The Evolution of Decoupled Representation

By Lachlan Douglas Walmsley

According to folk psychology, human behaviour can be explained in terms of beliefs and

desires: Brutus desired to kill Caesar, and he believed that he could kill Caesar with a knife,

so Brutus stabbed Caesar. Humans also commonly use the terminology of folk psychology

when explaining a range of non-human action (see Dennett 1989). For example, subjects in

Heider and Simmel's (1944) experiments explain the movements of two-dimensional shapes

in terms of the shapes' beliefs and desires: the big triangle 'is shut up in the house and tries to

get out' (p. 247, my emphasis). According to Sterelny (2003) and Godfrey-Smith (2002b),

these are two distinct phenomena. The first is that humans have beliefs and desires, and the

second is that humans habitually interpret the behaviour of others in terms of beliefs and

desires.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1835205569
• ISBN13: 9781835205563
• Release Date: August 2023
• Publisher: Awasthihb
• Length: 84 Pages
• Weight: 0.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"