Mind, Body, World- Foundations of Cognitive Science, 2013a

an engineering convenience. Furthermore, central control is easily found in nonclassical
systems such as connectionist networks.
If there is no mark of the classical, then this indicates that there are not many
cognitive sciences, but only one. Later chapters support this position by illustrating
theories of cognitive science that incorporate elements of all three approaches.
7.3 Centralized versus Decentralized Control
Two of the key elements of a classical theory of cognitive science are a set of primitive
symbols and a set of primitive processes for symbol manipulation. However, these
two necessary components are not by themselves sufficient to completely define a
working classical model. A third element is also required: a mechanism of control.
Control is required to determine “what to do next,” to choose which primitive
operation is to be applied at any given moment.
Beyond the capability to execute the basic operations singly, a computing machine
must be able to perform them according to the sequence—or rather, the logical pattern—in
which they generate the solution of the mathematical problem that is the
actual purpose of the calculation in hand. (von Neumann, 1958, p. 11)
The purpose of this section is to explore the notion of control from the perspective
of the three schools of thought in cognitive science. This is done by considering
cognitive control in the context of the history of the automatic control of computing
devices. It is argued that while the different approaches in cognitive science may
claim to have very different accounts of cognitive control, there are in fact no qualitative
differences amongst these accounts.
One of the earliest examples of automatic control was Jacquard’s punched card
mechanism for, in essence, programming a loom to weave a particular pattern into
silk fabric (Essinger, 2004), as discussed in Chapter 3. One punched card controlled
the appearance of one thread row in the fabric. Holes punched in the card permitted
rods to move, which raised specified threads to make them visible at this point
in the fabric. The cards that defined a pattern were linked together as a belt that
advanced one card at a time during weaving. A typical pattern to be woven was
defined by around 2,000 to 4,000 different punched cards; very complex patterns
required using many more cards. For instance, Jacquard’s self-portrait in silk was
defined by 24,000 different punched cards.
Jacquard patented his loom in 1804 (Essinger, 2004). By the end of the nineteenth
century, punched cards inspired by his invention had a central place in the
processing of information. However, their role was to represent this information,
not to control how it was manipulated.
After Herman Hollerith graduated from Columbia School of Mines in 1879, he
326 Chapter 7