{"title":"Res Cogitans – The Evolution of Thinking","authors":"Patrik Lindenfors","doi":"10.1007/s12304-024-09565-y","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>A somewhat prominent view in the literature is that language provides opportunity to program the brain with ‘cognitive gadgets’, or ‘virtual machines’. Here, I explore the possibility that thinking itself – internal symbolic responses to stimuli that are either intrinsic or extrinsic, and computational procedures that operate on these internal symbolic representations – is such a software product rather than just an emergent phenomenon of the brain’s hardware being ‘complex enough’, or the brain processing information in a manner that is ‘integrated enough’. I also present a testable hypothesis that would indicate the presence of such a thought-gadget, and briefly overview some evolutionary pre-requisites for its existence. Further, I explore some consequences the existence of such a gadget would entail for our understanding of consciousness. The nature of the gadget is left unspecified as the article is not a blueprint for the thinking gadget, but an argument in favor of its existence.</p>","PeriodicalId":49230,"journal":{"name":"Biosemiotics","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Biosemiotics","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-024-09565-y","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A somewhat prominent view in the literature is that language provides opportunity to program the brain with ‘cognitive gadgets’, or ‘virtual machines’. Here, I explore the possibility that thinking itself – internal symbolic responses to stimuli that are either intrinsic or extrinsic, and computational procedures that operate on these internal symbolic representations – is such a software product rather than just an emergent phenomenon of the brain’s hardware being ‘complex enough’, or the brain processing information in a manner that is ‘integrated enough’. I also present a testable hypothesis that would indicate the presence of such a thought-gadget, and briefly overview some evolutionary pre-requisites for its existence. Further, I explore some consequences the existence of such a gadget would entail for our understanding of consciousness. The nature of the gadget is left unspecified as the article is not a blueprint for the thinking gadget, but an argument in favor of its existence.
期刊介绍：
Biosemiotics is dedicated to building a bridge between biology, philosophy, linguistics, and the communication sciences. Biosemiotic research is concerned with the study of signs and meaning in living organisms and systems. Its main challenge is to naturalize biological meaning and information by building on the belief that signs are fundamental, constitutive components of the living world.
Biosemiotics has triggered rethinking of fundamental assumptions in both biology and semiotics. In this view, biology should recognize the semiotic nature of life and reshape its theories and methodology accordingly while semiotics and the humanities should acknowledge the existence of signs beyond the human realm. Biosemiotics is at the cutting edge of research on the fundamentals of life. By challenging traditional assumptions on the nature of life and suggesting alternative perspectives, it opens up exciting new research paths.
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