Extras
White Paper: “Mathematics of Intelligences” (Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, UCLA)
The quest to understand intelligence is one of the great scientific endeavors, on par with quests to understand the origins of life or the foundations of the physical world. Several scientific communities have made significant progress on this quest. Relevant fields like animal cognition, cognitive science, collective intelligence, and artificial intelligence (AI)—as well as the social and behavioral sciences—have generated a wild variety of new experimental and observational data. They have also built mathematical and computational models of impressive sophistication and performance. Yet these communities remain largely disconnected; in no small part, this is because they lack a common framework and a shared (mathematical) language. The IPAM Long Program on the Mathematics of Intelligences (MOI) aimed to bring these communities together with mathematicians to work toward the mathematical foundations necessary for transformational advances in our understanding of natural and artificial intelligences. This white paper was drafted at the culminating retreat of the Long Program and synthesizes the view of the field developed by its core participants. That said, it is not meant to be a comprehensive account of everything that happened at the Long Program. Likewise, the views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of IPAM or all the authors. “Intelligence” is an ambiguous term. It can refer to an “intelligent system,” as when we speak of an “artificial intelligence.” It can also refer more broadly to a general capacity; roughly speaking, something that enables (intelligent) systems to solve problems more easily, whether they be organisms, collectives, or artificial agents. Although the former usage is returning to prominence in the age of Large Language Models (LLMs), we will generally refer to “intelligent systems” rather than “intelligences” to avoid confusion. We also (attempt to) avoid the anthropocentric bias that makes humans the paradigm of intelligence. MOI explored intelligence as a multifaceted, multiscale phenomenon; it is for this reason that the Long Program was called the Mathematics of Intelligences, with the final embracing this multiplicity and variety.
Neural Networks in Cognitive Science: Transformer Architectures and LLMs
This book was written by a group of researchers, most of them associated with UC Merced’s Cognitive and Information Sciences Program. The book is meant to support learning about neural networks in a visual and interactive way, and to be used in conjunction with Simbrain, a free open source software package that makes it easy to build neural network simulations. The philosophy behind the book is that it is possible to learn about neural networks even with minimal mathematical background, and that this is facilitated by the use of a visual simulation environment like Simbrain.
A Review of Bryan W. Van Norden, Taking Back Philosophy
Published in the Vassar College Journal of Philosophy
If you find yourself in the philosophy section of a college bookstore, you are likely to see some fairly recognizable names: Plato, Kant, and Hume to name a few. You are less likely to see works belonging to what Bryan W. Van Norden, professor of philosophy at Vassar College, coins “LCTP” or “less commonly taught philosophies.” These include the philosophical traditions of China, India, Africa, Latin America and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, as well as African American, Jewish, feminist, and LGBTQ+ philosophy, among many more. Regarding the place of these philosophies in the prevalent Western tradition, Van Norden reveals that “of the top 50 philosophy doctoral programs in the English-speaking world, only 15 percent have any regular faculty members who teach any non-Western philosophy.” This statistic is shocking, but unfortunately not surprising. The present philosophical field tends to self-identify as distinctly, if not exclusively, Western. This bias is what Van Norden and Jay L. Garfield note in their provocative New York Times opinion piece, “If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is,” in which they urge philosophy departments who refuse to include LCTP to rename themselves as “departments of Anglo-European philosophy.” The article garnered resistance. Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto responds to this backlash and elaborates upon Van Norden’s claim.