Product Description of 'Human Cognition: Higher Brain Function & the Science of Human Consciousness'

摘要

The Cognitive System Theory introduced here provides the first fully scientific model of how the hominid brain works, and explains how its two masterstrokes of cognitive development are achieved for each and every one of us in childhood. It explains how the mind originates and develops its power, on the way resolving the 'duality' problem. It explains how cognition is modularly structured and how this system is case-managed under endogenous control. It introduces fresh ideas about perspective in knowledge representation. It identifies consciousness in its various aspects with cognitive control, and an elegant matrix representation of its interacting control elements reveals the stereotypical transitions in control morphology which characterise child development. The origin of endogenous sequence-management skills is explained, as is the acquisition from within subjective experience of an objectified self-model, contingent and peculiar to the bipedal hominid. Part 1 begins with the mind, explained as a cognitive competence won out of hesitancy to commit to action in a cognitive field of play. • This is the 'gold card' but counter-intuitive invitation to attain a fulfilling and sustaining mental life. • Not in the 1000 years since the imagery and charm of Omar Khayyam’s RUBAIYAT has a more practical guide to a satisfying life emerged, of the kind Aristotle, Descartes and Kant searched out. Part 2 continues with both cognition and consciousness, integrated into a control model of human cognition which subsumes incoherent neuronal activity and generates our coherent experience of it. Its power extends to understanding cognitive unpreparedness and failure to act. • It represents the 'owner’s guide' for constructing an effective and resilient adulthood. • In the tradition of Freud (psychoses), Horney (neuroses), Ellis (REBT) and Hayes et al.'s 'Acceptance and Commitment Therapy' (ACT), it formulates a more integrated and complete model for psychological counselling, and identifies for practical self-help the true source of emotional distress. Part 3 explores the implications of an autonomous, information-hiding, cognitive system for representing cognitive content (memory & knowledge) as it is stored and refined in the brain. • Its guidance fosters capabilities for cognitive mastery and expert learning. • It explains more generally what Jean Piaget in the '60s described as 'operational' learning in child development and recasts his 'genetic epistemology' into a robust and generative cognitive framework. Part 4 investigates the changing morphology of consciousness, deriving a matrix specification involving the interaction of its ten 'intensive' quality control elements and ten 'extensive' performance control elements. • Its message speaks to wisdom, construed as decidability, leadership and personal authority. • Its wider significance lies in providing the roadmap to break the 50-year impasse in cognitive science, AI & robotics concerning the true nature of intelligence, in providing a 'computable' route to unpredictable self-awareness, by emulating the self-model, and its mental empowerment.