Mind architecture and brain architecture

Biology and Philosophy 12 (3):327-340 (1997)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

  The use of the computer metaphor has led to the proposal of mind architecture (Pylyshyn 1984; Newell 1990) as a model of the organization of the mind. The dualist computational model, however, has, since the earliest days of psychological functionalism, required that the concepts mind architecture and brain architecture be remote from each other. The development of both connectionism and neurocomputational science, has sought to dispense with this dualism and provide general models of consciousness – a uniform cognitive architecture –, which is in general reductionist, but which retains the computer metaphor. This paper examines, in the first place, the concepts of mind architecture and brain architecture, in order to evaluate the syntheses which have recently been offered. It then moves on to show how modifications which have been made to classical functionalist mind architectures, with the aim of making them compatible with brain architectures, are unable to resolve some of the most serious problems of functionalism. Some suggestions are given as to why it is not possible to relate mind structures and brain structures by using neurocomputational approaches, and finally the question is raised of the validity of reductionism in a theory which sets out to unite mind and brain architectures

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Cognitive architectures need compliancy, not universality.Richard M. Young - 2003 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (5):628-628.
Phenomenological architecture of a mind and Operational Architectonics of the brain: the unified metastable continuum.Andrew A. Fingelkurts, Alexander A. Fingelkurts & Carlos F. H. Neves - 2009 - Journal of New Mathematics and Natural Computing. Special Issue on Neurodynamic Correlates of Higher Cognition and Consciousness: Theoretical and Experimental Approaches - in Honor of Walter J Freeman's 80th Birthday 5 (1):221-244.
Prospects for an Ethics of Architecture.William M. Taylor - 2011 - Routledge. Edited by Michael P. Levine.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
69 (#214,873)

6 months
4 (#319,344)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Minds, brains, and programs.John Searle - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3):417-57.
Unified theories of cognition.Allen Newell - 1990 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
On the proper treatment of connectionism.Paul Smolensky - 1988 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 11 (1):1-23.
Minds, Brains, and Programs.John Searle - 1980 - In John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford University Press.

View all 25 references / Add more references