• idea that mental phenomena arise from connections between neurons
  • assumes that both neurons and connections can be represented mathematically
• if that's true, then artificial neural networks should be able to create consciousness?
  • do we need a "critical mass" of neurons?
• tensions with computationalism
  • connectionism models at "low-level" (neurons), where computationalism models at "symbolic level"
  • connectionism focused on learning from stimuli (back-propagation in neural networks), where computationalism focuses on learning as "elaborating possibilities through symbolic processing"