What is chaos and how is it relevant for philosophy of mind
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11420715 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Ostrowick (University of Cape Town, corresponding author), John M Ostrowick |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 323-335 |
| Publication date | 2015-07-03 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | South African Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0258-0136 • E-ISSN: 2073-4867 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02580136.2015.1064587 |
| OpenAlex | W2258741511 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 16 |
This paper argues, in agreement with Neuringer, Beggs and others, that if we wish to scientifically characterise human choice, we have to work with a probabilistic or chaos-derived model. This has a number of implications for philosophy of mind. Firstly, it is in theory possible to describe human behaviour with some form of law-like equation; it is just a matter of figuring out what equation best captures the states of our central nervous system. Secondly, it means that our choices are not random but are chaotic: deterministic, but just hard to predict due to internal complexity. According to the current research, our actions are most likely caused by ‘precipitated avalanches’ of neural activity, which are difficult to predict due to chaos
Chaos theory · Chaotic · Epistemology · Figuring · Physics · Probabilistic logic · Computer Science · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Neural dynamics and brain function · Philosophy · Statistical Mechanics and Entropy · Artificial Intelligence
| Highly cited | No |
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