Connections and Symbols provides the first systematic analysis of the explosive new field of Connectionism that is challenging the basic tenets of cognitive science. Does intelligence result from the manipulation of structured symbolic expressions? Or is it the result of the activation of large networks of densely interconnected simple units? Connections and Symbols provides the first systematic analysis of the explosive new field of Connectionism that is challenging the basic tenets of cognitive science. These lively discussions by Jerry A. Fodor, Zenon W. Pylyshyn, Steven Pinker, Alan Prince, Joel Lechter, and Thomas G. Bever raise issues that lie at the core of our understanding of how the mind works: Does connectionism offer it truly new scientific model or does it merely cloak the old notion of associationism as a central doctrine of learning and mental functioning? Which of the new empirical generalizations are sound and which are false? And which of the many ideas such as massively parallel processing, distributed representation, constraint satisfaction, and subsymbolic or microfeatural analyses belong together, and which are logically independent? Now that connectionism has arrived with full-blown models of psychological processes as diverse as Pavlovian conditioning, visual recognition, and language acquisition, the debate is on. Common themes emerge from all the contributors to Connections and Symbols: criticism of connectionist models applied to language or the parts of cognition employing language like operations; and a focus on what it is about human cognition that supports the traditional physical symbol system hypothesis. While criticizing many aspects of connectionist models, the authors also identify aspects of cognition that could he explained by the connectionist models. Connections and Symbols is included in the Cognition Special Issue series, edited by Jacques Mehler.

CONNECTIONS is an excellent tool for understanding the Bible's hidden symbolism. It is filled with insights from Hebrew and Greek words, and ancient Jewish and Middle-Eastern culture and customs. This is an extensive work; nearly 200,000 words, with 23 chapters, packed with valuable information for teaching, preaching, or personal research. This will expand the reader's understanding of the God's amazing orchestration hidden in the Bible, as it reveals the deep truths hidden in the events, names, places, numbers, parables, and even the languages the Bible was written in.

#1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER • An intelligent, lightning-paced thriller set within the hidden chambers, tunnels, and temples of Washington, D.C., with surprises at every turn. “Impossible to put down.... Another mind-blowing Robert Langdon story.” —The New York Times Famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon answers an unexpected summons to appear at the U.S. Capitol Building. His plans are interrupted when a disturbing object—artfully encoded with five symbols—is discovered in the building. Langdon recognizes in the find an ancient invitation into a lost world of esoteric, potentially dangerous wisdom. When his mentor Peter Solomon—a long-standing Mason and beloved philanthropist—is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that the only way to save Solomon is to accept the mystical invitation and plunge headlong into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and one inconceivable truth ... all under the watchful eye of Dan Brown's most terrifying villain to date.

A strong feeling, a remarkable coincidence, a strange dream . . . What may seem ordinary could actually be an important message from a deceased loved one, spirit guide, or your higher self. Open to a wealth of guidance and opportunities by learning how to recognize and interpret the signs and synchronicities all around us. Expand your awareness of the symbols in your life, strengthen your intuition, overcome challenges, and manifest your desires. This experiential guide includes: A dictionary of more than 500 traditional symbols Practical exercises to develop your intuitive abilities Guidance in defining your own personal symbols Explanation of how to use chakras and auras Stories and true-life psychic experiences Praise: "Melanie Barnum offers a vast array of traditional interpretations sprinkled with her own insightful experiences, making The Book of Psychic Symbols an invaluable contribution to every psychic's library."—Elizabeth Harper, author of Wishing: How to Fulfill Your Heart's Desires

This book provides a cross-cultural analysis of how religious symbols function from a theological and philosophical perspective. Showing how religious symbols can be true in various qualified senses, Neville presents a theory of religious symbolism in the American pragmatic tradition extending and elaborating Tillich's claim that religious symbols participate in the divine realities to which they refer and yet must be broken in order not to be idolatrous or demonic. The Truth of Broken Symbols offers a theory of religious symbolism treating reference, meaning, and interpretation, and discussing different functions of religious symbols in theological, practical, and devotional contexts. It shows that religious symbols are to be properly understood as true or false and that symbol-systems such as myths, theologies, or liturgical symbols are to be used to engage divine realities while internally exhibiting semiotic structures of reference, meaning, and interpretation.

Travelers & scholars have long been puzzled by similarities in the arts of diverse ancient & tribal cultures. It remained for the American art historian Carl Schuster (1904-1969) to discover a set of patterns designed by ancient peoples to illustrate their ideas about kinship. Schuster succeeded in decoding this iconography, which lasted over ten thousand years, crossed continents, & outlived most of the cultures that sheltered it.

The groundbreaking National Book Award Finalist and Michael L. Printz Honor Book with more than 3.5 million copies sold, Speak is a bestselling modern classic about consent, healing, and finding your voice. "Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, an outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, Melinda becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back—and refuses to be silent. From Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award laureate Laurie Halse Anderson comes the extraordinary landmark novel that has spoken to millions of readers. Powerful and utterly unforgettable, Speak has been translated into 35 languages, was the basis for the major motion picture starring Kristen Stewart, and is now a stunning graphic novel adapted by Laurie Halse Anderson herself, with artwork from Eisner-Award winner Emily Carroll. Awards and Accolades for Speak: A New York Times Bestseller A National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature A Michael L. Printz Honor Book An Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time A Cosmopolitan Magazine Best YA Books Everyone Should Read, Regardless of Age

A novel account of the evolution of language and the cognitive capacities on which language depends. In From Signal to Symbol, Ronald Planer and Kim Sterelny propose a novel theory of language: that modern language is the product of a long series of increasingly rich protolanguages evolving over the last two million years. Arguing that language and cognition coevolved, they give a central role to archaeological evidence and attempt to infer cognitive capacities on the basis of that evidence, which they link in turn to communicative capacities. Countering other accounts, which move directly from archaeological traces to language, Planer and Sterelny show that rudimentary forms of many of the elements on which language depends can be found in the great apes and were part of the equipment of the earliest species in our lineage. After outlining the constraints a theory of the evolution of language should satisfy and filling in the details of their model, they take up the evolution of words, composite utterances, and hierarchical structure. They consider the transition from a predominantly gestural to a predominantly vocal form of language and discuss the economic and social factors that led to language. Finally, they evaluate their theory in terms of the constraints previously laid out.

Discusses the elements of a sign, and looks at pictograms, alphabets, calligraphy, monograms, text type, numerical signs, symbols, and trademarks.

For millennia humans have used visible marks to communicate information. Modern examples of conventional graphical symbols include written language, and non-linguistic symbol systems such as mathematical symbology or traffic signs. The latter kinds of symbols convey information without reference to language. This book presents the first systematic study of graphical symbol systems, including a history of graphical symbols from the Paleolithic onwards, a taxonomy of non-linguistic systems – systems that are not tied to spoken language – and a survey of more than 25 such systems. One important feature of many non-linguistic systems is that, as in written language, symbols may be combined into complex “messages” if the information the system represents is itself complex. To illustrate, the author presents an in-depth comparison of two systems that had very similar functions, but very different structure: European heraldry and Japanese kamon. Writing first appeared in Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago and is believed to have evolved from a previous non-linguistic accounting system. The exact mechanism is unknown, but crucial was the discovery that symbols can represent the sounds of words, not just the meanings. The book presents a novel neurologically-inspired hypothesis that writing evolved in an institutional context in which symbols were “dictated”, thus driving an association between symbol and sound, and provides a computational simulation to support this hypothesis. The author further discusses some common fallacies about writing and non-linguistic systems, and how these relate to widely cited claims about statistical “evidence” for one or another system being writing. The book ends with some thoughts about the future of graphical symbol systems. The intended audience includes students, researchers, lecturers, professionals and scientists from fields like Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Archaeology and Semiotics, as well as general readers interested in language and/or writing systems and symbol systems.