PSYC 100 Lecture 6: PSYC100 – Lecture 6

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Oliver Michael Hardt

Document Summary

Psyc100 lecture 6 (thursday, 20th september: robot example , what - behavioural description without explanation, why motivational/environmental/evolutionary explanations, how mechanistic explanation, braitenberg vehicle (simple systems complex behaviour) Speed is controlled by sensor", direction is always forward unless external force changes it controlled by motor". Fear and aggression labelled coward and perp respectively. True love and one night stands: true love vehicle hovers around, one-night stand vehicle approaches fast and possible attracted to another perturbation. Useful to consider simple explanation of behaviour rather than complex because complex explanation usually arises from small simple set of principles. William of ockham: ockham"s razor given several explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest one should be accepted. More complex explanations are harder to falsify (generate more post hoc explanations) We have a problem of reductionism here. Everything in the robot we as humans or researchers we have put in ourselves.