Download After phrenology : neural reuse and the interactive brain by Michael L. Anderson PDF

By Michael L. Anderson

The machine analogy of the brain has been as largely followed in modern cognitive neuroscience as used to be the analogy of the mind as a suite of organs in phrenology. simply because the phrenologist may insist that every organ needs to have its specific functionality, so modern cognitive neuroscience is devoted to the suggestion that every mind area should have its primary computation. In After Phrenology, Michael Anderson argues that to accomplish an absolutely post-phrenological technology of the mind, we have to think again this dedication and devise another, neuroscientifically grounded taxonomy of psychological functionality.

Anderson contends that the cognitive roles performed through every one quarter of the mind are hugely quite a few, reflecting assorted neural partnerships tested lower than various conditions. He proposes quantifying the useful homes of neural assemblies by way of their dispositional traits really than their computational or information-processing operations. Exploring larger-scale matters, and drawing on facts from embodied cognition, Anderson develops an image of considering rooted within the exploitation and extension of our early-evolving ability for iterated interplay with the realm. He argues that the multidimensional method of the mind he describes deals a far better healthy for those findings, and a extra promising highway towards a unified technological know-how of minded organisms.

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Extra resources for After phrenology : neural reuse and the interactive brain

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First is the use of a culturally specific, acquired representational system—language—as a coding resource, and second is the application of a particular learned skill—silent inner speech—as a storage medium. These two together imply the third borrowing—of the neural resources used to support the first two functions. And note that all of this 26 Chapter 1 borrowing is done in support of what is likely an enhancement of a basic evolved function for storing small amounts of information over short periods.

These two together imply the third borrowing—of the neural resources used to support the first two functions. And note that all of this 26 Chapter 1 borrowing is done in support of what is likely an enhancement of a basic evolved function for storing small amounts of information over short periods. This raises the obvious question of whether and to what degree evolutionary pressures might have shaped the language system so that it was capable of just this sort of more general cognitive enhancement (Carruthers 2002).

First, evolvability appears to require that these tools be Neural Reuse in Brain Function 7 separately targetable by selection pressures (Barrett & Kurzban 2006); and second, the demand for immediate and efficient real-time operation points to massive parallelism. Together, these considerations appear to require a functional architecture featuring modular, separately modifiable nearly decomposable subsystems. Below I recount some of the evidence that the brain is not built this way and so return to the important issues of functional efficiency and evolvability at the end of the chapter.

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