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Cognitive Science, Decision-Making and Ethics
Everybody loves a good debate about the mystery of consciousness. Physicists get to invent quantum mechanical explanations of macroscopic phenomena. Humanities folk get to poo-poo the evils of reductionism. Journalists can trot out their full repertoire of both scientific and ethical cliches. Everybody gets to argue. There are good working theories of consciousness that are…
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Words Fail Us – Language and Rationality
“Strange to wander in the mist, each is alone. No tree knows his neighbor. Each is alone.” Hesse Cognitive science can’t settle questions of right and wrong. But it can set the table for theories of rational decision-making and ethics. And the one thing we know for sure about how we think is that, at…
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The Role of Reinforcement Learning in Transformative Decision-Making
Cognitive science can’t settle questions of right and wrong. But it can set the table for theories of rational decision-making and ethics. And the one thing we know for sure about how we think is that, at the most fundamental level, our brains are connection systems that are changed by experience.This matters; transformational experiences and…
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Problems in Cognition and the Work to be Rational (Post)
For a decision-maker, the nature of human cognition creates the challenges of transformational experience and the necessity for self-altering decisions. But the nature of connection systems also creates a series of important hurdles to both optimal decision-making in preference optimization and thoughtful decision-making around self-change. Since connection systems can do amazing things (like become unbeatable…
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Prediction & Cognition
Cognitive science can’t settle questions of right and wrong. But it can set the table for theories of rational decision-making and ethics. And the one thing we know for sure about how we think is that, at the most fundamental level, our brains are connection systems that are changed by experience. This, unlike theories of…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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