ABSTRACT

Connectionism has made an important contribution to the intriguing challenge of finding a physical basis for mind. Connectionism is based on both the alleged operation of the nervous system and on distributed computation. Connectionism offered an approach that was based on learning, made little use of symbols, and was related to the way in which the brain worked. Connectionism provides an account of the way in which a rule can be inferred without the need for conscious inference, or externally imposed rules or heuristics. “Implementational connectionism,” by contrast, seeks to reconcile connectionism and symbol manipulation and to use connectionism to understand how symbol manipulation could be implemented in the brain. Connectionism can provide an account of how the symbols were learned, and symbol processing systems can be used to reason with them. Connectionism has paid little attention to the role of the body and its dynamic interaction with the environment.