Reasoning as simulation |
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Authors: | Nicholas L Cassimatis Arthi Murugesan Perrin G Bignoli |
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Institution: | (1) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA |
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Abstract: | The theory that human cognition proceeds through mental simulations, if true, would provide a parsimonious explanation of
how the mechanisms of reasoning and problem solving integrate with and develop from mechanisms underlying forms of cognition
that occur earlier in evolution and development. However, questions remain about whether simulation mechanisms are powerful
enough to exhibit human-level reasoning and inference. In order to investigate this issue, we show that it is possible to
characterize some of the most powerful modern artificial intelligence algorithms for logical and probabilistic inference as
methods of simulating alternate states of the world. We show that a set of specific human perceptual mechanisms, even if not
implemented using mechanisms described in artificial intelligence, can nevertheless perform the same operations as those algorithms.
Although this result does not demonstrate that simulation theory is true, it does show that whatever mechanisms underlie perception
have at least as much power to explain non-perceptual human reasoning and problem solving as some of the most powerful known
algorithms. |
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