Single Idea 12624

[catalogued under 17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism]

Full Idea

Connectionism has no truck with mental representations; on the one hand, only the node labels in 'neural networks' have semantic content, and, on the other, the node labels play no role in mental processes, in standard formulations.

Gist of Idea

Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role

Source

Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1)

Book Reference

Fodor,Jerry A.: 'LOT 2: the Language of Thought Revisited' [OUP 2008], p.7


A Reaction

Connectionism must have some truth in it, yet mere connections can't do the full job. The difficulty is that nothing else seems to do the 'full job' either. Fodor cites productivity, systematicity, compositionality, logical form as the problems.