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CSLI Calendar, 30 Nov 1995, vol.11:09
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To: friends
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Subject: CSLI Calendar, 30 Nov 1995, vol.11:09
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From: Tom Burke <burke>
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Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 13:16:46 -0800 (PST)
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C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
______________________________________________________________________________
30 November 1995 Stanford Vol. 11, No. 9
______________________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
____________
CSLI ACTIVITIES DURING 29 NOVEMBER -- 8 DECEMBER 1995
WEDNESDAY, 29 NOVEMBER
3:15 - Philosophy of Computation Seminar
Ventura Hall, Room 17
Brian Cantwell Smith, Xerox PARC
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 30 NOVEMBER
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Barwise-Seligman Discussion Group
Keith Devlin, CSLI / St.Mary's College
Abstract below
12:00 - Cognitive Science Lunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Chance, Choice, and Consciousness: The Role of Mind
in the Quantum Brain
Henry Stapp, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Why Don't Computers Write their own Programs?
Richard Waldinger, SRI
Abstract below
7:30 - Phonology Workshop at Stanford
Building 460, Room 146
Interaction between Tone and Intonation in Two Dutch Dialects
Carlos Gussenhoven, University of Nijmegen
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 1 DECEMBER
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium, SITN Channel E1
Bringing Behavior to the Internet
James Gosling, Sun Microsystems
Abstract below
2:00 - Logic Colloquium
Building 380, Room 383-N
Computability and Recursiveness
Robert Soare, University of Chicago Math and CS
Abstract below
3:15 - Philosophy Colloquium
Encina Hall, Room 423
Parts and Wholes: Unification and Consilience in
Archeological Explanation
Alison Wylie, CASBS / U Western Ontario Philosophy
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
The Development of Discourse Markers: Implications for
a Theory of Grammaticalization
Elizabeth Traugott, Stanford Linguistics
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 5 DECEMBER
7:00 - SSP Film Series
Cubberley Hall, Room 128
Inventing the Future (The Machine That Changed the
World, Part 2)
Abstract below
WEDNESDAY, 6 DECEMBER
3:15 - Philosophy of Computation Seminar
Ventura Hall, Room 17
Brian Cantwell Smith, Xerox PARC
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 7 DECEMBER
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Barwise-Seligman Discussion Group
Keith Devlin, CSLI / St.Mary's College
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Better than the Best: The Power of Cooperation
Bernardo A. Huberman, Xerox PARC
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 8 DECEMBER
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium, SITN Channel E1
Design for Universal Access
Betsy Bayha, World Institute on Disability
____________
The CSLI Calendar appears on Wednesday of each week throughout the academic
year. Announcements, abstracts, and other information to appear in the
Calendar can be submitted by e-mail to <incalendar@csli.stanford.edu>.
Further information about CSLI and past issues of the CSLI Calendar
are available on the Internet at URL <http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/>.
The Calendar is also posted each week to the <csli.bboard> newsgroup.
____________
PHILOSOPHY OF COMPUTATION SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 29 November
3:15 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
Digitality (Etc.)
Brian Cantwell Smith
Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
We will wrap up the discussion of digitality, review what we have covered over
the quarter, and leave time for discussion of anything that has come up all
Fall.
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 30 November
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Barwise-Seligman Discussion Group
Keith Devlin
CSLI / St.Mary's College
[devlin@csli.stanford.edu]
Commencing November 30 and running to the end of the term, the STASS seminar
will be devoted to a reading/discussion group working through the manuscript
of the forthcoming Barwise and Seligman book on the mathematics of
information. The first meeting will concentrate on the first chapter. Copies
may be obtained from Eric Hammer at CSLI [ehammer@csli.stanford.edu]. The
discussion group is expected to continue into the next quarter.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 30 November
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
Chance, Choice, and Consciousness: The Role of
Mind in the Quantum Brain
Henry Stapp
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
[contact: guven@csli.stanford.edu]
Contemporary quantum mechanical description of nature involves two processes.
The first is a dynamical process governed by the equations of local quantum
field theory. This process is local and deterministic, but it generates a
structure that is not compatible with observed reality. A second process is
therefore invoked. This second process somehow analyzes the structure
generated by the first process into a collection of possible observable
realities, and selects one of these as the actually appearing reality.
This selection process is not well understood. It is necessarily nonlocal
and, according to orthodox thinking, is governed by an irreducible element of
chance. The occurrence of this irreducible element of chance means that the
theory is not naturalistic: the dynamics is controlled in part by something
that is not part of the physical universe.
The present work describes a quantum mechanical model of brain dynamics in
which the quantum selection process is a causal process governed not by pure
chance but rather by a mathematically specified nonlocal process identifiable
as the conscious process.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 30 November
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Why Don't Computers Write Their own Programs?
Richard Waldinger
SRI International
[waldinger@ai.sri.com]
Actually from the start computers have been used to make programming easier,
and every artificial intelligence scheme has been applied towards automating
the entire programming process. We'll survey some of this research and then
focus on the deductive approach, which attempts to regard programming as a
theorem-proving problem. We'll mention applications of this work at NASA Ames
Research Center and the Kestrel Institute. But it hasn't put any programmers
out of work yet.
RICHARD WALDINGER does research in deductive program synthesis and other
applications of theorem proving in artificial intelligence and software
engineering. He has worked at the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI
International since before you were born, probably. He has coauthored with
Zohar Manna a number of books and papers on applications of logic in computer
science. He is currently visiting the Kestrel Institute and taking lessons in
how to play the didgereedoo.
_____________
PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP AT STANFORD
on Thursday, 30 November
7:30 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Interaction between Tone and Intonation in Two Dutch Dialects
Carlos Gussenhoven
University of Nijmegen
The Dutch dialects spoken in the south-east of the Netherlands have a binary
lexical tone opposition reminiscent of the Scandinavian word accent contrast
between Accent I and Accent II. These terms are here used for the members of
the Dutch opposition as well. The contrast is found in stressed syllables
with two sonorant moras (e.g., [bein] Accent I: `legs'; [bein] Accent II:
`leg'.) Stressed syllables with one sonorant mora behave tonally like Accent
I. Accent I appears to be tonally unmarked, while Accent II has a lexical H
tone on the second mora of the stressed syllable.
The realization of the contrast depends (a) on the right-peripheral
intonational boundary tones used, which express "Declarative,"
"Interrogative," etc., discoursal meanings, as is usual in intonation
languages, and (b) on the presence of a focus-marking tone on the syllable.
Most importantly, various tonal adjustments are made when a lexical H appears
on the last mora of the intonation phrase, i.e., abuts the intonational
boundary tones.
Data from two dialects will be considered. The dialect of Venlo yields to a
rule-based analysis, in which a final lexical tone assimilates to the first
boundary tone. The tonal adjustments in the dialect of Roermond do not appear
to be readily describable in terms of rules. The generalization that
apparently needs to be accommodated is that the boundary tones are realized
before the final lexical tone. This is not admitted by the association
conventions in Pierrehumbert and Beckman (1988). However, Optimality Theory
provides a way to achieve this by allowing two competing alignment constraints
to cause infixation of the boundary tones. The analysis represents work in
progress.
_____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 1 December
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Bringing Behavior to the Internet
James Gosling
Sun Microsystems
[jag@sun.com]
HotJava is yet another web browser. A traditional web browser understands
many protocols and data formats. The code to support these is tied together
in one big lump. In contrast, HotJava understands no protocols or data
formats. What it does understand is how to dynamically link code from
elsewhere on the net into its address space in a manner that is safe from
viruses, has good performance, and is architecture-neutral. WebRunner uses
the names of things, like protocols, to derive names for classes that it links
in dynamically. One extension to web browsing that we've added is the ability
to attach code fragments to web pages, enabling interactive content. Pages
can contain games, simulations, live data, and complex forms. This talk will
talk about HotJava and the underlying Java language.
JAMES GOSLING received a BSc in Computer Science from the University of
Calgary, Canada in 1977. He received a PhD in Computer Science from
Carnegie-Mellon University in 1983. The title of his thesis was "The
Manipulation of Algebraic Constraints". He is currently a Distinguished
Engineer at Sun Microsystems. He has built satellite data acquisition
systems, a multiprocessor version of Unix, several compilers, mail systems and
window managers. He has also built a WYSIWYG text editor, a constraint based
drawing editor and a text editor called `Emacs' for Unix systems. At Sun his
early activity was been as lead engineer of the NeWS window system. More
recently he has been the lead engineer for the OAK/Java/HotJava system.
____________
LOGIC COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 1 December
2:00 p.m., Building 380, Room 383-N
Computability and Recursiveness
Robert Soare
University of Chicago Mathematics and Computer Science
[soare@cs.uchicago.edu]
Informally, a function is "computable" if it can be calculated by a finite
mechanical procedure. Formal definitions include: (general) recursive (i.e.,
specified by a Herbrand-Goedel system of equations); and Turing computable
(defined by a Turing machine). In his recent review of Roger Penrose's new
book about "a noncomputational ingredient in our conscious thinking," Hilary
Putnam wrote,
First Penrose provides the reader with a proof of a form of the Goedel
Theorem due to Alan Turing, the father of the modern digital computer
and the creator of the mathematical subject _recursion theory_, which
analyzes what computers can and cannot in principle accomplish.
Few would disagree with Putnam's two assertions about Turing. However, Turing
and Goedel _never_ used the term "recursion theory" or "recursive function
theory" for the subject of "computability". Turing mentioned the term
"recursive function" only once and dismissed it thereafter; Goedel used it
only twice after 1935; but they spoke often of "computable functions" and the
"concept of computability." Most important of all, Turing and Goedel _never_
used the term "recursive" to mean "computable", as it has been used in recent
times. The _traditional meaning of "recursive"_ has always been associated
with: definition by induction, in the sense of Dedekind, Peano, Skolem,
Hilbert, and Goedel; and more recently fixed points and programs which can
call themselves, "reflexive program calls", in the sense of Kleene's Recursion
Theorem, Platek's investigation into higher type recursion, Kleene's schema
(S11) for higher types, and many more.
In a _strictly intensional_ sense of the terms, "recursion theory" is not
about "what computers can and cannot in principle accomplish"; it is about:
definitions by induction, reflexive program calls, and fixed points, and
general recursive functions in the sense of Goedel _1934_, which Goedel
himself did not initially view as being coincident with the computable
functions. However, Putnam was just doing what all the basic texts on the
subject over the last fifty years have done, using "recursion theory" to mean
"computability theory", the correct name for the subject of which recursion is
an important part.
This paper will examine the origin of the concepts of "computability" and
"recursion", their historical development, the status of the Church-Turing
Thesis (that computable functions are Turing computable), and the fundamental
themes of the subject at present. It will place great emphasis on the
_intensional_ use of terms and their precise usage for the sake of scientific
clarity and communication to others (as recommended by Charles Sanders
Peirce).
The ultimate goal is to change not merely the terminology, but to change the
way we think about the most basic concepts and goals of the subject.
____________
PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 1 December
3:15 p.m., Encina Hall, Room 423
Parts and Wholes: Unification and Consilience in
Archeological Explanation
Alison Wylie
CASBS / U Western Ontario Philosophy
[wylie@casbs.stanford.edu]
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 1 December
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
The Development of Discourse Markers: Implications for
a Theory of Grammaticalization
Elizabeth Traugott
Stanford Linguistics
[traugott@csli.stanford.edu]
Adverbs are well known to have different functions depending on their
syntactic and intonational properties, e.g.,
(1) Many people hated it indeed
(2) Indeed, many people hated it
(Ernst 1984:202)
I investigate the historical development in English of indeed and in fact
along an adverbial cline from clause-internal adverbial > sentential adverb >
discourse marker, e.g., (with modernized spellings):
(3) 14th C.: Al that thou hast done, in thought, in speech, and in deed, I
thee forgive (manner adv.)
(4) 16th C.: ... as it were, giving them sovereignty, though in deed the
inferior children have more learning (sentence adv. contrasting
expectations presented in prior clause)
(5) 17th C.: any one that is not well comes far and near in hope
to be made well; indeed I did hear that it had done much good
(DM, elaborating prior claim and confirming it).
I go on to discuss implications of the findings for a theory of
grammaticalization (GR). Nominal and verbal clines have been central to most
work on GR. They are often viewed as models of: i) increased morphosyntactic
bonding, ii) unidirectional attrition, including loss of pragmatics, semantics
("bleaching"), categoriality, and structural autonomy. I argue that although
in some languages the adverbial cline involves increased syntactic freedom,
and therefore violates the principle of bonding, it nevertheless illustrates
other characteristics of GR, specifically decategorialization, generalization,
increase in scope, and subjectification. GR in its early stages is defined as
the development of a lexical item in highly constrained pragmatic and
syntactic contexts into grammatical material.
____________
SSP FILM SERIES
on Tuesday, 5 December
7:00 p.m., Cubberley Hall, Room 128
Inventing the Future (The Machine That Changed
the World, Part 2) (1992)
This is the second of five installments of _The Machine That Changed the
World_, a WGBH-BBC series about the past, present, and future of computing.
Local researchers and Silicon Valley pioneers are featured prominently.
"Inventing the Future" covers the work of the early pioneers in computer
science, the invention of programming languages, and the hardware revolution,
first to transistors, and later to integrated circuits, that made computers
smaller and cheaper and ultimately led to personal computers. Part 1 of the
series was shown last week, and the remaining episodes will be shown in
January.
The Symbolic Systems Film Series showcases videos and films of general
cognitive science interest. Attendance at the films can substitute for
attendance at the Symbolic Systems Forum for students enrolled in SSP 10 for
one unit. All are welcome at these events. The showing of the videos is
followed by a discussion, and researchers who are knowledgeable about the
program's topic are urged to join us in evaluating it.
____________
PHILOSOPHY OF COMPUTATION SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 6 December
3:15 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
Brian Cantwell Smith
Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
We will have an _extra-long session_ this week, devoted to presentations by
seminar participants.
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 7 December
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Barwise-Seligman Discussion Group
Keith Devlin
CSLI / St.Mary's College
[devlin@csli.stanford.edu]
We will continue working through the manuscript of the forthcoming Barwise and
Seligman book on the mathematics of information. Copies of relevant portions
of the text may be obtained from Eric Hammer [ehammer@csli.stanford.edu] at
CSLI. The discussion group is expected to continue into the next quarter.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 7 December
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Better than the Best: The Power of Cooperation
Bernardo A. Huberman
Xerox PARC
[huberman@parc.xerox.com]
It is widely thought that a group of cooperating individuals can solve
problems faster and better than either a single person or the same group of
individuals working in isolation from each other. Such belief underlies the
founding of the firm, the existence of communities of practice, and the
establishing of groups charged with solving hard problems.
I will present a theory of the performance enhancement that results from
cooperation among agents, and its dynamical consequences for the group as a
whole. The theory predicts a universal law of performance and a specific
evolution path for the community of agents as its members learn and
specialize. A number of experimental results support these findings, as well
as providing new insights into the dynamics of cooperation.
BERNARDO A. HUBERMAN is a Research Fellow at the Xerox Palo Alto Research
Center, where he heads a group involved in studying the dynamics of
distributed processes in social organizations and computational systems. He
received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania, and is
concurrently a Consulting Professor of Physics and a member of the faculty of
the Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University. He has worked in
condensed matter physics and the theory of critical phenomena, and is one of
the discoverers of chaos in a number of physical systems. He also established
the existence of a number of universal properties in nonlinear dynamics, and
as part of his research on the evolution of complex systems, he discovered the
phenomenon of ultradiffusion in hierarchical structures. In the field of
computation he predicted the existence of phase transitions in artificial
intelligence, which have been observed in a number of computationally hard
problems. He also started the field of ecology of computation, and is the
editor of a book on the subject.
Recently, Dr. Huberman has been studying the power of cooperation in
collective problem solving by many agents, and the dynamics of collective
action and learning in multiagent organizations. He coauthored an article on
the Dynamics of Social Dilemmas in the March 1994 issue of Scientific
American.
_____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 8 December
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Design for Universal Access
Betsy Bayha
World Institute on Disability
[betsy@wid.org]
_____________