How Can One Catch a Thought-Bird? Some Wittgensteinian Comments to Computational Modelling of Mind

U ovome eseju autor analizira Wittgensteinovu kritiku nekoliko pretpostavki koje su ključne za velik dio spoznajne znanosti. Ove uključuju koncepte komputacijskih procesa u mozgu što uzrokuju mentalna stanja i procese, algoritmičko procesiranje informacija u mozgu (neuralni sistem), mozak kao mašinu, psihofizički paralelizam, misleću mašinu, kao i konfuziju pravila koja slijede ponašanje u skladu s tim pravilom. Po autorovu mišljenju, teoretičari spoznajne znanosti još uvijek nisu ozbiljno razmotrili Wittgensteinovu kritiku tako da oni, pomalo iznenađujuće, često brkaju pitanje »kako ovo djeluje?« s onime »što ovo čini?«. Ali njihova »najpogubnija« pogreška jest njihovo brkanje internih komputacijskih (ili paralelnih) procesa što se odvijaju u mozgu (koji možda uzrokuju mentalna stanja) sa socijalno-baziranim, svakodnevnim kriterijem prepoznavanja i klasifikacije sadržaja mentalnih stanja, te znanja o sadržaju mentalnih stanja.In this essay I analyse Wittgenstein’s criticism of several assumptions that are crucial for a large part of cognitive science. These involve the concepts of computational processes in the brain which cause mental states and processes, the algorithmic processing of information in the brain (neural system), the brain as a machine, psychophysical parallelism, the thinking machine, as well as the confusion of rule following with behaviour in accordance with the rule. In my opinion, the theorists of cognitive science have not yet seriously considered Wittgenstein’s criticism so they, quite surprisingly, frequently confuse the question “how does it work?” with “what does it do?” But their most “deleterious” mistake is their confusion of the internal computational (or parallel) processes taking place in the brain (which possibly cause mental states) with socially-based, everyday criteria of recognition and classification of, and knowledge about, the content of mental states