COGS 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Language Of Thought Hypothesis, Categorical Logic, Propositional Attitude

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Cognitive Science
• Course: COGS 100
• Professor: dontremember

Document Summary

Thinking takes place in a mental language, in which symbolic representations are manipulated in accordance to the rules of a combinatorial syntax (grammar). Language of thought is thought to be a formal language, just like those utilized by physical symbol systems. The language of thought hypothesis is an implementation of the physical symbol structure hypothesis, and so the basic idea that problem-solving and thinking involve manipulating physical symbol structures. What is distinctive about the language of thought hypothesis is how it understands both the physical symbol structures themselves and the way that they are manipulated in information processing. According to the language of thought hypothesis, information processing is defined over sentences in the language of thought. The physical symbols are described as sentences: a propositional attitude is something that bears a special semantic relation to the world, to a have a meaning. The theory is that we think in statements about things.