By Eben van Tonder, 26 April 2025

Abstract

Human cognition, since antiquity, has been conceptualized as a structured, rational pursuit: from Platonic idealism through Aristotelian logic, Euclidean geometry, Augustinian theology, and Aquinas’ scholastic synthesis. This tradition culminated in the Enlightenment, establishing system thinking as the intellectual engine of Western civilization. Recent technological analogues, such as the servo-controller-inverter architecture, represent modern manifestations of this worldview—emphasizing stability, feedback, and subsystem coordination. However, Geoffrey Hinton’s contemporary insight radically challenges this paradigm, suggesting that humans are primarily “analogy machines” with only a thin surface of logical reasoning. This thesis explores the historical development of cognitive system models, the emergence of modern control theory, and the disruptive implications of Hinton’s analogy-driven model for our understanding of both individual cognition and civilizational coherence.

1. Introduction: The Origins of Cognitive System Thinking

The evolution of human thought structures can be traced through a lineage of towering figures:

• Plato (c. 427–347 BCE) conceptualized Forms: perfect, stable ideals underlying the chaotic flux of the physical world. Knowledge was seen as recollection of these immutable truths.
• Aristotle (384–322 BCE) rejected mystical Forms for empirical categorization and logical deduction, constructing the first formal system of reasoning (the syllogism) and emphasizing cause-and-effect relationships.
• Euclid (c. 300 BCE) crystallized systematic thought in Elements, organizing geometry into axioms, theorems, and proofs—a foundational model for all subsequent formal structures.
• Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE) Christianized Platonic idealism, emphasizing internal rational illumination, while blending system thinking into theology.
• Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) unified Aristotelian logic and Christian theology, proposing a grand hierarchical system of knowledge, nature, and divine order.

Thus by the Middle Ages, human thought in the West became characterized by a belief in ordered systems—accessible through reason, stable across time, and reflecting a divine or logical order.

2. The Enlightenment: Rationality as the Default

The Enlightenment (17th–18th centuries) codified these inherited structures into secular intellectual norms. Rationalism, empiricism, and systemization (Descartes, Newton, Kant) were celebrated as the definitive paths to knowledge. Humans were seen as fundamentally reasoning machines, capable of building vast coherent systems—political, scientific, mechanical.

Crucially, Western civilization adopted not just individual conclusions (e.g., geometrical proofs, political constitutions) but the methodology:

• Define axioms.
• Apply strict logical rules.
• Derive conclusions systematically.

This process created a civilizational “sameness”: a broad block of people thinking in Platonic, Aristotelian, Euclidean, Aquinasian modes—leading to similar structures of law, science, and governance.

It is important to recognise, however, that solving problems independently and from first principles has always been extremely difficult. Rather than inventing solutions afresh, individuals and civilizations tend to take existing models and progress them, adapting earlier systems in light of new technologies and conditions. Every system is born within a prevailing technological matrix; its assumptions, structure, and possibilities are bounded by the tools and understandings of its time.

True competitiveness, whether in engineering, philosophy, or commerce, often lies not in inventing from nothing, but in slightly progressing existing ideas to fit new realities. This principle underpinned the transformation of business models like Woody’s Consumer Brands, where the goal was not merely to build another factory, but to integrate the latest meat science, branding, marketing insights, and capacity optimization into a new, competitive structure. Similarly, ongoing redesigns in African equipment sales and ingredient distribution reflect a continual progression, adapting older paradigms to better fit the current technological and commercial environment.

Thus, Western civilization’s reliance on rational structures has always been supported by pragmatic analogy: using existing systems and improving upon them, rather than reconstructing logic anew for every generation.

3. Industrial Systems: From Philosophical Control to Mechanical Control

The philosophical lineage found a technological expression during the Industrial Revolution and later:

• Servo systems
• Inverters
• Controllers

These mechanisms embody core ideas inherited from the past: manage complexity by creating stable sub-systems with feedback loops. Rather than controlling an entire unpredictable machine directly, you control small parts independently, then integrate them into a larger system.

Servo-Inverter-Controller architectures thus mirror:

• Platonic belief in hidden order
• Aristotelian cause-and-effect rationality
• Euclidean modularization
• Scholastic hierarchical integration

As aptly stated, these technologies are “philosophy in motion”: material expressions of ancient intellectual frameworks, dynamically adapted to increasingly complex and interconnected environments.

It is critical to note that allowing complexity to flourish depended on managing data and subsystems differently. Instead of demanding total, monolithic control, modern systems accept plurality: multiple independent components operating under local rules, coordinated but not strictly dominated. Thus, technological progress echoes philosophical evolution: moving from singular systems toward layered, federated, feedback-driven architectures.

4. Hinton’s Intervention: Humans as Analogy Machines

Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer of neural networks and recent Nobel Prize laureate, proposes a fundamental disruption: humans are not primarily reasoning systems; they are analogy engines.

In his 2025 interview, Hinton states:

“We are great big analogy machines. We work by seeing analogies—not just one thing, but lots of things. There’s a thin layer of reasoning on top, but most of what we do is analogy.”

This insight suggests:

• Human cognition is based on pattern recognition, similarity matching, and cross-domain mappings
• Logical reasoning is secondary, thin, and largely reserved for specialized tasks (e.g., mathematics, banking, engineering)

Thus, Hinton challenges:

• The Platonic search for fixed “Forms”
• The Aristotelian ideal of systematic causality
• The Euclidean method of proof
• The Augustinian and Aquinasian belief in a fully rational divine-human order

Crucially, Hinton’s view aligns with the practical reality that humans rarely have time or energy to reconstruct entire systems from scratch. In fields as diverse as business, technology, ethics, and law, we operate within culturally-provided structures, selecting carefully where to innovate and where to follow inherited norms. Thus, Hinton’s model mirrors both individual cognition and collective civilizational strategy: progress through analogy, occasional selective reasoning, and pragmatic adaptation to new circumstances.

5. Is Hinton a Continuation or a Break?

Continuation:
Hinton’s neural networks are conceptually descended from pattern-seeking traditions (like Plato’s perception of Forms through glimpses) and Euclid’s construction of complex structures from simple elements. In this sense, his work grows organically from ancient methods of relating the particular to the universal.

Break:
However, Hinton breaks decisively from the assumption that rationality is primary. Where Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and the Enlightenment thinkers saw rational deduction as the highest faculty, Hinton repositions pattern matching and analogy-making as the foundational layer of human cognition.

This is not merely a scientific correction but a civilizational reevaluation.

6. Implications for Western Thought and Civilization

If Hinton is correct, Western civilization’s uniformity of structure — its legal codes, scientific methods, and governance models — does not result solely from “pure” rational thought, but from culturally-shared analogies inherited from its foundational thinkers.

Thus:

• We do not think through every idea independently
• We copy, apply, and adjust pre-existing templates established by Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Augustine, Aquinas, etc.
• Our logical systems are built on deep, often unconscious, patterns of analogy transmitted across centuries

Therefore, the “sameness” of Western outcomes — scientific revolutions, constitutional democracies, industrial systems — may be the result not of universal rationality, but cultural analogy chains solidified into tradition.

Importantly, this analogy-based continuity enables stability: each generation does not need to reconstruct its moral, economic, or scientific frameworks from the ground up. Culture provides a stable scaffold, allowing targeted innovation and collective growth without existential chaos.

7. Conclusion: From System Thinking to Pattern Thinking

The historical progression from Platonic Forms to servo-driven machinery reflects humanity’s attempt to stabilize complexity through systematization.

Hinton’s analogy model forces a new reckoning:

• Humans stabilize the world by analogy first, reason second
• Civilizations build themselves by repeating successful analogies, not re-deriving everything logically
• Systems like the Servo-Controller-Inverter embody our traditional craving for subsystem management — but the mind itself might be far more fluid, intuitive, and analogy-driven than we ever assumed

Thus, the next intellectual revolution may demand a shift from designing purely logical systems to building analogy-rich environments, both in AI and in human learning.

Competitiveness, adaptability, and resilience will increasingly depend on how skillfully we progress existing models rather than reinventing from first principles—a truth reflected equally in ancient philosophy, modern industry, and the newly emerging cognitive sciences.

References

• Plato. (c. 380 BCE). The Republic.
• Aristotle. (c. 350 BCE). Metaphysics.
• Euclid. (c. 300 BCE). Elements.
• Augustine of Hippo. (c. 400 CE). Confessions.
• Thomas Aquinas. (1274). Summa Theologica.
• Hinton, G. (2025). Interview on Human Cognition and Analogy.
• Sporns, O., Tononi, G., & Kötter, R. (2005). The Human Connectome. PLoS Computational Biology.