Types of Minds

J. Scott Jordan

Department of Psychology

Illinois State University

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What types of things do minds do?

Raise your hand if you think minds do the following:

Plan

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What types of things do minds do?

Raise your hand if you think minds do the following:

Problem-solve

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What types of things do minds do?

Raise your hand if you think minds do the following:

Explain

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What types of things do minds do?

Raise your hand if you think minds do the following:

Learn

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What types of things do minds do?

Raise your hand if you think minds do the following:

See

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What types of things do minds do?

Raise your hand if you think minds do the following:

Hear

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What types of things do minds do?

Raise your hand if you think minds do the following:

Touch

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What types of things do minds do?

Raise your hand if you think minds do the following:

Throw

Are there any patterns to these phenomena?

Cognitive science studies the patterns we call MIND.

Let’s look at how it got started

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What is a Mind?

RR rr

Big RealBig Real Little RealLittle Real

Really real treesReally real trees Sort of real treesSort of real trees

Objective treesObjective trees Subjective treesSubjective trees

Observer-independent treesObserver-independent trees Observer-dependent treesObserver-dependent trees

organism

environment

environmental event: Stimulus

output: Response

Behaviorism

Intention

input: Sensation

Perception

Psychophysics

Cognitive SystemCognitive Psychology

Attention

Perception, Mind and Action:A Brief History of Psychological Science

MINDS generate little r of the environment (representations)

Minds also conduct operations on those representations (thought)

Science of MIND then, should address how minds represent and manipulate representations.

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

Is consistent with property dualism, functionalism and identity theory.

We will discuss three alternative approaches to mind:

The Computer Metaphor

Connectionism

Dynamical Systems Theory

What’s the Problem?What’s the Problem?

What is a computer?

a system that applies a rule to whatever it is

instructed to

alogrithms

representations

How are operations conducted on representations?

The Computer MetaphorThe Computer Metaphor

What is a computer?

a system that applies a rule to whatever it is

instructed to

alogrithms

representations

How are operations conducted on representations?

The Computer MetaphorThe Computer Metaphor