BI 233 Tom Griffiths: The Laws of Thought
From Brain Inspired by Paul Middlebrooks
March 11, 2026 · 1h 40m
About this episode
Tom Griffiths discusses his new book on the mathematical principles underlying cognition.
Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. The Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists. Read more about our partnership. Sign up for Brain Inspired email alerts to be notified every time a new Brain Inspired episode is released. To explore more neuroscience news and perspectives, visit thetransmitter.org. Tom Griffiths directs both the Computational Cognitive Science Lab and the Princeton Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence at Princeton University. He's been on brain inspired before to talk about his previous book Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions, which he co-wrote with Brian Christian. Today he's here to talk about his new book, The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind. In this book, Tom explains how the three pillars of logic, neural networks, and probability theory complement each other to explain cognition, arguing we are on the doorstep to…
People in this episode
Host: Paul Middlebrooks
Guest: Tom Griffiths
Topics covered
- cognition
- mathematical theory
- neural networks
- probability theory
- logic
- artificial intelligence
Keywords
- cognition
- mathematical theory
- neural networks
- probability theory
- logic
- artificial intelligence
- Tom Griffiths
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Princeton University, The Transmitter
Books & works: Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions, The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind
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