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Representation, Causality and Complexit y

Another working title could be:
Text, Picture and Mental Models


Lecture done in one sentence:
Mind is based on words, concepts, language -- in the classic picture;
But it is just causal interaction and nothing else;
therefore, it is complex (in a sense suitable for further study)


We will develop this in two steps:

• rethinking mental representation from text to picture, from picture to causal structure
• analysing the relevant causal structure

or perhaps a half more step:

• causality and its relationship to variables  --> complexity and dynamics in next lecture.

Restating the basic position in broad philosophical terms:
the classical view is Cartesian (difficult to get rid of Cartesianism, cf being half-pregnant)
the alternative is non-Cartesian or, more precisely, Baconian .

It is perhaps fair to say that XX. century philosophy = development of anti-Cartesian view;
most recently this development reaches science.


Philosophy, philosophy of science etc. in science?

"Philosophy cannot be avoided, only neglected, and
Those avoid it the least who neglect it."

Cognitive science, in particular, is a field where these ends meet.


Some recent grounds for anti-Cartesian CogSci:

Wittgenstein   language
Ong                writing
Barsalou         mental logic
(Varela           philosophy/neuropsychology)
(Lakoff           cognitive lingiustics)
Johnson          philosophy
Gergely          developmental psychology
Csányi            cognitive ethology
Thelen et al.   developmental psychology
Dennett          consciousness