APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers

Featured Address

Previous Article | Index | Next Article

Issues in Teaching Logic Online
Jerry Kapus

This presentation will examine pedagogical issues relating to asynchronous, online courses in elementary logic and critical thinking. The presentation will focus on issues in course design and instruction. In particular, the presentation will examine how the asynchronous environment impacts course design, how the role of the instructor is modified by the asynchronous environment, how to maintain a learning community within an asynchronous environment, and the unique advantages provided to student learning by a Web based delivery system.

Emergent Robotics
Gene Koreniek, 3 Sigma Robotics and Bill Uzgalis, Oregon State University

Gene has developed a robotics process whereby independent processors interact to create whole coordinated movements. This process has epistemological implications as well as practical applications. This presentation will consider connections between machines and biological organisms (including people) in terms of comparisons between the design of the decision making process for a robot arm and various phenomena in nature, which we believe can best be explained as emerging from the interaction of phenomena based on a few simple rules rather than from a top down imposition of order.

Linus Pauling: Special Collections Tour Valley Library
Cliff Mead, Oregon State University

The primary objective of Special Collections at Oregon State University's Valley Library is to maintain and preserve the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers. Linus Pauling is considered to be one of the most important scientists and humanitarians of the twentieth century. With the use of the Pauling collection as a cornerstone, a secondary objective of the Special Collections will be to document the development of science and technology in the twentieth century. The Special Collections will be of particular interest to researchers concerned with 20th-century science and science-based technology, and to those investigating the development of science. This includes the Philosophy of Nature collection which focuses on materials that illuminate the human conceptualization of our place in the natural world-both individual and societal-and our relations to nature within that format. The theme is intended to be inclusive, but takes as its central core the reconceptualization of humans and nature that has occurred in the historical age between1800-1950. The period begins with a time that saw the death of Kant (1804) and birth of Darwin (1809). This period also saw the development of industrialization on a scale which altered societies and their environments throughout the world. One finds in this period philosophic reflection that reevaluates the place of humans in nature. Examples of such writers are Henri Bergson, August Comte, William James, A.N. Whitehead, R.G. Collingwood and John Dewey.

Horning and Ideas Matter Lecture
Does the Turing Test Have a Future?
James Moor, Dartmouth

James Moor The famous Turing test has been criticized by philosophers such as John Searle and dismissed by some leading artificial intelligence workers such as Patrick Hayes. Moreover, Turing's famous prediction that his test would be passed at a qualified level about now appears disconfirmed by the Loebner 2000 contest and the absence of competitive artificial intelligence programs. Nevertheless, the Turing test can be defended and will play an important role in the future of artificial intelligence work and our understanding of minds.

Previous Article | Index | Next Article

APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2