain does not activate the pain system.
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Pain Ontology (PN) branch of MF-EM
Lying about pain
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Canonical pain
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canonical pain
pain
EMOTION COMPONENT CHARACTERISTIC FOR PAINAction tendency Withdrawal
Subjective emotional feeling Negative, tense, powerless
Behavioural response Characteristic painful facial expression
Characteristic appraisal Something is dangerous to me
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How shall we structure the MF ontology?
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simple object-presenting acts vs. judgments, evaluations, …
mental process content (putative) target
presenting actcontent of presentation
“apple”object of presentation
judging act
judgment-content
“the apple over there is ripe”
state of affairsobjective, fact
evaluating actemotional act
appraisal…
“it is good that the apple over there is ripe”
?
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”object of presentation
targetpresent
targetabsent
• target present = you are in physical contact with target• successful intentionality
Successful intentionality
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”
object of presentation
targetpresent
targetAbsent
+ evidence
+ evidence
–evidence
• target present = with direct evidence• target absent = with indirect evidence, with no evidence
at all
Successful intentionality
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relational acts
• include also cases of unconscious awareness, e.g. of the chair that you are sitting on
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”object of presentation
object exists
object does not exist
targetpresent
targetabsent
Veridical intentionality
ordinary perception
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”object of presentation
object exists
object does not exist
targetpresent
targetabsent
Veridical intentionality
veridical thinking about
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”
object of presentation
targetpresent
targetabsent
object exists
object does not exist
Non-veridical intentionality
non-veridical thinking about (error, hallucination, imagination, …)
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”object of presentation
object exists
object does not exist
targetpresent
targetabsent
Non-veridical intentionality
error, hallucination = the presenting process is dependent on an underlying false belief
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”object of presentation
object exists
object does not exist
targetpresent
targetabsent
Non-veridical intentionality
thinking about Macbeth = the presenting process is not dependent on an underlying false belief
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”object of presentation
object exists
object does not exist
targetpresent
targetabsent
An excluded case
this combination is impossible
Ontological traffic rule:
to build an ontology of the types of entities in a complex domain, focus on the canonical instances
– in the Macbeth case we are dealing with what happens when language goes on holiday
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mental act about a real-world object
non-relational(~ linguistic)
relational(~ perception)
content match
content mismatch
content match
content mismatch
veridical non-veridical
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mental process content (putative) target
presenting act content of presentation
“apple”object of presentation
object exists
object does not exist
targetpresent
targetabsent
Veridical intentionality
ordinary perceptionevolutionarily most basic case
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cognitive representation
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An emotion trichotomyOccurrent emotion, e.g. when a person experiences hate for another person on a specific occasion
Emotion disposition, e.g. when a person hates someone for a long period of time (is predisposed to occurrent emotions)
Personality trait = a predisposition to emotion dispositions (e.g. sadness) of certain sorts (and thus also to corresponding occurrent emotions)
Janna Hastings, Werner Ceusters, Barry Smith, Kevin Mulligan, “Dispositions and Processes in the Emotion Ontology”, Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Biomedical Ontology, 2011, 71-78.
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A psychological trichotomy
Occurrent mental process, e.g. when Mary sees that Jim has gone baldMental dispositions, e.g. when Mary thereafter believes for a period of time that Jim has gone baldPsychological traits = predispositions to mental cognitive dispositions (e.g. to beliefs) of certain sorts
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A psycholinguistic trichotomy
Occurrent psycholinguistic process, e.g. when Mary reads that Jim has gone baldMental dispositions, e.g. when Mary thereafter believes for a period of time what she has readPsycholinguistic traits = predispositions to psycholingistic dispositions of certain sorts
including linguistic competence
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mental
processes
• Mental processes cannot be observed.* • They must be inferred based on what we can observe.
Frishkoff: The mind as a black box
X
What does a temperature chart represent?
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Time 1 Time 2 Time 360
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What does a chart representing your pulse rate represent?
Cardiac Cycle, Left Ventricle78
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Time 1 Time 2 Time 3606570758085
What does a chart of changes in your pulse rate represent?
8010.58
10.59 1111.01
11.0211.03
11.0411.05
11.0611.07
11.0811.09
11.111.11
11.1211.13
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What does a chart of changes in the Dow Jones industrial average represent?
time
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activity during this time interval
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1 1 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 111.1 1 1
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time
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1 1 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 111.1 1 1
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time
What this represents is real, and not just “real”
coronary heart disease
John’s coronary heart disease
disease during phase of
asymptomatic (‘silent’)
infarction
disease during phase of early
lesions and small fibrous
plaques
stable angina
disease during phase of surface
disruption of plaque
unstable angina
instantiates at t1
instantiates at t2
instantiates at t3
instantiates at t4
instantiates at t5
time 85What this represents is real, and not just “real”
What did your temperature do over the last month, Jim?
Jim’s temperature process profile, the target of a certain sort of cognitive
selection, or cognitive profiling 86
The graph picks out just one dimension of qualitative change within a much larger conglomerate of processes within Jim
Hence ‘process profile’87
Compare perception of polyphonic music
• Cognitive selection of the cello part when you listen to a string quartet
• Picking out a certain sonic partial process within a larger body of vibrations
• Ignoring sneezes, coughs, …• (or sometimes focusing on sneezes and
coughs for diagnostic purposes)
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Compare perception of polyphonic music
• Cognitive selection of the cello part when you listen to a string quartet
• Picking out a certain sonic partial process within a larger body of vibrations
• Ignoring sneezes, coughs, …• (or sometimes focusing on sneezes and
coughs for diagnostic purposes)
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time-series graph of acoustic signal, spectrogram, formants, jaw displacement and
other speech parameters
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adding phonetic, phonemic and syllable levels
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g u t e n
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add brain
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speech is a process profile
the speech process is to the totality of acoustic signal, spectrogram, formants, jaw displacement, mental and neurological processesasthe pulse rate process is to the totality of aortic, ventricular and atrial pressure, ventricular volume, electrical activity, arterial flow, and other processes in the heart
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Breakthrough: First sound recordings based on reading human auditory cortex (PLoS Biology, January 2012)
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Top: spectrogram of words presented to subject. Middle and bottom: reconstructions of speech based on
readings from electrodes attached to patient's brain.
Pathway diagram
Pathway
Reaction
Molecular collective
Individual molecule
BFO:ProcessBFO:Independent
Continuant
BFO:Disposition
Information Content Entity
inheres in
explicitlyrepresents
implicitly represents
has participant
BULK
MOLECULARhas grain
BFO: GDC
biological pathways are process profiles
mental processes, too, are process profiles
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BFO:Entity
BFO:Continuant BFO:Occurrent
BFO:ProcessBFO:Independent Continuant
BFOMFO
BFO:Dependent Continuant
Behaviour inducing state
Cognitive Representation
BFO:Quality
Language-mediated cognitive
representation
Writing
Bodily ProcessBFO:Disposition
Linguistic competence
Linguistic competence of a population
= a language Linguistic competence of an individual
Reading
Speaking
what is a language? something analogous to a biological
species (a population of competences)
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• Examples of dispositions that are constantly being realized:– stock exchange– heart beat– brain activity– social order– language (social)