What is the dynamical hypothesis?

Abstract

According to the dominant computational approach in cognitive science, cognitive agents are digital computers; according to the alternative approach, they are dynamical systems. This target article attempts to articulate and support the dynamical hypothesis. The dynamical hypothesis has two major components: the nature hypothesis (cognitive agents are dynamical systems) and the knowledge hypothesis (cognitive agents can be understood dynamically). A wide range of objections to this hypothesis can be rebutted. The conclusion is that cognitive systems may well be dynamical systems, and only sustained empirical research in cognitive science will determine the extent to which that is true.Keywords: cognition; computability; computational systems; computers; dynamical systems; modeling; systems; time Tim van Gelder completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh and then taught at Indiana University before taking up his current position as Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow in the department of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He has published widely in the fields of philosophy of mind and the foundations of cognitive science, with particular focus on exploring alternatives to orthodox functionalist and computationalist perspectives.the hard work of developing detailed accounts of specific cognitive phenomena. The most important goal, however, is to gain insight into the nature of people -for people are, among other things, cognitive agents. This paper ploughs an interdisciplinary field. Boulders of ambiguity, vagueness, and confusion must be cleared away. Much effort is devoted simply to establishing a single coherent and reasonably precise framework for discussion. This framework involves commitments at terminological, conceptual, and even metaphysical levels. Its development requires many choices and stipulations, often somewhat arbitrary in nature. Occasional conflicts with existing intuitions are unavoidable. Still, some such regimentation is essential, for otherwise debating the DH is just a futile exercise in miscommunication. Table 2, which comprises the Appendix, summarizes the framework by listing key terms and their meanings as deployed here. Some examplesA first task is to sketch some representative examples of dynamical cognitive science, to serve as a backdrop for the following discussion. Limitations on space dictate brevity; readers are encouraged to visit the original sources for fuller treatment.Consider how we come to make choices between actions with various possible outcomes. If we were digital computers, we would symbolically represent to ourselves the various options and their outcomes, together with our estimates of the likelihood of those outcomes and their value to us. Reaching a decision would then be a matter of calculating the most promising option. An alternative Humean account has been proposed by psychologists Jerome Busemeyer and Jim Townsend (1993). In their Decision Field Theory (DFT) model, relevant aspects of the decision situation are represent...

The emergence of a new paradigm in ape language research

“…2) and "all of the elements are continuously interacting with and changing in respect to one another, and an aggregate pattern emerges from this mutual coaction" (target article, Abstract). It is not clear that this has anything to do with the use of "dynamical system" in the context of agent internal behavior, defined by van Gelder (1998a) as a system that is "quantitative in state" -that is, with distances in state or time as determined by an independent metric, such that these distances matter to behavior (see van Gelder for further discussion and alternative definitions; but see also Chater & Hahn 1998). What is clear is that "information" in the Shannon-Weaver sense, is no more routinely implied in information-processing accounts of cognition than in information transfer characterizations of communication (see Dretske 1981, for extensive discussion of the relationship between "information" as used in information theory and as used by cognitive scientists; for an example of the latter, see Marr's classic work Vision [Marr 1982]).…”

Information, information transfer, and information processing

“…2) and "all of the elements are continuously interacting with and changing in respect to one another, and an aggregate pattern emerges from this mutual coaction" (target article, Abstract). It is not clear that this has anything to do with the use of "dynamical system" in the context of agent internal behavior, defined by van Gelder (1998a) as a system that is "quantitative in state" -that is, with distances in state or time as determined by an independent metric, such that these distances matter to behavior (see van Gelder for further discussion and alternative definitions; but see also Chater & Hahn 1998). What is clear is that "information" in the Shannon-Weaver sense, is no more routinely implied in information-processing accounts of cognition than in information transfer characterizations of communication (see Dretske 1981, for extensive discussion of the relationship between "information" as used in information theory and as used by cognitive scientists; for an example of the latter, see Marr's classic work Vision [Marr 1982]).…”