The Mind’s Theorist

The Mind’s Eye

Individual Performance in Optimal Bayesian Inference

Applications of Bayesian inference to human decisionmaking have met with mixed success, but new theoretical developments and experimental paradigms are helping to form a clearer picture of the role that inference plays in human cognition. We combine the latest ideas to provide evidence that at a computational level, the mind’s ability to make predictions may be grounded in Bayesian theory. Our ...

From Usage to Grammar: the Mind’s Response to Repetition

Tuning up Mind’s Pattern to Nature’s Own Idea : Eddington’s Early Twenties Case for Variational Derivatives

This paper sets out to show how Eddington’s early twenties case for variational derivatives significantly bears witness to a steady and consistent shift in focus from a resolute striving for objectivity towards “selective subjectivism” and structuralism. While framing his so-called “Hamiltonian derivatives” along the lines of previously available variational methods allowing to derive gravitati...

Patrolling the mind’s boundaries

Patrolling the mind’s boundaries Abstract: Defenders of the extended mind thesis say that it is possible that some of our mental states may be constituted, in part, by states of the extrabodily environment. Often they also add that such extended mentation is a commonplace phenomenon. I argue that extended mentation, while not impossible, is either nonexistent or far from widespread. Genuine bel...