An independent research group exploring all aspects of human and artificial minds Please move this section slightly higher.and its relationship with brain processes, body, and the environment.
We are a team of researchers studying the mind from both philosophic and scientific perspectives. Our goal is to create a free environment that allows exchange of thoughts and critical analysis of research in philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. We often seek out and connect with authors and scholars from various fields who study the mind at a foundational level to get a better understanding of their research and theories.
The scope of our interest encompasses the intersection of the cognitive sciences, philosophy of mind, neural and computational sciences, linguistics, artificial intelligence and other neighboring disciplines.
We also organize and host talks, workshops, seminars, conferences, journal clubs, and group meetings to review and discuss published work.
To help focus discussions and communication, we choose a specific topic to explore in-depth for a given period of time (i.e. quarterly) during which we review relevant publications and actively reach out to the respective authors for discussions, interviews, or invited talks.
The topic that we are currently exploring is ‘perception’
Papers
Upcoming event:
Location: UCLA
Date/Time: (TBD)
Bayesian Models in Perception and Representation
By: Dr. Michael Rescorla, PhD (UCLA)
For over two centuries, philosophers and mathematicians have been using probability theory to describe human cognition; specifically trying to build explanatory frameworks for how rational agents reason and make decisions in situations of uncertainty. In recent years, applications of Bayesian theory in cognitive science and artificial intelligence research have been instrumental in providing rigorous explanatory models in various cognitive domains; particularly in perception and mental representation. In this talk, Dr. Rescorla will briefly present highlights from his research in understanding how Bayesian models play a central role in mental and artificial representation and comment on some of the theories and conflicting views around levels of computational explanations in the context of artificial and natural (i.e biological) computing systems.