RSS MAD

Mind Puzzles is back on the track

Ok, I'm back again after slightly too long break.

I was thinking in the meanwhile of changing a bit the main theme of this blog (i.e. searching of a method being capable to explain if not all then most of mind puzzles, that is e.g. consciousness). But my concern wasn't necessary. This can be done parallell to others topics. So I stick with methodology but it won't be as important as it has been. Lately, I spent some of my preciuos time on repesentation theory which I find it very promissing. But this is for next post.

Searching for basics: CogSci Methodology

Yesterday, I took a part in a discussion about physicalism. It wasn't related to mind or cognitive science, at all but it had inspired me to ask a question whether physicalism could be helpful in solving some mind puzzles. Certainly, this question isn't original. However, we should ask it again. Maybe there something has been missed? So, let's step back to the idea of physicalism.

Physicalism, in traditional view, is nothing more than a sort of reduction to physics. So, all scientific terms can explicitly be given in physical terms.

So far, so good. This idea seems to make sense, since we live in physical world every object should also be physical. Even our brains are made of physical elements, namely atoms. Going further we can say that neurons are physical, too, and so on. Eventually we will come up to the point at which we may doubt whether it has physical features. Surely, one may say it's physical but we just aren't able to notice its physical properties. It's true that some physical forces in the past were taken as magical, etc.

What can physicalism contribute to cognitive science and mind? It seems very little. There are too many issues. For example what about consciousness? How consciousness or even qualia can have physical properties? What about concepts? Concepts reside in brain (strictly, in mind) but aren't physical.

"... physicalism is intended as a very general claim about the nature of the world. Nevertheless, by far the most discussion of physicalism in the literature has been in the philosophy of mind. The reason for this is that it is in philosophy of mind that we find the most plausible and compelling arguments that physicalism is false. Indeed, as we will see later on, arguments about qualia and consciousness are usually formulated as arguments for the conclusion that physicalism is false." SEP

Multi-Agent Interaction of J. van Benthem

Yesterday I attended at the lecture of Prof. Johan van Benthem. Some of his proposals I've known, but some of them stroke me as quiet new.
Prof. Benthem's lecture was about Reductionism in Multi-Agent Interaction. Ok, perhaps one may find this not suitable in this place. But the entire bunch of lecture is about Reductionism, so van Benthem had to fit into subject of reductionism. However, he spoke very little about this matter and gave an impression of how dynamic-epistemic can helps in describing/explaining of information flow, instead.
What was worth of consideration in van Benthem's talk is formal approach to knowledge acquisition. I'll post more detailed notes on van Benthem's lecture before too long.
For anyone who lives in or nearby Munich there's a chain of lectures on Reductionism but they also may attract people with interests in cognitive science. Next talks are about cognition, psychology, etc. Check here for more details: Reductionism in Philosophy and Science at LMU Munich.