著者

土谷 尚嗣 西郷 甲矢人

出版者

日本認知科学会

雑誌

認知科学 (ISSN:13417924)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.26, no.4, pp.462-477, 2019-12-01 (Released:2020-03-01)

参考文献数

29

被引用文献数

1

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One of the biggest mysteries in current science is how subjective experience, or consciousness, arises from objective substance and its physical interactions, such as human brains. Since 1990s, empirical and scientific studies on the relationship between consciousness and brain have advanced massively, especially thanks to neuroscientific approaches. Despite its empirical progress, there remains skeptical philosophers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists, who consider the science of consciousness is impossible,partly because the concept of consciousness is so difficult to define. Due to this difficulty, they argue, scholars who claim that they are empirically researching consciousness even do not know what they themselves are talking about. These skeptics hold that scientific methods cannot be applied to concepts that are not possible to define. In this article, we argue that consciousness is possible to rigorously define in a strict mathematical sense. To build this logic, we introduce category theory, which is a theory developed in mathematics in the latter half of the 20th century. Category theory is a framework originally invented to deal with relationships among objects, in particular between algebra and geometry. In recent years, category theory has been recognized for its potential to be applied to consciousness research. Throughout this paper, we propose several concrete examples of Consciousness Category and, eventually, we conclude that we can apply “Yoneda’s lemma” to Consciousness Category. Yoneda’s lemma, one of the most fundamental and powerful tools in category theory, says, in simple terms,that definitions of any concept is the same as descriptions of all relationships between the concept and the others. This striking viewpoint, which is founded mathematically,provides the validity to the act of defining consciousness through descriptions of relationships. We end with a future perspective; enriching Consciousness Category will provide a common language among researchers who disagree in some aspects of their respective definitions of consciousness. Common language is a necessary component for the big breakthrough to solve the mystery of consciousness.

著者

森口 佑介 土谷 尚嗣 西郷 甲矢人

出版者

公益社団法人 日本心理学会

雑誌

心理学研究 (ISSN:00215236)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.94.22403, (Released:2023-06-30)

参考文献数

39

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One important problem in current cognitive development research is the lack of theory. In this article, therefore, we propose a cognitive development theory based on mathematical structures. Specifically, we first focus on the concept of structure, which is the concept Piaget introduced to cognitive developmental research. Piaget’s theory was mainly inspired by mathematical group and lattice, but many concepts Piaget himself invented (e.g., grouping) were difficult to deal with in a mathematically rigorous manner. Therefore, here, the authors recapture some of the concepts proposed by Piaget in a mathematically understandable form based on the concept of mathematical category, a generalization of the group. Furthermore, we would like to introduce cognitive developmental research on structural concepts since Piaget and suggest directions for future research.

著者

土谷 尚嗣 西郷 甲矢人

出版者

日本認知科学会

雑誌

認知科学 (ISSN:13417924)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.27, no.2, pp.221-225, 2020-06-01 (Released:2020-06-15)

参考文献数

24

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In our recent essay [Tsuchiya, N. & Saigo, H. (2019). Understanding consciousness through category theory, Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 26, 462–477], we provided a general introduction of category theory to consciousness researchers. Further, we also provided our tentative theoretical sketches on our latest ideas on how to apply tools in category theory into consciousness research. In particular, we discussed how we can propose categories of level of consciousness and categories of contents of consciousness. We also speculated what (if any) these efforts will bring into consciousness research. In this short piece, we will address several comments we received on our essay in the same issue from six experts, providing some clarification on three issues: 1) significance of our proposal of a novel viewpoint to enrich what it means to define consciousness, 2) possibility of category theoretical interpretation of consciousness,and 3) understanding of consciousness through the enriched category theoretical framework.

著者

.企画代表者(Representative Organizer):森口 佑介 企画者(Organizer):渡部 綾一 話題提供者(Speaker):渡部 綾一 川島 陽太 中村 友哉 森本 優洸聖 石原 憲 指定討論者(Discussant):土谷 尚嗣 司会者(Chair):森口 佑介

雑誌

日本心理学会第86回大会

巻号頁・発行日

2022-07-29

著者

森口 佑介 渡部 綾一 川島 陽太 中村 友哉 森本 優洸聖 石原 憲 土谷 尚嗣

出版者

公益社団法人 日本心理学会

雑誌

日本心理学会大会発表論文集 日本心理学会第86回大会 (ISSN:24337609)

巻号頁・発行日

pp.SS-013, 2022 (Released:2023-07-07)

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主観的で現象的な「○○であるという感じ」を意識と呼ぶ。近代心理学を創設したヴントやジェームズは,意識を心理学のテーマとしたが主観的な意識は実証主義を目指した心理学から排除されてきた。しかし近年は計算論的アプローチの導入や脳活動計測技術や心理学的実験パラダイムの発展により,主観的な意識を客観的な行動や脳活動と結びつける取り組みが進められてきた。これらの取り組みにより神経科学や工学,心理学等複数の分野にまたがる学際性を持つ重要なテーマとして意識の研究が進められている。本シンポジウムでは様々な視座から意識の理解・解明に挑戦している5人の若手研究者が,現在最前線で意識研究を行っている土谷と議論する。川島は意識の神経相関とその階層性,中村は錯視の時間形成,森本は知覚処理と運動・決定に関する処理の分離,石原は身体と外環境のインタラクションの熱力学的定式化,渡部は意識の発達について話題提供する。本領域のトップランナーである土谷を迎え,現在の心理学研究は意識に迫ることができるか,また迫るためには何が必要かを皆さんと一緒に考えたい。