books — The Brains Blog

The Evolution of Representational Decision Making

Why did some organisms switch from relying just on reflexive—i.e. purely perceptually-driven—interactions with the world to also employing the tools of representational decision making? What adaptive and other benefits does the reliance on representational decision making yield? Today, I sketch aspects of the answers to these questions; for more details, …

Foundations of the Investigation of the Evolution of Representational Decision Making

Armin Schulz March 20, 2018 April 28, 2021 animal cognition / Armin Schulz: Efficient Cognition / Belief / Cognition / evolution / Folk Psychology / Intentionality / perception / Philosophy of Mind / Philosophy of Science / representation

Before it is possible to begin the investigation of the evolution of representational decision making it is necessary to address three foundational issues: (1) The nature of representational decision making—what is it that we are investigating? (2) The reality of representational decision making—why think that representational decision making is a …

Efficient Cognition—The Evolution of Representational Decision Making

Armin Schulz March 19, 2018 April 28, 2021 animal cognition / Armin Schulz: Efficient Cognition / Belief / Cognition / Content / evolution / Folk Psychology / Intentionality / perception / Philosophy of Mind / Philosophy of Science / representation

I want to thank John Schwenkler for inviting me to blog about my new book, Efficient Cognition—The Evolution of Representational Decision Making. I am excited to be sharing with you all the reasons why I find the evolution of representational decision making such a fascinating research project. I also look …

Now Featured

John Schwenkler March 18, 2018 May 30, 2018 books

Thanks to Armin Schulz for blogging this week on Efficient Cognition: The Evolution of Representational Decision Making (MIT Press, 2018). To view his posts on a single page, please click here.

Evidence

Susanna Schellenberg March 8, 2018 March 9, 2018 Epistemology / perception / Susanna Schellenberg: The Unity of Perception

This is my last day blogging on my forthcoming book here at Brains. Thanks to all who checked in and commented and thanks for the comments you sent me via email. A big thank you also to John Schwenkler for doing such an amazing job managing this blog. On Monday, …

Consciousness

Susanna Schellenberg March 7, 2018 March 8, 2018 Consciousness / perception / Susanna Schellenberg: The Unity of Perception

On Monday, I gave a general overview of the main ideas in my forthcoming book The Unity of Perception: Content, Consciousness, Evidence. The key idea developed in the book is that perception is constituted by employing perceptual capacities—for example the capacity to discriminate and single out instances of red from …

Perceptual Content

Susanna Schellenberg March 6, 2018 March 7, 2018 Content / perception / Philosophy of Mind / Susanna Schellenberg: The Unity of Perception

It is Monday morning and I am riding the train through the post-industrial wasteland of northern New Jersey. I gaze out of the window and, suddenly, I see a deer. Let’s call it Frederik. The next morning, I am again on the train, riding through northern New Jersey. And, again, …