Paul Miers
Department of English
Towson State University
e7e4mie@toe.towson.edu

 

RE: Kip Canfield’s essay, “ The Microstructure of Logocentricism: Sign Models in Derrida and Smolensky,” in PMC v.3 n.3. A reply by Paul Miers, Department of English, Towson State University.

 

Connectionism and Its Consequences

 

Kip Canfield’s article in the last issue of Postmodern Culture is one of the first pieces of critical theory to discuss the implications of the revolutionary paradigm shift now taking place in the cognitive sciences. The movement inspiring that shift, generally called connectionism, offers a powerful and still controversial alternative to the standard model of mental representation which has more or less dominated western philosophy at least since the Enlightenment (Bechtel). As Canfield notes in his comparison of Paul Smolensky, one of the leading connectionists, with Jacques Derrida, the connectionist critique parallels in many ways the deconstruction of traditional semiotics and structuralism. But, as Canfield also notes, connectionist theory does more than deconstruct the old paradigm: it also purports to offer an alternative account of representation, a genuine Copernican revolution which changes our view of mental life from a symbol centered token/type model to a network based vector/matrix account (Churchland).

 

Since Canfield focuses almost exclusively on Smolensky and Derrida, however, readers of his essay not already familiar with the paradigm wars in cognitive science may not see just how profound the connectionist revolution could be. For that reason, I want to offer here a brief note on the consequences of connectionism which follows up on a point I have made elsewhere regarding the implications of connectionism for critical theory (Miers).

 

The attraction of connectionism for cognitive science is its potential for providing a “natural” theory of information processing in the brain. All the evidence indicates that the brain itself is organized as a massively distributed parallel processor (Edelman); what the great debate is about is how to reconcile the neural evidence with the standard, classical theory of mental representation. Classical theory claims that mental representations are the product of arbitrary atomic symbols (i.e., signs rather than symbols in the Coleridgean sense) operated on by formal syntactic rules. Connectionist theory, on the other hand, focuses on the fact that neural networks have no one- to-one mappings, and that they respond to input vectors not by invoking rules, but by dynamic transformations of the network (Churchland). The real issue then is not a simplistic opposition between atomic and distributed elements or between arbitrary and motivated symbols; it is, rather, the problem of explaining how the brain produces the apparent formalism of symbolic representation from the non- classical structure of neural networks.

 

In broad terms, there are two explanations for this puzzle, the first of which I call weak connectionism or neo- symbolism and the other I term strong or pan-connectionism (Miers; see also Bechtel). In the weak version, the logic of neural networks serves simply to implement some version of the traditional token/type symbol processing which the classical cognitivists like Fodor see as essential for mental representation (Fodor, “Connectionism and Cognitive Architecture”). In the weak case, the classical cognitivists can, with some modifications, “save the appearance” of the symbolic paradigm. Even though connectionist processes may infiltrate and shape whole aspects of mental life, there remains a unique domain of rational or propositional thought governed by the formalisms of symbolic structures. As Fodor has consistently argued for years, not all of the messy flux of what passes through our heads needs be structured like a formal language, and Fodor is quite willing to concede much of mental life to Freudian and even Skinnerian accounts (The Language of Thought 200).

 

Strong connectionism, on the other hand, is much more radical and leads to a rather uncanny picture of the apparent symbol processing capabilities of the mind. Strong connectionism claims that symbolic representation is, in fact, a rather shallow illusion which is being approximated or mimed by a wholly connectionist strategy that evolved in the brains of mammals long before the appearance of humans. In this account, our sense that there are atomic tokens is being created by a series of vector/matrix interactions, and our notion that tokens belong to some double system of message and code or object language/meta-language is a belated allegory. There are only vectors operating within matrices, and the language of thought is in reality the algebra for convolving vectors and matrices (Churchland). Our received notions of deep structure, symbolic orders, even the Unconscious, are therefore historical constructs, reinforced by external contingencies and controls. The language of thought is not structured like a language; indeed language cannot be structured like a language since language itself is fabricated by a non-classical strategy for representation.

 

I have argued in favor of strong connectionism (Miers), but which, if any, of these two versions turns out to be the case is still an open question. The symbolists argue that connectionist models fail to meet the formal requirement for symbolic representation (requirements, it should be noted, which must be taken seriously) (Fodor “Connectionism”), while the connectionists point to increasingly sophisticated programs which have begun to meet (or more accurately approximate) these requirements (Bechtel). The point I want to make here, however, is that both the strong and the weak version of connectionism have significant consequences for a certain kind of ironic postmodernism most often identified with Lyotard and Baudrillard. It might appear at first glance that this postmodernism would be vindicated by the triumph of strong connectionism since strong connectionism undercuts classical representation. My claim is that ironic postmodernism loses either way, because it is wedded to a particular account of representation still tied to the symbol-centered token/type account–albeit a deconstructed, paradoxical version–of the classical system. In short, ironic postmodern can only think itself within the paradigm of the sign and is highly dependent on that paradigm remaining in place as a failed system.

 

If weak connectionism proves to be the proper model for representation, then what we will see is a return to classical theory and a demonstration that at least in some realm it is possible to defend the classical account of reason, indeed that the classical account of reason is rooted in natural evolution. In this case, the postmodern ironists will have bet on the wrong reading of the symbolic order, and their arcane jargon will rapidly look as out of date as the discourse of Ptolemaic astronomy. But if strong connectionism proves true, that is, if representation is driven by the logic of vector/matrix interactions, then ironic postmodernism also fails because of its dependency on the deconstructed sign. The triumph of strong connectionism would support the claim that ironic postmodernism is simply a very late, very belated and desperate version of modernism (Cascardi). The true end of modernism then would come not with the deconstruction of the classical system, a deconstruction which leaves in place and cultivates the ruins of the system. Modernism would end, rather, when the recipe for making the illusion of signs is finally revealed.

 

What is most radical about strong connectionism is its claim that such a recipe exists and that it can be formulated. This recipe for thought is going to include both sensory and propositional modes in a single model of figural forms. Ironic postmodernism tells us that we live in an economy of undecipherable hieroglyphs, condemned to know but unable to change their fictive, arbitrary status. Strong connectionism suggest that we might be able to refigure this notion and see ourselves as living in the first post-symbolic culture, a culture where we know how to make and unmake signs, a culture where it is possible to limit and resist the sublime allure of unlimited semiosis, a culture which knows itself to be a natural and necessary illusion.

 

Works Cited

 

• Bechtel, William and Abrahamsen, Adele. Connectionism and the Mind: An Introduction to Parallel Processing in Networks. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
• Canfield, Kip. “The Microstructure of Logocentricism: Sign Models in Derrida and Smolensky.” Postmodern Culture May (1993).
• Cascardi, Anthony J. The Subject of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992.
• Churchland, Patricia S. and Sejnowski, Terrence. The Computational Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.
• Edelman, Gerald. Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. New York: Basic Books, 1987.
• Fodor, Jerry. The Language of Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1975.
• —, and Pylyshlyn, Zenon. “Connectionism and Cognitive Architecture.” Cognition 28 (1988): 3-71.
• Miers, Paul. “The Other Side of Representation: Critical Theory and the New Cognitivism.” MLN 107 (1992): 950-975.