Omar Claflin

Explaining cognitive science, computational intelligence, and human language, from a psychological viewpoint. Also, an argument against bad ideas from modern scientists and philosophers, new-age mystics and religion, and as a potentially useful explanation to those who spent less time reading and thinking about why the human brain is the way it is.

[Preface below]

Table of Contents

1. Understanding

2. Purpose

3. Interest (& Free Will)

4. Wonder

5. Obscurity

6. Subjectivity

7. Philosophy

8. Language (as Information Extraction)

9. Intuition

10. Scope

Conclusion

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Preface

I wrote this book circa 2012-2013, circa third/fourth year of my PhD, bored with my graduate work, held hostage by a system who wouldn’t let me graduate yet, even though we had gotten my major and only graduate school project I had poured three years of effort into, published on the cover of the highest ranked journal (as I later realized, likely I was delayed from graduation to keep me around for cheap labor/expertise for an ill-fated get-rich-quick startup attempt that followed in the next couple years).

For additional context about the topic in this book, I was noticing a lot of bad arguments from both sides of the atheism vs religion debates that were popular at the time (Dawkins) via books and debates. The religious side seemed to corner nuance while the atheist side seemed to corner clarity; with each respective appropriation stuck with the baggage of either nonsensical old texts or lifeless reductionism.

There was also an uptick of new-age mystics (Chopra), panpsychics (consciousness-as-reality) people, dramatic scientism priests (Neil de Grasse Tyson) and cognitive philosophers (Dennet, Harris) framing reality & our minds from a terribly impoverished lens. Finally, I found myself articulating explanations for apparent contradictions and paradoxes of the human brain and the universe to interested friends and family members, so I ended up writing lengthier emails and then ultimately, a book. On retrospect, looking at this over fifteen years later, some of my writing around this time was definitely influenced by a polemic style, as a reaction to the tone of debates and books I was reacting to, as well as the casual context of a conversation to friends, in attempt to make my viewpoint more interesting.

Also, some of my later chapters (Language) now seem mildly quaint in, how emphatically I argued the now obvious viewpoint of human language as reducible, now nearly as background noise in 2025 with AI chatbots. My insistence that language patterns could be successfully captured by artificial means, was against the seemingly loud technological disbelievers/luddites of the time. (I’m not saying that the current AI chatbots are ‘highly intelligent’ or the best writers now, by the way, but the ‘Turing test’ challenges posed 10-15 years ago was arguing against that basic language tasks would ever be automated via technology). However, with the current environment of persistent AI hype, I would currently adopt an opposite tone about the sheer amount of human intelligence that current AI is leaving on the table.

Some of these chapters were slightly changed and published as articles, later during my postdoctoral scholarship (~2014-2015).