Una revista de la Universidad de Navarra publica una entrevista a James L. McClelland, fundador del conexionismo
A journal of the University of Navarra publishes an interview with James L. McClelland, founder of connectionism.
This current proposes a new description of the mind based on neural networks.
The journal of the University of Navarra yearbook Filosófico presents in its last issue of 2005 an exclusive interview with James L. McClelland, one of the initiators of connectionism. The interview includes his conversation with Belén Pascual, researcher at the area of Neurosciences of the research center Applied Medicine (CIMA) of the University of Navarra, during his stay at the Oxford Summer School.
"James L. McClelland proposes a new description of the structure of the mind based on neural networks, which consist of a multitude of processing units analogous to neurons, interconnected with each other in a distributed and parallel manner". For the researcher, "this way of understanding the mind is much more luminous and fruitful than the classic model that presents the brain as a digital computer that linearly processes symbolic units".
James L. McClelland, together with David E. Rumelhart, published in 1986 a study graduate Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microestructure of Cognition, which today is considered "the bible of connectionism". He is also one of the driving forces behind group PDP (Parallel Distributed Processing), a revolutionary movement in the landscape of cognitive science. The proposals of connectionism have aroused the interest of psychologists and philosophers as well as neuroscientists and engineers, for their theoretical content and for the practical applications that this current opens up in the research on artificial intelligence, psychology and biology.
yearbook Filosófico includes the full translation of the original text of the interview with Dr. Belén Pascual. The interview reflects the identity of the connectionist movement and its relation with the main problems that arise today in the Philosophy of the mind, among them, computational simulation techniques, connectionist models, etc. Along with this interview, programs of study and Notes on philosophical topics are offered, as well as a section of bibliographical reviews.