Psychology | Nick Byrd, Ph.D.

Where Does “Bottom-up” Bottom Out?

(Image credit: “Microglia and Neurons” by GerryShaw licensed under CC BY 3.0)

‘Bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ are staple concepts in cognitive science. These terms refer to more than one set of concepts, depending on the context. In this post, I want to talk about one version of ‘bottom-up’ and try to pin down what is at the “bottom” of cognition.

First, I should single out the meaning of ‘bottom-up’ that I have in mind. It is the one in which ‘bottom’ refers to the deterministic hardware and pre-conscious processes from which “higher level” processes like meaning, affect, and perhaps conscious awareness emerge. Continue reading Where Does “Bottom-up” Bottom Out?

Goals & Desires

Randy O’Reilly gave a talk at CU Boulder yesterday entitled “Goal-driven Cognition in the Brain:….” It was an excellent look at how goals have emerged in cognitive science and psychology and how goal-based models have improved upon previous behaviorist models. He also told a story about how goal-driven cognitive models can be grounded in neurobiology.¹ There are two reasons I mention this talk. First, Randy’s talk convinced me that “goals” have a valuable place in the ontology of mental states. Second, his talk helped me realize an example that shows how goals and desires are dissociable. In this post, I will talk about this second item. Continue reading Goals & Desires

Do We Need Bargh’s Selfish Goals?

(Photo credit: “Crack [Cocaine]” by Agência Brasil licensed under CC by 3.0)

This week I will be at the 2013 Consciousness and Experiential Psychology conference and the 4th Annual Experimental Philosophy Workshop in Bristol, England. I look forward to (1) feedback and (2) afternoon tea. Below is a précis of a paper I will present:

John Bargh and colleagues have recently outlined “Selfish Goal Theory” (see Huang and Bargh, forthcoming). They claim that (1) mental representations called “goals” which are (2) selfish, (3) autonomous, and sometimes (4) consciously inaccessible adequately explain a variety of otherwise puzzling behaviors (e.g., addiction, self-destructive behavior, etc.). The details of (1) through (4) are below.

Continue reading Do We Need Bargh’s Selfish Goals?

Abstract

This paper attempts to specify the conditions under which a psychological explanation can undermine or debunk a set of beliefs. The focus will be on moral and religious beliefs, where a growing debate has emerged about the epistemic implications of cognitive science. Recent proposals by Joshua Greene and Paul Bloom will be taken as paradigmatic attempts to undermine beliefs with psychology. I will argue that a belief p may be undermined whenever: (i) p is evidentially based on an intuition which (ii) can be explained by a psychological mechanism that is (iii) unreliable for the task of believing p; and (iv) any other evidence for belief p is based on rationalization. I will also consider and defend two equally valid arguments for establishing unreliability:the redundancy argument and the argument from irrelevant factors. With this more specific understanding of debunking arguments, it is possible to develop new replies to some objections to psychological debunking arguments from both ethics and philosophy of religion.

Continue reading Derek Leben’s “When Psychology Undermines [Moral and Religious] Beliefs”