About

Hi, I’m Wojtek. I am a philosopher and historian of science. My research focuses on the intersection of philosophy & cognitive (neuro)science, while investigating history of quantitative ideas on the side. Accordingly, I try to answer two central questions: what are the promises and perils of using information theories to explain the mind, and how has the historical rise of statistics shaped our modern standards of rationality?

Currently, I am a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Warsaw, affiliated with the Section for Logic and Cognitive Science. I hold two MAs from the University of Warsaw: one in philosophy, and one in history (with distinction). My PhD research at PAN, supervised by Prof. Marcin Miłkowski, culminated in my dissertation, Information-based Explanations in Cognitive Science. You can check it out, alongside my other papers, in the Publications section.

My Research

Philosophy in/of Cognitive Science

My research lies at the intersection of philosophy and cognitive science (especially neuroscience and psychology). I am interested in how philosophy can actively contribute to cognitive science through formal tools and models (“philosophy in cognitive science”), as well as how it can evaluate the field from a meta-level (“philosophy of cognitive science”). Through these dual lenses, I focus primarily on the philosophy of information and computational theories of mind.

More specifically, my current work investigates the scope and status of information theories in explaining both natural and artificial cognition. My PhD dissertation combined novel ideas about structural representations and semantic information with an epistemological assessment of how much explanatory power information-based theories actually hold. Stemming directly from this foundation, two papers I recently wrote focus, respectively, on compression-based accounts of representation, and defining genuine generativity. They are both currently under review, but you are welcome to read the manuscripts (in the Publications section).

In another extension of my PhD research, I argue that current debates about the “decouplability” criterion of representational mechanisms mysteriously ignore the temporal dimension. I propose conceptualizing detachability—or representational “distance” (following Brian Cantwell Smith)—through the offline/online processing distinction. Cross-referencing these categories yields a much more fine-grained, empirically sound taxonomy of the gradient from non-representational to representational states.

Recently, I have also started exploring the philosophical consequences of the two-point neural architectures postulated by Bill Phillips. I investigate how introducing context-sensitive mechanisms into a single neuron can help us navigate key problems in the philosophy of neuroscience, such as error detection and conflict resolution (a challenge I call the Semantic Judge problem). This work has direct ramifications for debates on representation and predictive processing (new collaboration with Tomas Marvan from the Czech Academy of Sciences).

Other issued I worked on in the past include: cognitive penetrability of perception, algorithmization in AI ethics, the status of representational format in neuroscience, and informational accounts of inference. I hope I can revive at least some of them (especially the last two!).

I also reviewed for Philosophy of Science, Philosophical Psychology, Cognitive Systems Research, Kriterion, Avant: Journal of Philosophical Vanguard, Balkan Journal of Philosophy and served as a scientific editor for Filozofia Nauki (top Polish philosophy of science journal) since 2022.

History of Quantification

On the history of science side of things, I am quite bewitched by the omnipresence and deep trust in numbers, stats, and data in pretty much all domains of life nowadays. Hence, as a historian, I wish to understand how and why this came to be. Following brilliant scholars of this problem (especially Ted Porter, Ian Hacking, and Lorraine Daston), I call this process “quantification.” My research is geared towards pinpointing both the causal mechanisms of this emergence and its ramifications. Naturally, I tend to focus a lot on the case of Polish history (from the 19th century onwards) within this big picture, which is quite a quirky (and as such—highly instructive) case in the grand scheme of the history of stats. It’s also absolutely unexplored so far, which makes it exciting.

In particular, I want to argue for the shift in “standards of rationality” brought about by this flood of metrics and calculations — a central thesis of my ongoing book-length project in the Cognitive History of statistical thinking. For this purpose, I combine methods from the history and philosophy of science, the history of ideas, and STS, alongside quantitative tools (the irony is not lost on me here). You can perhaps now sense why I strongly believe that history and philosophy of science are not disconnected fields of study for me, but deeply integrated ones (hence my investment in the Integrated HPS approach).

This core research has also generated two major spin-off projects. The first explores the history of statistics in sustainability sciences, titled To Foresee and Forestall. The second translates these historical developments for a broader audience: I currently have a popular science book about the history of quantification, titled Przewaga liczebna. Jak nauczyliśmy się kochać liczyć (=Numerical Advantage: How We Learned to Love Counting), almost ready for publication.

On My Desk: Selected Current Projects

Where I’ve Been

I’ve presented my research across Europe and beyond - from Warsaw to Pasadena, Paris to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Around the site

If you are interested in some of these problems, you are cordially invited to check the Projects or Publications tabs for more detailed information. The former covers bigger projects that are well advanced, but still under construction, whilst the latter contains published texts or ones that are at least already in a readable form (drafts or manuscripts currently under review).

I also have some popular writing under my belt, these can be found in ‘Popular Writing’ section (no points for this one, sorry!). Topics covered are ones I study academically, only in much edible form and include mindreading, theories of consciousness, practical merits of doing philosophy (all three coming up within the next two months!) and an essay on the history of modern numbers-mania called Metricracy featured in Znak magazine. Others are still in the process of being published in other weeklies and monthlies, but you can already check out the manuscripts (albeit in Polish only!).

You may also find slideshows of selected conference talks and lectures that I gave under the ‘Talks’ banner. Current languages available include English, Polish, and… Mongolian! Note: all talks are properly equipped with abstracts and slides for now, but that will change soon!

Lastly, I thoroughly enjoy talking ideas and collaborating, so do not hesitate to get in touch via e-mail: wojciech.mamak@gmail.com (you can also use the sidebar on the left), if some of the problems I work on grabbed your interest, too!

Extracurriculars

When not busy doing history and philosophy of science (and that is quite a chunk of my time, admittedly), I consume an unholy amount of sports, chiefly soccer. Some years ago, American football also became a revelation. Apart from regular game-watching, I am particularly interested in how stats are introduced into sports (and their limitations).

Travelling the world is certainly my favourite pastime. From the most lackluster Polish backwaters to faraway corners - I sign up for a trip whenever possible. My hopeless intention is to visit all the 193 countries (counter now at 115/193) someday. Which is decisively arbitrary and rather shallow - I concede. To make matters even worse, I’m always hellbent on bringing fridge magnets back home.

Other things I hugely enjoy include playing football, too, chess (used to be really decent!), video games, electronic music and memetics. I also care a lot about experimenting with food from around the globe (both as a producer and a consumer—in teleosemantic terms). Apart from literal cooking, cooking up word charades is usually even more fun. I also collect football jerseys, support Legia Warsaw & Everton F.C., and am supported by Fąfel the Bernese Mountain Dog.