Description
In cognitive approaches to religious phenomena theory concerning counter intuitive concepts, as proposed by Pascal Boyer, has been very influential. Religious concepts are counter intuitive because they violate our intuitive expectations associated with more or less innate domain-specific knowledge, e.g. a living dog that is made of stone. The central claim is that counter intuitive concepts have a transmission and memory advantage in cultural selection because the violation makes the concepts salient, while it is still possible to sustain predictions from their respective domain - the stone dog is still move and breath like a dog. Some concepts can be too counter-intuitive though which makes them impossible to remember, because the cognitive load is simply too high, a dog that is made of stone on Mondays, speaks every second week and sometimes is invisible. In other words there seem to be some constraints on counter-intuitiveness, which when breached results in a conflict between conceptual categories and an eradication of memory.With the aid of a simple feedforward neural network modeling concept acquisition, originally proposed by David E. Rumelhart, I will try to illustrate how transfers between concepts, while creating counter-intuitive concepts, can result in category conflicts and concept eradication. Furthermore I will stress that concepts has to be constrained by a context. And finally being a bit wary about certain so-called theory theory and nativist assumptions inherent in Pascal Boyer's cognitive framework, I will moderate such assumptions and point to the relevance of learning through patterns of covariation.
| Period | 25 Jun 2009 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Simulating Cultural Dynamics |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | AUShow on map |