(An essay I submitted for my Philosophy MOOC I took on Coursera)
Cognitive science aims to describe the structure and nature of cognition, perception and information processing capabilities of mind. Consciousness has been a hot topic among philosophers of all ages. There are many philosophical ideas which directly or indirectly relate to consciousness e.g. Skepticism, Descartes’ Dualism, Solipsism, Idealism to name a few.
Cognitive Science attempts to answer the kind of questions raised by philosophy of mind e.g. the nature of consciousness, content of thoughts, self-awareness, relation of mind with body, what causes consciousness etc and thus provides a rich set of phenomenon for both philosophers and scientists to ponder. It also provides a framework of reasoning based upon experimental evidence using latest brain-imaging techniques and advances in medicine and neurology.
In lectures on Consciousness we learned about different meanings we might associate with the word consciousness. It was argued that there is something special about consciousness that can’t be explained by traditional reductionist approach, as is the case with (say) physical sciences. This presents a big challenge for us because this implies that we might never be able to answer the questions.
Alan Turing’s paper on Universal computing machines and recent progress in Machine Learning suggest a fresh perspective. From this point of view, mind can be considered as a computing machine which learns from its environment. This raises interesting question about the kind computations brains might be doing. David Marr suggests that thinking about these questions can be a good way of gaining insight about working of the brain.
We also learn how the debate between natural selection and social learning explains the process of learning and adaptation. Evolutionary psychology maintains that we have “stone age” minds in our modern skulls, because the minds we have now are the ones evolved by our ancestors many years back. The concept is demonstrated by using examples from social settings -which we are very good at- and requirements of urban era i.e. reaction to snakes and spiders versus reaction to having no seat belt.
Lastly, lectures on Embodied cognition introduce us to a new way of thinking about brain processes. Specifically, it suggests that brain gets a lot of help in day to day task from the body which it supports. For example, when one walks, it surely is brain stimuli directing the action. But there are many other muscles involved in carrying out that action and it is possible that those actions be carried out without information processing that is attributed to brain. This was demonstrated using a robot which seemed to walk quite naturally, even though it had no brain or controller to do all the calculation required for spatial navigation.
Thus, we see that cognitive science opens new horizons for philosophers to explore along with a myriad of new approaches. It can set the direction for current and future philosophical discourse. It also brings to light a host of new problems which the philosophers have to deal with and many new findings which should ultimately be integrated into the framework of Philosophy of Mind.
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