Su suggerimento di @tonzapatonza e @jenji.

In un articolo pubblicato su Nautilus, lo scienziato del comportamento Nich Chater, autore del libro The Mind is Flat, contesta la convinzione diffusa che il nostro cervello possa lavorare inconsciamente per risolvere problemi che in un primo momento apparivano al di là delle nostre capacità.

Now and again, of course, thoughts do spontaneously “pop into our minds”—names we had struggled to remember, things we have forgotten to do, and occasionally even insights into tricky problems with which we have been struggling. But this isn’t the product of unconscious, background thought. It arises when we momentarily flip back to thinking about an old problem for a moment and, now free of the unhelpful mental loops which got us stuck in the first place, we almost instantly see a solution that had evaded us before—or, in some cases, dimly suspect where such a solution might lie. The “almost instantly” is key.

A questo articolo e al libro di Chater ha risposto lo scienziato cognitivo Jim Davies, sostenendo la presenza di memorie e pensieri inconsci.

Chater says, “With each thought, you’re taking up massive fragments of information and trying to pull them together.” But we’re not aware of how these fragments work together to constitute dogness. So how does Chater say that all thought is conscious? By tailoring the definition of “thought” to suit his conclusion.

Mental health psychology uses the term for things like “unwanted thoughts,” and here is where Chater’s argument is strongest. But in cognitive psychology and cognitive science, “thought” isn’t really a technical term. We kind of know what it means, but in general, cognitive psychologists and cognitive scientists don’t use the term “thought” to represent any key concept in their theories and explanations. If Chater were to start using more technical terms, he’d find himself in much deeper water. He might even see more of the iceberg.

Immagine da Wikimedia.