Thread by Gualtiero Piccinini
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- Aug 18, 2022
- #Neuroscience
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Gentle reminder that cognition is dynamical and no one ever thought otherwise.
One of the biggest blunders in the history of the mind sciences is the claim that cognition is dynamical as opposed to computational, and therefore ...
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One of the biggest blunders in the history of the mind sciences is the claim that cognition is dynamical as opposed to computational, and therefore ...
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computational theories of cognition should be replaced by dynamical theories of cognition.
This view was defended by T. van Gelder and others, most vociferously in the 1990s, and its echoes can still be heard today in some quarters.
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This view was defended by T. van Gelder and others, most vociferously in the 1990s, and its echoes can still be heard today in some quarters.
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Some dynamicists did and still do excellent empirical work (including modeling work). And some traditional approaches to cognition paid relatively little attention to the dynamical constraints that acting in real-time within realistic environments puts on cognizers
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(mostly because they focused on tasks that were relatively insulated from such dynamical constraints). Insofar as “dynamicists” were calling attention to this fact, they had a point.
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Other than that, reasonable observers soon realized that the contrast between dynamics and computation is a false one. Cognition is surely dynamical, and so is computation.
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Physical computing systems such as brains and artificial computers can operate in the real world just like any other physical systems, subject to the constraints that real-time interaction with an environment puts on them.
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Computational neuroscience, in particular, was always steeped in dynamical systems theory. Thus, cognition is surely dynamical, and this is entirely compatible with computational theories of cognition.
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