Tags / 5 quotes from 4 sources
#cognitive-processes
Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart)
The Mundurucu and words for numbers
Numerical cognition and its relationship to linguistic evolution is a large area of active research. In contrast to the Mangarevan example, where a complex cultural ecology involving a distributed trade network may have spurred the development of advanced math, the Mundurucu…
Computations have no ontological status
Manzotti suggests that there is actually no such thing as information. Therefore, neither machines nor biologically based nervous systems can process it more efficiently—because information may not refer to anything. He argues that the computational level may be removed from…
Can A Robot, An Insect Or God Be Aware?: Scientific American
Still no theory of how we attribute minds
Looking at the results from these various studies, it is hard to avoid having the sense that one should be able to construct a single unified theory that explains the whole pattern of people’s intuitions. Such a theory would describe the underlying cognitive processes that lead…
Constructivist Foundations
The common denominators of constructivist approaches
The common denominators of constructivist approaches can be summarized as follows. Constructivist approaches question the Cartesian separation between the objective world and subjective experience; Consequently, they demand the inclusion of the observer in scientific…
The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian)
Why we think in stereotypes
Human beings think in terms of stereotypes, for good reasons. Without mental short cuts, we simply couldn’t get by. There is just too much information to process, and we often have to be quite crude as to how we filter it. But these generalisations are bound to lead us astray.