# Andy Clark - Associative Engines **Opening (not a real abstract):** Things move apace. In the space of about a decade, connectionist approach es to learning , retrieval , and representation have transformed the practice of cognitive science. For better or for worse , neural nets are now strung across just about every problem domain you once could shake a LISP atom at. But , for all that (or perhaps because of all that ), it is becoming harder and harder to keep track of whatever fundamental advances in the understanding of cognition all this activity expresses. As a philosopher and a cognitive scientist long interested in the connectionist program , I remain convinced that the change is indeed a deep and important one. This conviction makes me, I suppose, a neural romantic . Connectionism (a.k .a. neural nets or parallel distributed processing) promises to be not just one new