Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Downes, P.
2010
Unknown
Cybernetics and Human Knowing
Newtonian Space in Newell and Simon: Reply to Kinsella’s (2008) response to Downes (2006).
Published
()
Optional Fields
17
1
191
200
Downes (2006) argued that Newell and Simon's computational models rest on a blind spot (Luhmann, 1994) of static, non-interactive Newtonian space underlying their supposedly primitive functions (Newell, 1990) for cognitive science. Kinsella's (2008) response explores three main avenues in defence of cognitive science. Firstly, Kinsella (2008) purports to rely on the earlier work of Simon (1962) to supersede the subsequent work of Simon and Newell, while ignoring the problematic logical and empirical implications of doing so. Secondly, Kinsella (2008) offers a rhetorical strategy that both conflates key differences between conceptions of space in Newtonian and Einsteinian paradigms, and reiterates commonalities between Newton and Einstein, while overlooking that these commonalities were already explicitly recognised in Downes (2006). Kinsella (2008) claims to critique Downes (2006) through a third pathway, regarding the constructive pictorial explanation proffered by Simon's ant metaphor discussed in Downes (2006), yet Kinsella (2008) misunderstands this Simonian type of explanation, analysed in relation to the framework of Einsteinian space in General Relativity. A further confusion in Kinsella's (2008) text, which is addressed, pertains to the need to distinguish the different roles of computational models in psychological explanations, as opposed to those in economics.
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