The biological foundations of cognitive science

Abstract

Cognitive Science originated in reactions against behaviorism that were motivated in significant part by the example of the computer. The computer raised the exciting possibility that mind could be understood almost entirely independently of brain: if the operations of the mind are akin to the execution of a program, then almost all the relevant aspects of mind would be captured by that program, independently of whatever was running it, be it transistors or neurons. This presumed independence of cognitive science from biology has waned considerably in recent decades, but in this paper, I argue that there is at least one crucial aspect of biology that has yet to be appreciated for its relevance to mental and other normative processes—the thermodynamics of living systems. In particular, I argue that the emergence of normativity in general—and normative function and representation in particular—depends on special systems that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium; these form the interface between the factual world of atoms and molecules and the normative world of mind. The nature of that emergence, in turn, imposes strong constraints on how the central nervous system functions, and, therefore, on how cognition is realized.