I would never, ever claim that "the human mind doesn't show any regularity in its management of beliefs and concepts". Far from it! It is only the nature of those regularities that are of interest to me. They can be formalizable, or they can be partially complex. Ditto for the idea that I might be saying that intelligence is "random or arbitrary" ... I would never want to imply that.
My apologies if my reply can be read as blaming you for these claims.
In other words, the best explanation for the well-known *irrationality* shown by humans in various cognitive psychology experiments is that they are, deep down, trying to apply bayesian reasoning to the task, but that when they try to do this, they mess up!
I agree with Oaksford and Chater in their general spirit, that is, the so-called *irrationality* may have a deeper explanation, though I don't agree with the concrete (Bayesian) explanation they suggest.
One interpretation: when the mind tries to rely too heavily on a routine, mindless application of a formalized system for dealing with the world, it shows its dumbest side. Then, when something else steps in (higher level structures that use other principles to dig the dumb bayesian reasoning engine out of its mess), the system shows its smartest side.
This is possible.
At the very least, this is suggestive empirical evidence that, yes, there are interesting mechanisms at work down there, but that the bits that try to rely too heavily on simple formal-system approaches are not the ones that make the system intelligent.
It completely depends on what you mean by "simple formal-system approaches". Pei
Richard Loosemore. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
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