The Mind is Flat: Thought as Case-Law Not Naïve Science - presented by Nick Chater on these dates (links to the institutions' page advertising the event are included, where available).
Friday 14 September 2018 at the Department of Psychology, Harvard
Tuesday 18 September 2018, Microsoft Research, New York
Tuesday 18 September 2018 at Columbia Business School, Center for Decision Sciences
Friday 21 September 2018 at Department of Psychology, Princeton University
Monday 24 September 2018 at Institution for Social and Policy Studies, New Haven (Yale).
Tuesday 6 November 2018 at Ecole Normal Superieure (Paris)
Friday 9 November 2018 at ILCC, University of Edinburgh
Abstract: The cognitive sciences often view thought as operating through tacit ‘theories,’ analogous to those of science. Such theories are organized sets of principles, which might be expressed in networks of beliefs, utilities, grammatical rules, moral norms, and more. But does a set of hidden, but general, theoretical principles really underpin thought and behavior? Finding such general principles has been a key goal in many areas of psychology, philosophy, linguistics and artificial intelligence. But our attempts to extract and formalize such principles lead continually rapidly into contradiction.
I argue that such principles—and mental “depths” in general – are illusory. Instead, the brain generalizes flexibly from specific local problems and gradually creates a tradition of ‘precedents’ for dealing with new problems. Thus, the mind is analogous to case-law – in which each new case is addressed by finding links with past cases – rather than to science – in which new situations are dealt with by referring to hidden general rules.
Chater, N. (2018). The Mind is Flat: The Remarkable Shallowness of the Improvising Brain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Audience: Academic Faculty, Postgraduate Students, Graduate Students, Professional Services
Posted on Tuesday 11th December 2018