Aristotle argued that the elemental mental act is the…

Aristotle argued that the elemental mental act is the forma tion of an association-a connection between two or more ideas, so that recalling one evokes the other. Our brains weave vast webs of associations, giving human thought its richness. Sensations pour in, eliciting some initial associations, which summon other associa-tions, ultimately leading to the actions we take and the utterances we make. Dip a madeleine into tea and memories flood your mind. Based on this old concept, Hobbes and others hoped to create a mechanistic theory of thought, both for its own sake and for the broader project of explaining the universe. Without a theory of the mind, how can we be sure that we are able to apprehend what's really out there? These natural philosophers put forward laws that governed which associations would form and when. Importantly, they argued that our brains learn these connections from experience; they do not need to be born with them. In short, they introduced the two essential features of today's neural networks: that they are cat's cradles of linked information, and that they acquire this information by taking it in rather than being preprogrammed with it.

— from The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations) · Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists are Studying Human Consciousness an

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