Category Theory for Cognitive Science

If you have ever found yourself unable to communicate with a fellow cognitive scientist then this workshop at CogSci 2022 in Toronto is for you. Category Theory could be our theoretical lingua franca, but it is also the mathematical area devoted to the characterization of structure and structure is at the heart of many key concepts in cognitive science such as recursion, composition, and universality.

Applying Category Theory to the topics of cognitive science could hold great promise for standardizing our language, letting us see the deep similiarities and differences in our contending theories, and allowing us to better leverage the insights of philosophy, logic, theoretical computer science, applied mathematics, and graph theory (areas where Category Theory is also being actively applied) to better understand the problems of our own area. This workshop will assume no mathematical background beyond the basic notions of sets and functions. The three workshop faculty working with me: Steven Phillips, Geoffrey Cruttwell and Toby St Clere Smithe; are all category theory experts with experience applying category theory's "tools" to cognitive and neural settings.

Hope to see you there.