In short, by cogiatics I mean: The study of how the thoughts we think evolve. What’s a thought? Most of what goes on in your consciousness that is not perceptual experience is a thought. Inner monologues, sudden revelations, visualizations, having a song stuck in your head, etc.
I feel like ‘evolution’ isn’t the best frame for understanding this. Evolution is constrained in ways that make it analyzable, such as genes needing to reproduce and the need to compete for/obtain scarce energy and share of the genetic pool. Some of these features are shared with the field of memetics, but not all and I think memetics as a subject is generally weaker as a result (I don’t know any real conclusions memetics has come to as a field). I’m not sure what constraints would exist for congiatics such that it could be properly theorized. ‘Natural selection’ on its own is just the observation that things survive non-arbitrarily over time and this creates structure. I think that without mechanisms/constraints like reproduction this kind of framing is less useful than an economic or psychology framework (I think they would have clearer and more accurate predictions). If you have any ideas for how to constrain theorizing, I’d be interested to hear them. I would also be interested to know if you think there have been any conclusions reached by the field of memetics.
I would think it's difficult to consider this without taking into account time frame, right? What distinguishes thoughts from beliefs, among other things, is that they come and go in the blink of an eye whereas beliefs persist for some time (which also raises the question of how you draw the temporal boundaries for what counts as a single "thought" - is it like James's temporal present?). At times it sounds like you are speaking of an extended train of thought, other times individual thoughts.
It's really interesting to hear this topic from an evolutionary point of view rather than the usual phenomenological approach (e.g. micro-phenomenology research program in cognitive science; efforts at descriptive experience sampling"). But maybe at the end you were speaking to the need for phenomenological methods. I know there was an extended debate between Eric Schwitzgebel and Russell Hurlburt over the possibility of accurate tracking thoughts and other experiences:
You might be interested in this Slate Star Codex post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/
I feel like ‘evolution’ isn’t the best frame for understanding this. Evolution is constrained in ways that make it analyzable, such as genes needing to reproduce and the need to compete for/obtain scarce energy and share of the genetic pool. Some of these features are shared with the field of memetics, but not all and I think memetics as a subject is generally weaker as a result (I don’t know any real conclusions memetics has come to as a field). I’m not sure what constraints would exist for congiatics such that it could be properly theorized. ‘Natural selection’ on its own is just the observation that things survive non-arbitrarily over time and this creates structure. I think that without mechanisms/constraints like reproduction this kind of framing is less useful than an economic or psychology framework (I think they would have clearer and more accurate predictions). If you have any ideas for how to constrain theorizing, I’d be interested to hear them. I would also be interested to know if you think there have been any conclusions reached by the field of memetics.
I would think it's difficult to consider this without taking into account time frame, right? What distinguishes thoughts from beliefs, among other things, is that they come and go in the blink of an eye whereas beliefs persist for some time (which also raises the question of how you draw the temporal boundaries for what counts as a single "thought" - is it like James's temporal present?). At times it sounds like you are speaking of an extended train of thought, other times individual thoughts.
It's really interesting to hear this topic from an evolutionary point of view rather than the usual phenomenological approach (e.g. micro-phenomenology research program in cognitive science; efforts at descriptive experience sampling"). But maybe at the end you were speaking to the need for phenomenological methods. I know there was an extended debate between Eric Schwitzgebel and Russell Hurlburt over the possibility of accurate tracking thoughts and other experiences:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516495/describing-inner-experience/