The Language of Thought
Folk Psychology The psychological theory that ordinary people (the folk) use to predict and explain one another’s action. The most important posits of this theory are mental states like beliefs, desires, intentions, hopes, fears, pains, etc.
Propositional Attitudes A propositional content An attitude An agent + + • that dogs are better • belief • you than cats • desire • me • that the midterm is • intention • Beyoncé over • hope • that • fear
Practical Syllogism For an arbitrary agent, A: if: (1) A desires p, (2)A believes that doing x is a good way to get p, (3)A doesn’t have any other stronger desires that, in light of A’s beliefs, conflict with doing x; then: (4) A will do x (or at least form an intention to do x).
The Physical Stance •From which we explain the behaviors of a system in terms of the physical forces acting on it. •There’s no distinction between correct and incorrect behavior from this stance. Whatever happens happens. The Design Stance •Explains the behaviors of a system in terms of the functions for which it was designed, or for which it evolved. •From this stance, something going wrong is a malfunction . The Intentional Stance •From which we explain the behaviors of a system in terms of the functions for which it was designed. •From this stance, something going wrong is a irrationality .
The Intentional Stance •A system has whichever beliefs and desires (etc.) it would make the most sense to interpret it as having. •Beliefs and desires are real because interpreters pick up on real patterns of thought and behavior when ascribing them.
The Intentional Stance •A belief needn’t be identical to any particular neural state. Beliefs aren’t (always) “sentences written in the brain”. •They are holistic properties of systems. •It doesn’t make sense to ask how many beliefs someone has. •There’s nothing really wrong with saying that groups, thermometers, Google, etc., have beliefs. •It’s just a question of how useful it would be to do so, and how genuine the pattern being picked up on is.
“The Occam’s Razor answer is that maybe Ryan has calculated, in light of Obamacare’s surprising robust poll numbers, that getting rid of it would be worse than keeping it, because getting rid of it would give the opposition a cause. It would create millions of angry voters who’d march to the polls in 2018 to vote against the Republicans.”
“So, this was our routine — when he wants out, he goes to the front door, and licks it. And then we moved house, and he got very, very confused. We trained the dog so that when he wants out, he goes to the front door and waits. Somehow in his little golden retriever brain, he interpreted this to mean “go to the front door, and lick it.” If he’s at the door, but isn’t licking it, he doesn’t need out, he’s just chilling.” https://twitter.com/PastelPouts/status/789203468477169664
“He knew he had to go to the front door when he wants out, but this was a new house with obviously a door that was completely new to him. Despite our condo having only one door that leads outside, and him going out this very same door literally at least five times a day, every day, for about a year…he still has no idea where the front door is in this house. Absolutely no idea at all. Now whenever he needs out, he will go to any random door and start licking it. And I mean any door - the bathroom door, my bedroom door, my closet, the goddamn door of a kitchen cabinet, even.” https://twitter.com/PastelPouts/status/789203468477169664
“If Nest thinks you’ll be home in the afternoon, it’ll pause Auto-Away and turn down the temperature at 2pm so you’ll come home to a cool house.”
The Language-of-Thought Hypothesis •The mind is literally an information-processing device —a piece of software running on the brain. •Beliefs, desires, etc. are literally tokens of sentences that our mind uses to represent, store, and compute information. •Depending on “where” in the system these sentences are tokened, they count as beliefs, desires, etc. •(Fodor often talks about the “desire box” and the “belief box”, etc. Kukla and Walmsley talk about “bins” instead”)
belief executive (intention) desire
that I will get a good grade on the test only if I will study belief I will study executive control that I will get a good grade on the test desire
that P only if I do X belief I do X executive control that P desire
Question Why think that thoughts are like sentences?
Analogy 1: Productivity and Recursivity If you speak a natural language, you can use and understand infinitely many sentences: •John loves his mother. •John loves his mother’s mother. •John loves his mother’s mother’s mother. […] Similarly, you can think an infinite number of thoughts. •the thought that John loves his mother •the thought that John loves his mother’s mother. •the thought that John loves his mother’s mother’s mother. […]
Analogy 2: Systematicity If you understand this sentence: •Jay loves Bey. Then you also understand this sentence: •Bey loves Jay. Similarly, if you can have this thought: •The thought that Jay loves Bey Then you can also have this thought: •The thought that Bey loves Jay
Analogy 3: Vocabulary and Conceptual Repertoire Socrates didn’t have the following words in his vocabulary •dog •therefore So, he couldn’t understand sentences that contained those words. Socrates didn’t possess the following concepts: •carburator •cell phone So, he couldn’t have thoughts about things of these kinds.
Analogy 4: Parts and Structure S S S NP VP NP VP NP VP Jay Bey Bey V VP V VP V VP loves Bey loves Jay loves Blue Ivy
Analogy 5: Logical Relations In a language, logical relationships depend on internal sentence structure. Consider the following argument: •If Fodor is right, we have computers in our heads. •Fodor is right •Therefore: we have computers in our heads.
Analogy 5: Logical Relations Practical syllogism is sensitive to the structure of our thoughts in the same way: that I will get a good grade on the test only if I will study belief I will study executive control that I will get a good grade on the test desire
The Explanation: Compositionality The meaning of a sentence is systematically determined by the meanings of its basic parts (~words), together with the syntactic structure in which they’re arranged. The propositional content of a thought is determined by the contents of its parts (concepts) together with the way in which the thought is structured.
Levels of Explanation: Four Perspectives 1. Dennett’s three stances 2. Fodor: semantic contents and syntactic vehicles 3. Marr: levels of abstraction 4.Fodor: autonomous special sciences
Contents and Vehicles cat that P only if I do X 099 097 116 belief 01100011 01100001 01110100
Marr’s Three Levels of Abstraction Three levels at which we can describe how a computational system performs a computation. The Computational Level tells us the function being computed. This might consist of merely its input and its output. The Algorithmic Level spells out each of the steps that the system takes in order to get from inputs to outputs. The Implementational Level tells us how the algorithmic process is physically realized in a particular system.
Special Sciences •The cognitive sciences: psychology, linguistics, etc. •The social sciences: economics, sociology, etc. •Biology? •Chemistry (i.e., everything other than physics?)
Scientific Theories …consist of a set of statements of the form: S 1 x → S 2 x “All S 1 situations bring about S 2 situations.”
Scientific Theories S 1 x → S 2 x “S 1 “ and “S 2 “ are predicates : they stand for the properties that our theory deals in. For example: —physics will include “has x mass” —folk psychology will include: “believes that Santa Claus exists” —economics will include: “has an exchange value of $8”
Natural Kinds The predicates/properties of a science are its natural kinds . These are the kinds that have to exist if the science is true. More generally: a natural kind is a kind of thing that is real according to some science—i.e., that plays a role in some scientific law.
Scientific Reductionism The laws of special sciences can be reduced to physics by discovering the appropriate bridge laws: S 1 x → S 2 x ⇵ ⇵ P 1 x → P 2 x “S 1 x ⇄ P 1 x” says something like: “whenever you have an S 1 situation, you also have a P 1 situation”.
Scientific Reductionism The laws of special sciences can be reduced to physics by discovering the appropriate bridge laws: S 1 x → S 2 x ⇵ ⇵ P 1 x → P 2 x “S 1 x ⇄ P 1 x” says something like: “whenever you have an S 1 situation, you also have a P 1 situation”.
Why Reductionism Fails: Multiple Realizability The natural kinds of one science may correspond to things of many different kinds, described at the level of another science. E.g. there is no general physical characterization of “currency”, “pain”, etc.
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