Obsessing the Truth.

In my last post, I explained what Cognitive Science is. I got into this study by dumb coincidence.. If you think failing a 2nd year calculus for a computer science student is a coincidence that is.

But that was not the only reason I got into cogsci. What was even more pressing is I lost my passion. I couldn’t see why I would like to continue my study in computer science anymore. I saw that there were more mathematical inquiries than real coding. I couldn’t see the value in it.

Lost passion + failing calculus = switch major

I was already 2.5 years into my 4 years study and I’m about to start over. Heh.

I looked through all major pre-requisites and all of them asked for GPA much higher than what I currently had. Until my eyes fall on cognitive science. It had the most rudimentary requirement to sign up. So sign up, I did.

If you are about to enter college, or have kids who are already thinking to enter college, or have anything to do with entering college, be very very sure of what you are getting into. It’s ok if you can’t put your fingers on what it would be like to study the subject. But you have to know exactly what is it that you are going to spend the next few years of your life waking up to and thinking about.

The first class I attended in Cognitive Science made me go “WTFISDIS”. I was sober and I thought I was drunk. That’s how bad it was. Those rudimentary requirements were probably a set-up to attract students to join the brand new study in U of T. And I was a prey.

But then I gave myself time to digest it

I started to appreciate it more and more. I grew to like it. I liked how it provoked my mindset. I loved how it questioned the core framework of my thinking. It was a great subject afterall. In one way or another, it changed my life.

There are many things I learned during my study

I know most of the reasons why we do what we do humans. I also learned, neuroscientifically, how our brain works. I could map what occurs in our mind to happenings in our brain. I had to.

There are 2 lessons I remember most. The first is about relevance. My professor was obsessed with relevance, and for a good reason. 

We use our relevance skill everyday, every minute without any trouble. In fact, we take it for granted. But there is no theory of relevance. There’s a theory of similarity & of proximity. There’s also gestalt theory. But none of them satisfies the definition of relevance.

Think about it: asking a waitress for the bill after you’re done eating is the right thing to do. You pay for what you eat, right? But asking your aunt for the bill after you’ve had a delicate dinner in her house is just wrong. Same action directed to two same sex humans in a different context lead to a different result.

What’s amazing is we’re able to do what is appropriate in many different context without much problem. There is no single robot that can do what I just described above. I hope now you appreciate how amazingly intricate our God given mind is. 

I was lucky to be John’s student because he and his colleague were starting to formalize a theory of relevance realization. He did not attempt to come up with definition of relevance; rather, he came up with a theory how relevance works and how it can be brought to life. By following his academic journey, I got to see his theory and it definitely changed the way how I shape my mind and how I see things. He sharpened my Occam’s Razor. Neat eh?

The second lesson that stuck with me did not come from a formal teaching. It came from John’s usual snarky remarks. He told the class this down-heartening statement: “All that I teach in this class may turn out to be wrong.” But he went on to say, “So I’m not going to emphasize so much on the theory. I’m going to develop and test your intelligence, especially in problem formulation and critical thinking.” So he was basically saying, “Dude, if you think you’re going to graduate from cogsci with a specific knowledge to be applied to a specific field of work, think again.”

I soon realized and got to appreciate that what is truly important is in the second half of his statement: I was going to possess a rare skill that many other university graduates might not have. What John bestowed to the whole class was a gem of wisdom.

I might not have graduated with a specific knowledge. When people asked me what could I do with my study in cogsci, I didn’t know what to say either. But the gem of wisdom is at the other side of the equation: I wasn’t educated to be a specialist, I was shaped to be a generalist. Put in another way, I could theoritically enter any field of work after graduating and be successful in it. The skills given to me through my cogsci study enabled me to flourish in any field. And I am forever thankful to John for that. 

If I have successfully sparked your interest in cognitive science and the human mind, worry not. I will definitely share many other things I learned in Cognitive Science in this blog. Slow and steady, young jedi. Slow and steady.

Do you know the most common sentences people say when they first meet a new person? These are 2 of them:

1. Which university did you go to?
2. What subject did you take?

I can answer the first one with full confidence because I had the privilege to go to one of the finest universities in the world. So I say, “I went to University of Toronto”. It’s the 2nd one I’m having problem with.

What subject did you take?

Uhhh… I majored in Cognitive Science

What comes next is a long silence or an awkward stare, almost 100% of the time. If you have ever asked those questions to me, you know it’s true. Sometimes I feel the urge to just say my minors instead, which were psychology and philosophy. But they’re not as mesmerizing :)

So what is Cognitive Science?

Stanford has the technical definition. It’s a definition that I sometimes use just because integrating 6 different disciplines into 1 makes me look cool (or at least I think so). But usually people can’t wrap their head around it and think I’m a freak instead.

So these days, I just say “it’s the science of thinking”. Keep in mind, this definition does not, in any way, reduce the probability that people think I’m a freak *sob*. But at least a definition that, I hope, is more understandable.

Think of physics. Physics is the attempt to turn physical law of nature into theories, formulas and equations that humans can see and comprehend. Because of those theories, formulas and equations, humans can then build something out of it. For example: cars, that’s the law of thermodynamics applied.

Now think of your mind; how you think. Cognitive science is the attempt to codify your mind just like physics tries to reduce law of nature into equations. The only difference is physics is entirely made up of material beings (atoms, particles, etc). Our cognition is a whole different beast.. or bitch, for that matter.

Those 6 different disciplines are to be integrated because they shape our mind; they shape how we think.

What is the implication?

Cognitive science is a a new field of study. If we ever succeed to codify our mind, then we will start seeing a true artificial intelligence. Not those robots who sweep the street or bring coffee to your bed in the morning. These will be beings that act like us, think the way we think, and make the same mistakes that we tend to make. It will be artificial “us”.

Now there are also moral and ethical implication of having an artificial “us” but I’m not going to argue about it here (or ever). If you now understand what cognitive science is, this is a post well-written :)

P.S. I think I should bit.ly’ed this post so the next time someone gives me that long stare after I answered their question, I can refer them to this page. If they still don’t understand, it’s their problem now D: