2. Conceptualizing Simulation Theory

Author: Goldman, Alvin I.

Source: Simulating Minds, August 2006 , pp. 23-53(31)

Publisher: Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs

Key:

- Free Content

- New Content

- Subscribed Content

- Free Trial Content

Abstract:

This chapter clarifies the notion of simulation and explores the relationship between simulating and theorizing. Generic simulation is the resemblance or imitation of one thing by another, so mental simulation is the resemblance or imitation of one mental process by another. For example, visual imagery may simulate vision by using much of the same neural machinery that vision uses. The main empirical question here is whether third-person mindreading is substantially based on attempts to simulate selected processes and states in the head of a target. The possibility of limited compatibility between simulation and theorizing undercuts arguments that mental simulation inevitably “collapses” into theorizing, and the prospects for simulation-theory hybrids are explored.

Keywords: visual imagery; mental simulation; simulation-theory hybrid; resemblance; collapse

Document Type: Research article

This article is hosted on another website.

You may be required to register, activate a subscription or purchase the article before you can obtain the full text.

Proceed