Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) Abstraction & Idealization: AI's Plato Problem [Mazviita Chirimuuta]
Jan 23, 2026
Professor Mazviita Chirimuuta, a philosopher of neuroscience and author of *The Brain Abstracted*, explores the intricate dance between neuroscience and philosophy. She highlights the pitfalls of oversimplification in scientific models and questions whether the brain truly functions as a computer. Delving into concepts like haptic realism, she argues for knowledge gained through interaction. Mazviita also discusses the ethical implications of digital attention and the complexity of biological systems that challenge the limits of current AI understanding.
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Lab Results Don’t Equal Real-World Cognition
- Neuroscience findings are reliable in the lab but risky to generalize to real-world cognition.
- Mazviita Chirimuuta warns that ecological complexity and interaction often determine behavior outside labs.
Abstraction Is A Practical Tool, Not Truth
- Abstraction and idealization reduce complexity to make science tractable but always misrepresent reality.
- Chirimuuta stresses these simplifications are tools born of human cognitive limits, not glimpses of a higher reality.
Kaleidoscope Thinking Echoes Plato
- Some AI researchers assume the universe has neat, decomposable rules (a 'kaleidoscope' view).
- Chirimuuta links that to Platonic thinking and warns scientists often create patterns via denoising choices.
