Christopher Viger

The Binding Problem: Achilles in the 21st Century

With the caveat that the human soul or mind is whatever unifies our mental representations—which we can simply stipulate—the argument is valid, hence the only way to resist the conclusion is to deny at least one of the premises. The long history of the argument recounted in the other papers in this volume demonstrates how resilient these premises are, however. P1 is compelling because it captures our phenomenology; that just is how things seem to us. The force of P2 is reflected in the quote beginning our paper from contemporary neuroscientists who cannot conceive of an alternative to it. Save for the reference to neurons, this quote could have come from any era. Yet P2 flatly contradicts our contemporary materialist-cumneuroscientific worldview, so an alternative is wanting. Do the cognitive sciences have something to add by way of refuting the Achilles?

Locking on to the language of thought

I demonstrate that locking on, a key notion in Jerry Fodors most recent theory of content, supplemented informational atomism (SIA), is cashed out in terms of asymmetric dependence, the central notion in his earlier theory of content. I use this result to argue that SIA is incompatible with the language of thought hypothesis because the constraints on the causal relations into which symbols can enter imposed by the theory of content preclude the causal relations needed between symbols for them to serve as the elements of the medium of thought.

Bell-type equalities for SQUIDs on the assumptions of macroscopic realism and non-invasive measurability

Abstract Bell-type equalities are derived for the Leggett-Garg proposal for a SQUID experiment on the assumptions of macroscopic realism (MR) and non-invasive measurability (NIM). Equalities of this sort have not previously been presented. It is shown that there are 18 such equalities. These equalities put stronger constraints on the consequences of MR and NIM than the corresponding inequalities.

The rank theorem for locally Lipschitz continuous functions

The Rank Theorem is proved for locally Lipschitz continuous functions f:R —> R with generalized derivative of constant rank.