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Models of Environment

The thirteenth in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Marcin Miłkowski Herbert A. Simon is well known for his account of bounded rationality. Whereas classical economics idealized economic agency and framed rational choice in terms of the decision theory, Simon insisted that agents need…

From Bounded Rationality to Expertise

The ninth in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Fernand Gobet Introduction Historically, a pervasive assumption in the social sciences, in particular economics, is that humans are perfect rational agents. Having full access to information and enjoying unlimited computational resources, they maximise utility when…

The Extended Mind and Religious Cognition

New paper from the very excellent Joel Krueger. See also Joel’s Empathy and the Extended Mind paper from a few years back along with other papers discussing this topic. One of the primary functions of religious texts — along with the different rituals and forms of worship constructed with them — is, precisely, to take over part of…

Enactive View of Cognition

Here’s a batch review by the very excellent Rob Rupert of three books that have been out for a while. Anthony ChemeroCognitionCognitive neuroscienceCognitive scienceconsciousnessEmbodied cognitionenactivismExtended MindExternalismEzequiel Di Paolojohn stewartMark Rowlandsolivier gapennePhilosophy of mindRob Rupertsituated cognition

Adaptive and Ecological Rationality in Complex Environments

Riccardo Viale, the general secretary of The Herbert Simon Society has brought my attention to this workshop featuring the one and only Gerd Gigerenzer. Gerd, by the way, will also be on the SABE sub-panel of the AEA “Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon” in a month’s time in San Francisco. In addition to…

Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain

Patricia Churchland talking at the very excellent Santa Fe Institute. brain scienceCognitive neurosciencecomplexityconsciousnessdarwinEvolutionary PsychologyMaterialismMoral psychologyNeurophilosophyPatricia ChurchlandPhilosophy of mindsanta fe institutesituated cognitionSpontaneous order