The Brains Blog
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The Brains blog is a leading forum for work in the philosophy and science of mind. Join the discussion and - if you're a cognitive scientist - pitch us ideas about how to get discussion about methods, puzzles, recent publications, and scholars that deserve more attention.
The Brains Blog
2w ago
Commentary from Tina Röck on today’s post from Mazviita Chirimuuta on The Brain Abstracted (MIT Press). One way to read this book is to consider it a discussion of the limitations in our ability to understand hyper-complex, dynamic objects like the brain. In her more metaphysical chapters (2 and 8 ..read more
The Brains Blog
2w ago
Post 5 of 5 from Mazviita Chirimuuta on The Brain Abstracted (Open Access: MIT Press). The last of this series of posts summarises the conclusions regarding philosophy of science more generally that emerge from this study of simplification in neuroscience. The question of realism may have already occurred to you ..read more
The Brains Blog
2w ago
Commentary from Dimitri Coelho Mollo on today’s post from Mazviita Chirimuuta on The Brain Abstracted (MIT Press). I was lucky to have had the chance to discuss this brilliant book with Mazviita Chirimuuta and others while it was still in preparation, and I’m looking forward to exchanging ideas about it ..read more
The Brains Blog
2w ago
Post 4 of 5 from Mazviita Chirimuuta on The Brain Abstracted (Open Access: MIT Press). A central claim of the book is that recognition of the challenge of brain complexity — how it places pressure on scientists to devise experimental methods, theories and models, which drastically cut down the apparent ..read more
The Brains Blog
2w ago
Commentary from Carrie Figdor on today’s post from Mazviita Chirimuuta on The Brain Abstracted (MIT Press). The animating idea of Chirimuuta’s book is that science, and neuroscience in particular, must engage in simplification in order to explain a complex world. The epistemic dangers of taking the outcomes of simplification strategies ..read more
The Brains Blog
2w ago
Post 3 of 5 from Mazviita Chirimuuta on The Brain Abstracted (Open Access: MIT Press). In the previous post I described how the literal interpretation of neurocomputational models encourages us to attend only to the perceived commonalities between brains and computers and to relegate the differences to the periphery of ..read more
The Brains Blog
2w ago
Commentary from Mark Sprevak on today’s post from Mazviita Chirimuuta on The Brain Abstracted (MIT Press). I very much agree with the book’s main claim that abstraction and simplification are essential theoretical virtues in the cognitive and brain sciences. Often a simple model – one good enough for our specific ..read more
The Brains Blog
2w ago
Post 2 of 5 from Mazviita Chirimuuta on The Brain Abstracted (Open Access: MIT Press). The idea in my project to foreground the question of interpretation is loosely inspired by work in the philosophy of physics which takes the empirical success of e.g. quantum field theory for granted but debates ..read more
The Brains Blog
2w ago
This week the Brains Blog is hosting a symposium on Mazviita Chirimuuta’s new book The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (Open Access: MIT Press). Today’s post from Chirimuuta provides a precis and overview of the content of the book. Through this week, we will have ..read more
The Brains Blog
2M ago
(See all posts in this series here.) I conclude with Chapters 6 and 7 of the book, which apply the theory to reasoning and introspecting consciousness. Investigating these as forms of attending, mental actions, illuminates. Chp. 6 examines deducing a conclusion from the premises that entail it. Given that every ..read more