Representation

I would like to expand on the topic of representation, discussing it in more depth. I would address the questions of whether computers and machines can represent objects in a meaningful way and if so how they might be able to do it. I would also like to compare these methods with how we as human beings represent the world.

(So apparently I never posted this even though I had written it over 2 weeks ago. I was searching through the page looking to see what Peter might have commented, about my idea and maybe give me an idea to narrow it a bit and I realized that it doesn’t exist. I don’t know if I deleted it or just never posted it… All I know is it was still saved to my drafts and I might as well post it now.)

Notebooks!

I regularly relegate the responsibility of remembering all the facts that I learn in school to my notebooks.  These artifacts are made of paper, and when ink is applied to the paper in a particular fashion, the notebooks encode information for my use at a later time.  This allows me to remember a greater number of facts than I could otherwise, and remember them in significantly greater detail.

The notebook is a cognitive artifact because it embodies the process of memory storage in a location outside of my brain.  This function, memory, is most certainly (and usually) internalized.  The addition of the cognitive artifact, however, allows greater precision and provides a memory that is less subject to losing information.  This is a great benifit in the endeavor to learn a large amount of new material over a long period of time, allowing the user of the notebook to recall a degree of information which would be all but impossible without the notebook.  If there is a drawback to using such a cognitive artifact, it is that one who records facts in a notebook may be less inclined to actually internalise those facts.  Such a person is then rendered dependent on actually physically looking at the notebook in order to access the information recorded there.

Midterm Proposal

This post was made in the wrong section last week (but was made on time!):

For my midterm project, I intend to write a paper about intention in physical objects, or systems of physical objects.  This paper will raise the question of what  sorts of things can have intentionality, and following from Searle’s chinese room argument, I expect that my inquiry will lead to the mind-body problem.  I will then discuss the different positions that one might take on this problem, and flesh out the implications of each stance for intentionality in A.I.

Introducing the iCog

The cognitive artifact I’ve chosen to discuss is the one that currently affects my life the most – the touch ipod. In fact, I’ve been changed by it, not because this one object by itself is the key to happiness but because it is a mechanism for maintaining information and having it displayed in a logical fashion upon recall.

Essentially, the itouch has allowed me to remember all of the small ideas and thoughts that always flow in and out of my mind when I’m going about other activities (work, school) which require their own amount of my brain’s processing power. This way the “back burner” is never turned to “LOW” because the mini-computer I hold in my plam to write this very post allows me to systematically maintain complex thoughts and recall them instantly.

I look at this machine as an extension of my memory, and confidence in it subconsciously allows me to maintain many layes of thought automatically. For instance, whenever I’m walking and I get a business idea, I whip out the touch and rapidly fire off commands that are interpreted and edited by the computer. Providing you can type as fast as you can think, there is the possibility of maintaining a select group of thoughts (categories).

Also, the phone has an increasing number of applications (such as weather widget, as discussed in a previous post), and a calendar, which reminds me to go to class. It provides cues for the user and is able to adapt and supprt the lifestyle of anyone, provided they can learn how to provide input through the small keyboard!

The Diary

Since last summer I have been writing in a diary almost every day.  The diary is a piece of me.  It has memories and thoughts that even I wouldn’t now think about.  If someone were to pick it up (which they wouldn’t be able to, since it is set to explode with another person’s touch), they would have a piece of me in their hand.

Of all the entries I have written, I almost never actually read them again.  I intend to use the information later, when I have changed, physically and mentally.  The diary is almost its own entity, another person’s ideas and experiences which I can imagine very well.  I can’t know though everything that the diary represents, even though its my own stories.  The state of mind and my emotions as I was writing, are not always clear, even to me.

Lately I have been lazy and have not been writing in it.  It might be because it feels like a chore.  Whenever I write down something that happened, I usually am reliving it as I write it, and right now school is not that exciting, so I have to live a boring day twice.  This artifact though is definitely a powerful one that I want to have later in my life.  It is a guide for success as well a reminder of mistakes.

The sound recorder as a cognitive artifact.

The sound recorder is a powerful cognitive artifact today, used in hundreds of applications for varying reasons. It is powerful for many reasons, mainly that it replaces several cognitive faculties including memory, listening, absorbing, and recording information. Unlike the phone in which one must still respond and understand the voice coming from the other side, and which only remembers phone numbers and other small pieces of information a sound recorder can cover a whole semester’s worth of information when paired with a computer. It replaces the memory simply because whatever you were supposed to remember from a lecture meetings or any other form of listening event you can later have repeated back to you as many times as you like. Because often paper and pens aren’t available at certain kinds of meetings it goes further than that because of its small size, discrete method and its less likelihood to be a distraction. It replaces the need to listen clearly during any form of meeting because whatever information you were meant to retain has now been stored on this device can be listened to multiple times until either the information is absorbed or re-recorded in another form. If just used to absorb information by listening to it in repetition then it has effectively removed recording information and the primary way of absorbing knowledge by recording and studying it. In the past before the sound recorder lectures and meetings were a very different style format. All information had to be instantly heard recorded and then later absorbed through rigorous study. If any information was missed in the meeting or class the only way to get it again was either to ask the teacher or to cooperate with another student or employee. This meant more time consumed from your what you have to complete your task and often too much information. With a sound recorder it is easy to fast forward, ignore or all together skip information you will not need in the future. The video recorder is an even more powerful tool to accomplish these goals but is not as versatile nor as available for use because of size and legal restrictions. It would be very awkward for someone to walk into a lecture and sit in the back of class listening to the lecture with a video camera on his shoulder. In recent times especially on news media the sound and video recorder has been abused to misinform and misrepresent information. If one were to attend the press conferences, the events, and the other things reported on by the news they would know the truth but because we rely on what we hear from them we can only believe what they show until given a reason not to. In a recent interview with a professional wrestler John Cena posted on several video sites including youtube and ebaumsworld, the media skewered what Mr. Cena actually said by cutting out keys parts of the interview. From what the media presented as the whole interview it seemed that Mr. Cena was admitting to using steroids and angered by the question, but when the full video is played following the released video you see that he in fact said that he had never once used steroids and he thought that steroids were destroying all kinds of sports. This counter point shows that not all cognitive artifacts are always useful to us and can lead to many problems.

Dream Journal

A cognitive artifact that I frequently used in high school (not as much in college) is a dream journal. Most people I talk to say they rarely remember their dreams, and if they do remember them it is typically only right after they wake up and then they tend to gradually forget them throughout the day. By waking up and writing down my dreams immediately after they happen it has actually improved the overall memory I have of my dreams. Even if I don’t write a dream down I tend to remember them very vividly and I notice the frequency in dreams that I have has increased (people dream every night, but I’m referencing the frequency in which I remember them here). I had more vivid dreams and remembered them more often in high school when I used the dream journal more often, now they have declined a bit but it is still a cognitive artifact I have used. In addition to improving the memory I have of my dreams, I it is a good example of a cognitive artifact also in the way that it increased my perception in my dreams in a way. I have been able to have lucid dreams where I could change the dream without waking up. The advantages of using it is simply having more intense dreams and overall a better memory of them (although I believe it helped my memory of everything throughout my day overall), while the only disadvantage I could think of is remembering particularly bad dreams very well.

Spellchecker how did I ever compose without thee…

So this idea came to me almost immediately during class last Thursday. I just told myself “Self, what is the one thing that helped you pass English class?” The answer was obviously a thesaurus, but the 2nd most important thing is spellchecker.

Already in this post spellchecker (thank you Firefox) has reminded me to go back and fix three words (including thesaurus) and I remember back to all the Cs I got in grade school spelling. Thirty years ago, no one could have predicted that we would have machines telling us that ‘usually’ has two l’s. Sure we had calculators to tell us that 2 + 2 = 4, but how could a machine tell us that frumper is not an actual word?

The program is not perfect of course, I mean it completely disregards the fact that “I hung up my cat” was suppose to read “I hung up my hat” (or ironically it misses “I hunt up my hat, damn block hands makes typing hard) yet is very quick to point out that what I meant to write was “completely” not “comepletely” (damn grade school spelling).

As for internalizing the process it is very easy to get lazy and rely on spellchecker to fix all of your typos and remind you that, unlike despise and surprise, apologize is spelled with a Z. However, you only have to be reminded that there the 2nd vowel in element is an E and not an A before it becomes an automatic process.

I salute you, spellchecker, in your ability to know all of the words in the English language and actually tell me what I meant when I sign my name “Matthew Carino” at the top of my English papers what I really meant to write was “Matthew Carrion”.

Eye have a spelling chequer,
It came with my Pea Sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss Steaks I can knot sea.

Eye strike the quays and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am write oar wrong
It tells me straight a weigh.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your shore real glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh.
m My chequer tolled me sew.

A chequer is a bless thing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right all stiles of righting,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The chequer pours o’er every word
Two cheque sum spelling rule.

Digital Media

Digital media such as Compact Disks (CD) and Digital Video Disks (DVD) are significant cognitive artifacts. CD’s and DVD’s allow for long term storage of large quantities of data. They allow computer users to expand there data storage far beyond the limitations of their built in hard drives; effectively increasing the functionality of the computer. Additionally, their low cost makes them an economically viable option for most users. The increase in computer functionality and availability of vast storage space changes how people use their computers. They are able to store scores of personal documents on a single DVD and can share large sums of data with colleges and friends. Data can take the form of anything, from music to photos and can all be duplicated exactly. The ability for digital media to be perfectly duplicated increases its function beyond its singular self. Not only does a DVD allow for the storage 4.3 GB, but it implies a deterioration of “original” content. Every copy of a file in digital format is exactly the same as the previous. Therefore one copy of data represents infinite copies of that data. (ARRR!!)

CD’s and DVD’s effectively decreases the cost of containing and dispersing data. As data dispersal becomes cheaper we have access to more of it more easily. Increases in available data make it possible for us to supplement our cognitive faculties by having static information located externally so that we can apply our cognition to other tasks.

Pen and Paper

I personally like to write a lot. Specifically over the last year I’ve been writing up ideas for short stories, sketches and stand-up material. Whenever an idea pops into my head throughout the course of the day, I need to write it down or else I will surely forget it. As a result, I have a notebook that I dedicate specifically to writing down ideas. When I don’t have any ideas, I take to my notebook and write down a very detailed account of my day as sort of brainstorming activity. I am always amazed at how much I am able to recall and with how much detail I can recall the days events. It seems as though the ability for me to write things down and see it on paper allows for my mind to remember things as they happen with more detail. I find that putting the pen to paper and seeing what I am thinking stirs my memory, working it harder. Again, as my mind remembers things I then find ideas within those events and my detailed memory helps me to create ideas.

As shown, my “idea notebook” specifically helps my memory, creative thinking, and my personal understanding of everyday things and how those things relate to me. I often think of this notebook as an extension of my own mind. I think of it as the creative part of my mind that I don’t always know is there. I do not think I would be able to recall the detailed things that happen to me in a day two months later unless I had a detailed account written down. As time goes on, the details will certainly fade. As a result, this notebook can be very important since the most interesting aspects of a story are often in the details. If I did not have this notebook and never wrote down my ideas, I would have far fewer ideas to work from at any given moment in time and it would significantly limit my creative process. So, this notebook has become more than just a useful tool and seems to become a sort of physical expansion of my mind’s capacity for creativity.