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Programs as Causal Models: Speculations on Mental Programs and Mental Representation
Author(s) -
Chater Nick,
Oaksford Mike
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1111/cogs.12062
Subject(s) - counterfactual thinking , counterfactual conditional , causality (physics) , mental representation , representation (politics) , cognitive science , cognition , computer science , perception , causal model , cognitive psychology , causal structure , psychology , social psychology , mathematics , statistics , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , politics , political science , law
Judea Pearl has argued that counterfactuals and causality are central to intelligence, whether natural or artificial, and has helped create a rich mathematical and computational framework for formally analyzing causality. Here, we draw out connections between these notions and various current issues in cognitive science, including the nature of mental “programs” and mental representation. We argue that programs (consisting of algorithms and data structures) have a causal (counterfactual‐supporting) structure; these counterfactuals can reveal the nature of mental representations. Programs can also provide a causal model of the external world. Such models are, we suggest, ubiquitous in perception, cognition, and language processing.