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I cannot recommend 'The Society of Mind' enough. This was my first book before diving into Cognitive Science. Although it is mostly psychology(i.e.speculation),

by nabaraz 12y ago

I cannot recommend 'The Society of Mind' enough. This was my first book before diving into Cognitive Science. Although it is mostly psychology(i.e.speculation), it is a brilliant book with insights and ideas.

nichochar 12y ago
I'm confused, you recommend it? Or you don't
- lgas 12y ago
  I think perhaps you missed the "enough" after the parenthetical. He recommends it highly.
- biot 12y ago
  He could care a great deal less about it.
dnt404-1 12y ago
Why do find psychology to be speculation? Do they not use empiricism in their studies (maybe not all of them)?
- theVirginian 12y ago
  He/she's trying to seem intelligent by dismissing psychology. That is why it is speculation.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- kylebgorman 12y ago
  "Empiricism" does not usually refer to taking measurements (which seems to be what you have in mind); it is a theory of epistemology which holds that knowledge is primarily experiential. (It just happens that many psychologists are causal empiricists, but it has nothing per se to do with their love of measurement.)
- im3w1l 12y ago
  Until very recently (mid 90's) many psychological phenomena were explained by childhood experiences, in line with Freud's psychoanalytical theory. Many of these have since been disproved. One criteria I have for trustworthiness of a scientific discipline is that of stability. If the previous theory has been found to be very wrong, very recently, then I am cautious to trust again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_theory#Critics_of_psychoanalytic_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_theory#Critics_o... Specifically note that his theory, although debunked, still lives on in philosophy and literature analysis. This "stickiness", that people refuse to give up the theory when proven wrong is additionally a bad sign. Recovered memory therapy is a recent failure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy
  - cmdli 12y ago
    At least in the US, up until the 50's/60's behaviorism (which at least claims to be based in observation) was a dominant school of thought in psychology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism In the 1950's, behaviorism fell out of favor (primarily because it lacked the explanatory power for some things, especially language).
  - mtraven 12y ago
    It's pretty funny to see Freud being trashed in a Marvin Minsky thread: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118555927.ch16/summary http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118555927.ch1...
  - pyrois 12y ago
    People really like to trash Freud, but you have to put him into context. Before Freud, we had a few branches of psychology: philosophical psychology in England arguing about empiricism vs. nativism, Wundtian psychology in Germany sitting around asking very specific questions that they answered using introspection, and in the States we had the very first blossoming of the behaviorism that would dominate psychology in the States until the '60s[0]. Some of these approaches had a concept of the subconscious, but they all viewed it as a static warehouse for previous experience, and very few people thought about it in a serious way. Freud's major contribution to psychology was that we actually have a dynamic subconscious that profoundly affects how we live our lives. This aspect of his theory has become so ingrained in our culture that it's hard to imagine the world before Freud. Also, that aspect of his theory has held up over the years. Also, he got a number of things correct: many of his coping mechanisms have strong empirical support, for instance. Freud was wrong in detail, but his overarching approach changed psychology for the better. [0] Yes, I know this "history" is a vast oversimplification.
kleiba 12y ago
I bought the book some 15 years ago when my interest in AI was on its peak. I remember not being too impressed by it, but I always wanted to go back and give it a second try, especially since I cannot really remember the reason I didn't like it too much. I believe it was that I found some of the earlier ideas (every page basically describes one idea) not totally convincing, or maybe I just wasn't able to follow the later ones?

by nabaraz 12y ago

nichochar 12y ago

I'm confused, you recommend it? Or you don't

lgas 12y ago
I think perhaps you missed the "enough" after the parenthetical. He recommends it highly.
biot 12y ago
He could care a great deal less about it.

dnt404-1 12y ago

Why do find psychology to be speculation? Do they not use empiricism in their studies (maybe not all of them)?

theVirginian 12y ago
He/she's trying to seem intelligent by dismissing psychology. That is why it is speculation.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kylebgorman 12y ago
"Empiricism" does not usually refer to taking measurements (which seems to be what you have in mind); it is a theory of epistemology which holds that knowledge is primarily experiential. (It just happens that many psychologists are causal empiricists, but it has nothing per se to do with their love of measurement.)
im3w1l 12y ago
Until very recently (mid 90's) many psychological phenomena were explained by childhood experiences, in line with Freud's psychoanalytical theory. Many of these have since been disproved. One criteria I have for trustworthiness of a scientific discipline is that of stability. If the previous theory has been found to be very wrong, very recently, then I am cautious to trust again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_theory#Critics_of_psychoanalytic_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_theory#Critics_o... Specifically note that his theory, although debunked, still lives on in philosophy and literature analysis. This "stickiness", that people refuse to give up the theory when proven wrong is additionally a bad sign. Recovered memory therapy is a recent failure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy
- cmdli 12y ago
  At least in the US, up until the 50's/60's behaviorism (which at least claims to be based in observation) was a dominant school of thought in psychology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism In the 1950's, behaviorism fell out of favor (primarily because it lacked the explanatory power for some things, especially language).
- mtraven 12y ago
  It's pretty funny to see Freud being trashed in a Marvin Minsky thread: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118555927.ch16/summary http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118555927.ch1...
- pyrois 12y ago
  People really like to trash Freud, but you have to put him into context. Before Freud, we had a few branches of psychology: philosophical psychology in England arguing about empiricism vs. nativism, Wundtian psychology in Germany sitting around asking very specific questions that they answered using introspection, and in the States we had the very first blossoming of the behaviorism that would dominate psychology in the States until the '60s[0]. Some of these approaches had a concept of the subconscious, but they all viewed it as a static warehouse for previous experience, and very few people thought about it in a serious way. Freud's major contribution to psychology was that we actually have a dynamic subconscious that profoundly affects how we live our lives. This aspect of his theory has become so ingrained in our culture that it's hard to imagine the world before Freud. Also, that aspect of his theory has held up over the years. Also, he got a number of things correct: many of his coping mechanisms have strong empirical support, for instance. Freud was wrong in detail, but his overarching approach changed psychology for the better. [0] Yes, I know this "history" is a vast oversimplification.

kleiba 12y ago

I bought the book some 15 years ago when my interest in AI was on its peak. I remember not being too impressed by it, but I always wanted to go back and give it a second try, especially since I cannot really remember the reason I didn't like it too much. I believe it was that I found some of the earlier ideas (every page basically describes one idea) not totally convincing, or maybe I just wasn't able to follow the later ones?