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CSLI Calendar, 01 Feb 1996, vol.11:14
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To: friends@Arch.Stanford.EDU
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Subject: CSLI Calendar, 01 Feb 1996, vol.11:14
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From: Tom Burke <burke@Csli.Stanford.EDU>
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Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 13:32:16 -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
______________________________________________________________________________
1 February 1996 Stanford Vol. 11, No. 14
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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 1 -- 9 FEBRUARY 1996
THURSDAY, 1 FEBRUARY
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Universal Instantiation: A Study of the Role of
Context in Logic
Christopher Gauker, Cincinnati Philosophy & CSLI
Abstract below
12:00 - CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Disintegrated Experience: Dissociation, Hypnosis, and Trauma
David Spiegel, Stanford Psychiatry
Abstract below
4:30 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Practical Solutions to Game Theoretic Problems
Daphne Koller, Stanford Comuter Science
Abstract below
7:30 - Stanford Phonology Workshop
Building 460, Room 146
The Role of Qualitative and Quantitative Constraints in
Phonetic Implementation
Abigail Cohn, Cornell Linguistics
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 2 FEBRUARY
12:00 - Logic Lunch
Building 380, Room 383-Z
Explicit Mathematics with a Fixed Point Operator
Michael Rathjen, Univ. of Muenster
Abstract below
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium
A Digital Library Interface
Steve Cousins, Rebecca Lasher, and Andreas Paepcke
Abstract below
3:15 - Philosophy Department Colloquium
Encina Hall, Room 423
Minds and Machines: How Reasons Explain Behavior
Fred Dretske, Stanford Philosophy
3:30 - Linguistics Department Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
Consonant Phonation / Vowel Height Interactions in Madurese
Abigail Cohn, Cornell Linguistics
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 6 FEBRUARY
7:00 - SSP Film Series
Cubberley Education Building, Room 133
The Child of the Future - How Will He Learn? [interview
with Marshall McLuhan] (1964)
7:15 - Philosophy of Computation Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Readings in Computation: The Origin of Objects
Brian Cantwell Smith, Xerox PARC
WEDNESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY
3:15 - Semantics Workshop
Cordura Hall, Room 104
What is a Context of Utterance?
Christopher Gauker, University of Cincinnati & CSLI
Abstract below
4:15 - Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation
Place to be announced
Bias Plus Variance Decomposition for Zero-One Loss Functions
Ron Kohavi, Silicon Graphics
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 8 FEBRUARY
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Grammar of the Attitudes
B. Hartley Slater, U Western Australia & CSLI
Abstract below
12:00 - CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Scientific Study of Consciousness: Problems and Prospects
Pat Suppes, Stanford Philosophy
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Title and speaker to be announced
FRIDAY, 9 FEBRUARY
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium
Information Technologies and Post-Communist Convulsions:
The Croatian Experience
Enver Sehovic, University of Zagreb, Croatia
3:15 - Philosophy Department Colloquium
Encina Hall, Room 423
On the Nature of Phenomenal Consciousness
Guven Guzeldere, Stanford Philosophy & CSLI
Abstract below
3:30 - Linguistics Department Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
Re-Examining the Birth and Significance of the
Plantation Creole
John McWhorter, UC Berkeley
Abstract below
____________
The CSLI Calendar appears on Wednesdays weekly 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.
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 1 February
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Universal Instantiation: A Study of the Role of Context in Logic
Christopher Gauker
University of Cincinnati Philosophy & CSLI
[gauker@csli.stanford.edu]
The truth of a quantified sentence depends on a contextually determined domain
of discourse. So if I say, "Everyone has seen an airplane," then what I say
may be true given the context. It may be true even though "Socrates has seen
an airplane" is not true. Seemingly, therefore, the sentence "Everyone has
seen an airplane" does not logically imply "Socrates has seen an airplane."
But the systems we teach to undergraduates say just the opposite. These
always include a rule of universal instantiation, according to which, for
every constant c in the language, "For all x, Fx" implies "Fc". So there
seems to be something wrong with the rule of universal instantiation. The
rule of existential generalization, on the other hand, does not seem to have
the same problem. This paper is a survey of ways of responding to this
problem, including attempts to defend universal instantiation and forms of
semantics that invalidate universal instantiation. A radical conclusion is
drawn, namely, that logical validity should be defined in terms of
"assertibility in a context" rather than in terms of truth on an
interpretation. Context is here understood as something objective rather than
as something definable in terms of the attitudes of interlocutors.
Assertibility has to do with cooperation rather than truth or justification.
This paper is part of a larger project aimed at constructing a framework for
pragmatics without commitment to the idea that linguistic communication is a
matter of speakers conveying their thoughts to hearers.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 1 February
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
Disintegrated Experience: Dissociation, Hypnosis, and Trauma
David Spiegel
Stanford Psychiatry
[dspiegel@leland.stanford.edu]
I would like to discuss the plausibility, evidence for and against, and a
possible understanding of dissociation as a "normal" part of mental
processing, a common response to trauma, and a vehicle for more serious
psychopathology. I would like to link dissociation to connectionist and PDP
theories of mental processing, hypnotic phenomena, and research on responses
to trauma.
COGLUNCH WINTER SCHEDULE
Theme: Consciousness
1/18: JOHN FLAVELL (Psychology, Stanford U.) "The Development of Children's
Knowledge About Thinking and Consciousness"
1/25: GUVEN GUZELDERE (Philosophy & CSLI, Stanford U.) "The Nature of
Phenomenal Consciousness"
2/01: DAVID SPIEGEL (Psychiatry, Stanford U.) "Disintegrated Experience:
Dissociation, Hypnosis and Trauma"
2/08: PAT SUPPES (Philosophy, Stanford U.) "The Scientific Study of
Consciousness: Problems and Prospects"
2/15: BRIAN WANDELL (Psychology, Stanford U.) "Imaging Human Brain Activity"
2/22: WALTER FREEMAN (Neurobiology, UC Berkeley) "A Biological View of
Consciousness and Intentionality"
2/29: DAVID CHALMERS (Philosophy, UC Santa Cruz) "On the Search for a Neural
Correlate of Consciousness"
3/07: ALAN WALLACE (Religious Studies, Stanford U.) "Attentional Training,
Introspection, and the Investigation of Consciousness in Tibetan
Buddhism"
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 1 February
4:30 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Practical Solutions to Game Theoretic Problems
Daphne Koller
Stanford Computer Science
[koller@cs.stanford.edu]
Many situations where a number of agents interact strategically can be
naturally described as multi-player games. These include real-world problems
such as bidding on oilfield drilling rights, as well as many important
problems in computer science such as load sharing in a distributed system or
coordinating the goals and actions of multiple agents on a factory floor. The
representation as a game allows one to reason formally about the situation
using established techniques from the discipline of game theory. In
particular, the game-theoretic notion of a solution to a game often helps in
designing mechanisms for dealing with the original situation. But while the
formal notion of "solution" is well-established, standard techniques for
solving games are computationally impractical for most realistic games.
In this talk, I describe a new framework for specifying and solving games. In
particular, I will present a new paradigm for solving games of incomplete
information, where randomized strategies are typically needed in order to play
the game optimally. I demonstrate algorithms for solving such games that are
exponentially faster than the standard ones, and present experimental results
showing that these algorithms are faster in practice, as well as in theory.
These algorithms allow the solution of games that are orders of magnitude
larger than are currently possible. I then describe the Gala system, which
allows very large games to be easily specified and solved. The system allows
a concise and simple specification of games using a declarative knowledge-
representation language designed particularly for games. These results, and
their implementation within the Gala system, make game theory a practical tool
for analyzing strategic interaction.
Parts of this research are joint work with Nimrod Megiddo, Avi Pfeffer, and
Bernhard von Stengel.
DAPHNE KOLLER completed her Ph.D. at Stanford University in December 1993
under the supervision of Professor Joseph Halpern. She then spent two years
as a postdoctoral researcher at U.C. Berkeley, working with Professor Stuart
Russell. In September 1995 she returned to Stanford as an Assistant Professor
in the Computer Science Department. She has a broad range of interests
spanning both artificial intelligence and theoretical computer science. The
theme underlying most of her work is the idea of using principled techniques
>From decision theory and game theory in computer science. Her current projects
include: reasoning under uncertainty using logic and probability, learning and
inference in belief networks, and practical algorithms for game-theoretic
reasoning.
____________
STANFORD PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP
on Thursday, 1 February
7:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
The Role of Qualitative and Quantitative Constraints
in Phonetic Implementation
Abigail Cohn
Cornell Linguistics
[acc4@cornell.edu]
Optimality Theory has led to a major rethinking of the nature of phonological
representations. Since phonetic implementation (that is, the mapping between
phonology and phonetics) depends on the nature of the phonological structures
available for implementation, it seems appropriate at this juncture to
consider the consequences of Optimality Theory for phonetic implementation and
the phonology-phonetics interface more generally. I start by examining the
relationship between phonology and phonetics and then turn to a specific case,
nasalization in Sundanese, where I argue that both qualitative and
quantitative constraints play a role in the realization of the observed
patterns.
____________
LOGIC LUNCH
on Friday, 2 February
12:00 noon, Encina Hall, Room 423
Explicit Mathematics with a Fixed Point Operator
Michael Rathjen
University of Muenster
[rathjen@math.stanford.edu]
The framework of Feferman's theory of explicit mathematics, $T_0$, is
particularly suited to consider general constructive operations on sets and
their inductively defined fixed points. The talk will be concerned with
extensions of $T_0$ via axioms asserting that any monotone operation on
classifications has a least fixed point. The proof-theoretic strength of
several such extensions has been determined during the last two years.
However, the calibration of the exact proof-theoretic strength of systems of
explicit mathematics with a fixed point operator is a recent achievement.
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 2 February
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
A Digital Library Interface
Steve Cousins, Rebecca Lasher, and Andreas Paepcke,
Stanford Computer Science, and Computer Science Library
[paepcke@db.stanford.edu]
Stanford's digital libraries project has tackled the problem of provding a
uniform, comprehensible interface to the diverse, distributed world of
collections and services that can be reached through the Internet (including,
but not limited to the World Wide Web). As part of this week's celebration of
the dedication of our new Computer Science building, we have prepared a
demonstration of the current state of the interfaceb and of the underlying
technologies for interoperability. This talk will include both a demonstration
of the interface and some details of the object-oriented architecture and
protocols that make it possible to integrate diverse services in a single
client. We will also describe the status of the NCSTRL project for a national
on-line computer science technical report library, which was the predecessor
of our current work and is continuing to develop new technologies, such as an
approach to global document naming.
STEVE COUSINS is a Ph.D. student with Terry Winograd, working on novel user
interfaces for digital libraries. Before coming to Stanford, he was a research
associate in the medical informatics laborarory at Washington University in
St. Louis. He holds a B.S. and an M.S. in computer science from Washington
University.
REBECCA LASHER is Head Librarian and Bibliographer, Mathematical and Computer
Sciences Library, Stanford University. She is one of two librarians working on
the NSF/ARPA/NASA funded Stanford Digital Library Project and also a member of
the ARPA funded Networked Computer Science Technical Reports Library (NCSTRL)
working group. Rebecca has worked in her present position for nine years,
previously she was at the University of Texas at Austin.
ANDREAS PAEPCKE is a senior research scientist at Stanford University. His
current research interests include object-oriented programming, open
implementations and metaobject protocols applied to problems of information
access. While at Hewlett-Packard laboratories, he designed and implemented one
of the early persistent object systems and an object view over a large
collection of text databases. At Xerox PARC he participated in the development
of a tutorial on open implementations. At Stanford he is manager and
researcher with the Digital Library project. In 1978 he received a BA and MS
>From Harvard University. In 1982 he received a Ph.D. in computer science from
the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.
____________
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 2 February
3:15 p.m., Encina Hall, Room 423
Minds and Machines: How Reasons Explain Behavior
Fred Dretske
Stanford Philosophy
[dretske@csli.stanford.edu]
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 2 February
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
Consonant Phonation / Vowel Height Interactions in Madurese
Abigail Cohn
Cornell Linguistics
[acc4@cornell.edu]
Madurese, an Austronesian language of Indonesia, shows a systematic
interaction of consonants and vowels, whereby the voicing or aspiration of a
preceding stop conditions the height of the following vowel. In this talk, I
investigate both the phonological and phonetic properties of the consonants
and vowels in Madurese in order to better understand this unusual pattern of
consonant phonation - vowel quality interaction. Two possible phonological
interpretations are presented, based on the phonological evidence and acoustic
evidence (vowel quality, duration, and pitch) which suggests a "register"
system, similar to phenomena seen in the Mon Khmer languages.
____________
SSP FILM SERIES
on Tuesday, 6 February
7:00 p.m., Cubberley Education Bldg, Room 133
The Child of the Future -- How Will He Learn?
[interview with Marshall McLuhan] (1964)
This 58 minute, 1964 reel-to-reel film produced by the National Film Board of
Canada features an interview with the late Dr. Marshall McLuhan from the
Unversity of Toronto, as he comments on educational technology. The film
pictures a variety of audio-visual devices as Dr. McLuhan comments upon their
role in the education of the "child of the future" as seen from 32 years ago.
It pictures language laboratories, television, 8mm film devices, and various
types of automated devices.
The Symbolic Systems Film Series showcases films and tapes of general
cognitive science interest. Attendance at film series events 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 Tuesday, 6 February
7:15 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Readings in Computation: The Origin of Objects
Brian Cantwell Smith
Xerox PARC and Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
____________
SEMANTICS SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 7 February
3:15 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 104
What is a Context of Utterance?
Christopher Gauker
University of Cincinnati Philosophy & CSLI
[gauker@csli.stanford.edu]
For many purposes in pragmatics one needs to appeal to a context of utterance
conceived as a set of sentences or propositions. Often it is supposed (e.g.,
by Stalnaker, Karttunen, H. Clark and Soames) that a context of utterance is
the set of assumptions that the speaker supposes he or she shares with the
hearer. In this paper I will argue that this conception of context is
mistaken. Not all shared assumptions are relevant; this account cannot
accommodate "informative presuppositions;" and this account ignores the
"presupposition coordination problem." The alternative is to define a context
as a set of sentences that is "objective" in the sense that both speaker and
hearer may be mistaken about its content. Objective contexts may be
identified as sets of sentences the grasping of which would facilitate
cooperation between interlocutors. This paper is part of a larger project
that aims at the development of a thoroughly non-Gricean approach to
pragmatics.
____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTATION
on Wednesday, 7 February
4:15 p.m., Place to be announced
Bias Plus Variance Decomposition for Zero-One Loss Functions
Ron Kohavi
Silicon Graphics
[ronnyk@sgi.com]
The bias-variance decomposition of quadratic error has been an extremely
valuable statistical tool for understanding the behavior of learning
algorithms when the error is measured under a quadratic loss function. Until
recently, no similar decomposition was offered for zero-one loss
(misclassification rate), which is the loss function most commonly used in
practice. We present such a bias-variance decomposition for expected
misclassification rate and show examples of the decomposition for some
learning algorithms and for various datasets from the UCI repository. We also
show that, in practice, the naive frequency-based estimation of the
decomposition terms is itself biased, and we show how to correct for this
bias.
This talk describes work done jointly with David Wolpert. It assumes no prior
knowledge about the bias-variance tradeoff.
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 8 February
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Grammar of the Attitudes
B. Hartley Slater
Univ Western Australia & CSLI
[slater@csli.stanford.edu]
In his recent essay "A Perspectivalist Semantics for the Attitudes" (1995)
Walter Edelberg aims to explain certain linguistic phenomena. I shall show in
this talk that there is a much better explanation of them. The advantage of
the present account of the attitudes is not just that it reduces the
metaphysics in Edelberg's and other accounts, returning us to a natural
conception of grammar. There are also major theoretical difficulties with
those other accounts, in trying to talk about, and yet, contradictorily, kerep
private, the objects on people's minds, which the present account has no
trouble with at all.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 8 February
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Scientific Study of Consciousness: Problems and Prospects
Pat Suppes
Stanford Philosophy
[suppes@csli.stanford.edu]
Reflecting the title, the talk is divided into three main parts: Various
senses of consciousness; what are the objects of consciousness; the dramatic
contrast between consciousness of processes (hitting a tennis ball, finding a
proof) and the results of such processes. Perhaps the most important
conceptual aspect of consciousness is that we are much more aware of
perceptual and cognitive aspects of results than processes. Skepticism about
deterministic theories of mental computations and intentions will be expressed
along the way.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 8 February
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Title and speaker to be announced
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 9 February
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Information Technologies and Post-Communist Convulsions:
The Croatian Experience
Enver Sehovic
University of Zagreb, Croatia
[sehovic@tel.fer.hr]
____________
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 9 February
3:15 p.m., Encina Hall, Room 423
On the Nature of Phenomenal Consciousness
Guven Guzeldere
Stanford Philosophy & CSLI
[guven@csli.stanford.edu]
What is the nature of the qualitative character of experiences -- e.g., what
it's like to see red or taste something sour, or the hurtfulness of pains?
Such qualities are generally taken to be intrinsic, atomic, and
non-relational. I will argue for an alternative construal, and try to
substantiate the thesis that the phenomenal character of experiences lie in
their causal and representational relations to other experiences and
propositional attitudes, as well as to states of the body (in which they
occur). In this light, I will also reexamine the plausibility of old puzzles
like Absent Qualia.
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 9 February
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
Re-Examining the Birth and Significance of the Plantation Creole
John McWhorter
UC Berkeley Linguistics
[jhm5@uclink4.berkeley.edu]
Creole studies is a contentious field, but there is a common consensus that
plantation creoles resulted from second-language acquisition amidst uniquely
deprived input, the idea being that the disproportion of learners to speakers
on the typical colonial plantation acted as a "filter" upon European
languages. In this talk I will suggest that the presumed causal link between
plantation demographics and the appearance of plantation creoles is mistaken.
A wealth of evidence converges upon placing the emergence of these creoles as
trade/work pidgins in West African trade settlements, established by Europeans
and staffed by Africans during the slave trade. Furthermore, upon examination
the conception of plantations as language filters is less sociolinguistically
tenable than traditionally thought. The thesis is motivated in part by an
anomaly hitherto neglected in creole studies, the fact that creoles repeatedly
failed to emerge in plantation colonies run by Spain. I will present a
revised account of the birth of these languages which explains this anomaly
and others, the goal being a genesis theory which can both tackle the range of
data unearthed since the late 1960s while also retaining refutability.
____________