The Foundations Of Cognitive Science

In this talk I will explore some foundational issues in cognitive science. Cognitive science was originally founded on the computational paradigm, according to which the brain is a digital computer and the mind is the software. The slogan often repeated in the early days was mind is to brain as program is to hardware. The discipline is now moving away from a computational based paradigm to a neurobiological paradigm. Cognitive neuroscience is gradually becoming the dominant explanatory model.

In this talk I will explore various foundational issues emphasizing some recent research on the neurobiology of consciousness and the role of consciousness in any account of human cognition.