I have a few beefs with Chomsky; his ongoing critiquing of connectionism can be over simplified. But I see him as s product of his computing era, fundamentally (and rightly) enamored by Turing machines. Many people still are to this day and it’s understandable.
But while he misses the boat on connectionism imo, he has a nice quote that’s related:
”
If you take a look at the progress of science, the sciences are kind of a continuum, but they’re broken up into fields. The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say physics — greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else.
If a molecule is too big, you give it to the chemists. The chemists, for them, if the molecule is too big or the system gets too big, you give it to the biologists. And if it gets too big for them, they give it to the psychologists, and finally it ends up in the hands of the literary critic, and so on.. So what the neuroscientists are saying is not completely false.
-Chomsky
”
He goes from there to criticize connectionism but he does give credit where it’s due in some part, so I’m glad for that.
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Oh he committed no sins and needs no forgiveness. I have great respect for Chomsky and it is precisely in my respect that I challenge the parts I disagree with. He’d expect no less of anyone. It’d be disrespectful to just say “Yes, mr. chomsky”
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Oh there’s plenty. Connectionism barely gets talked about anymore because it’s become incorporated into these very systems we’re using. Facebook, Google, the workings of the internet itself, are all based upon connectionist principles and now operates far less as a theoretical construct from graph theory and now operates as functional technologies that we enjoy.
But I’m sure I can find some.
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It’s hard to find good materials now because the debate was dying out by the early 1990s as more powerful computer systems and much better neural network models, and much of that history has become subsumed in other related battles.
The distinction boils down to: fixed states or emergent properties of a system?
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It’s likely you’ll find arguments against computationalism in the materials from the far extreme of connectionism, which is the singularity folks.
I haven’t read much from them as I tend to stay away generally. Why? I know I’ll get pulled in. It has somewhat of a religious quality to it, just as “the universe is mathematics” and “logic is the foundation of the Universe” do from the other side of the debates.
I can venture into the “Universe is Math” side and critique it using examples from biology and history.
But it would be dangerous for me if I start venturing into the “oncoming computer singularity” corner.
What will likely happen to me is that I’ll become enamored by that world, as it’s a world that’s the logical end point of my general way of thinking.
An older example of becoming enamored by singularity would be those who had/have become enamored by genetics and evolution as the “part where the magic happens”.
Interestingly, an evolutionary view allows one to retain a “hard wired” stance because the connectionism processes happened long ago, out of touch.
But the same people who embrace past change with a religious fervor (sorry), sometimes reject present day / future connectionism and instead embrace more “hard wired” viewpoints.
This is my take on things and always subject to change.
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ugh all those words. I could’ve just said “nature vs nurture” and been done with it I guess 
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