Thank you for checking out my blog!

My name is Molly, and in June of 2025, I graduated from the University of Guelph with a PhD in Philosophy. My dissertation argues for a new approach to AI if we are interested in achieving understanding in social robots. Although the focus of my doctoral work was an understanding of human emotions, I am interested in demonstrating how understanding in a general sense is impossible in computers and the robots of today. During my PhD, I took a great interest in the work of Robert Rosen and his distinction between formal systems and natural systems, presenting on the topic during a graduate student conference. I wrote a paper on the topic but hope to refine it further and continue to explore this important topic. After the presentation, I realized that I failed to mention an important aspect of semantics, and tried to make up for it through a blog post. Given the fragmentary nature of this discussion on the differences between semantics and syntax, I know I must write a better, more comprehensive piece on it if I want to apply these ideas to articulate the distinction between robots and animals. In my mind, this is the only way we can highlight the differences between these systems, and this distinction is extremely important given our tendency to anthropomorphize non-living entities.

All works are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0