The Causal Topography of Cognition

TL;DR

This paper explores the causal structure of cognition, emphasizing its simulation versus implementation limitations and highlighting its invisibility to observers, which affects our understanding of cognitive processes.

Contribution

It introduces a conceptual distinction between simulating and implementing the causal structure of cognition, emphasizing its unique invisibility compared to physical phenomena.

Findings

Cognition's causal structure can be simulated but not implemented.

Its invisibility to observers complicates understanding.

Highlights limits of computational models of cognition.

Abstract

The causal structure of cognition can be simulated but not implemented computationally, just as the causal structure of a comet can be simulated but not implemented computationally. The only thing that allows us even to imagine otherwise is that cognition, unlike a comet, is invisible (to all but the cognizer).