第65期清华大学科学哲学与技术哲学沙龙

主讲人：曹天宇教授（波士顿大学哲学系）
评论人：刘晓力教授（中国人民大学哲学系）
主题：认知、神经动力学与心
时间：2007年6月13日（周三）下午2点（比平时提前一个小时）
地址:清华大学新斋335（图书馆北侧）
联 系 人：史启娴
联系电话：62773013



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Abstract:

The dialectical relationship between cognition and mind, and thus the philosophical aspects of cognitive sciences, will be explored in three steps. First, the relevance of cognitive processes to the understanding of mind will be clarified: mental phenomena are nothing but special ways, or more precisely cognitive processes, by which the brain has addressed the adaptation problem of an organism in a pluralistic environment. Second, thus understood, three features of the mind will be accentuated: being embodied, embedded, and intentional. Third, these fundamental features, being intentional in particular, of the mind have severely constrained our understanding of cognitions, such as perception and conception, and at the same time have provided powerful methodological guidance for the investigations of cognitive processes. I will use recent developments in neurosciences, in particular the non-linear dynamical approach to the emergence of perception in the brain from external stimuli, mainly developed by Walter Freeman of UC-Berkeley, to illustrate the power of the above mentioned methodological guidance in scientific research, which in turn has lend further philosophical support to the existentialist understanding of the mind.