New Books Network Tom Griffiths, "The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind" (Henry Holt and Co., 2026)
Feb 4, 2026
Tom Griffiths, cognitive scientist and head of Princeton’s AI Lab, explores the centuries-long quest to mathematize thought. He traces logic from Boole to modern probabilistic and neural approaches. Listens cover rule-based systems, neural networks and backpropagation, and how large language models blend frameworks while still differing from human minds.
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Math Made Minds Scientific
- The cognitive revolution began when psychologists used mathematics to study internal mental states rigorously.
- Mathematics provided the tools to make thoughts and language testable scientific subjects, like physics did for nature.
Three Mathematical Views Of Thought
- Three mathematical frameworks shaped cognitive science: rules and symbols, neural networks, and probability.
- Each framework captures different aspects of thought: discrete rules, graded representations, and reasoning under uncertainty.
Boole: Teacher Who Algebraized Logic
- George Boole, a schoolteacher and mathematician, invented an algebraic system that formalized logical reasoning.
- His work gave us the foundations of mathematical logic used to model thought processes.
