Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T15:41:57.291Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Codes, communication and cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2019

Stevan Harnad Open the ORCID record for Stevan Harnad [Opens in a new window]
Stevan Harnad*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal (Québec) H3C 3P8, Canada; Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, SouthamptonSO17 1TW, UK. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Brette criticizes the notion of neural coding because it seems to entail that neural signals need to “decoded” by or for some receiver in the head. If that were so, then neural coding would indeed be homuncular (Brette calls it “dualistic”), requiring an entity to decipher the code. But I think Brette's plea to think instead in terms of complex, interactive causal throughput is preaching to the converted. Turing (not Shannon) has already shown the way. In any case, the metaphor of neural coding has little to do with the symbol grounding problem.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e231
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baluška, F. & Mancuso, S. (2009) Plant neurobiology: From sensory biology, via plant communication, to social plant behavior. Cognitive Processing 10(1):3–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harnad, S. (2006) The symbol grounding problem. In: Encyclopedia of cognitive science, ed. Nadel, L.. Wiley.Google Scholar
Harnad, S. (2009) The annotation game: On Turing (1950) on computing, machinery, and intelligence. In: Parsing the Turing test, ed. Epstein, R., Roberts, G. & Beber, G.. Springer Netherlands.Google Scholar
Searle, J.R. (1980) Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3(3):417–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shannon, C. E. (1948) A mathematical theory of communication. Bell Systems Technical Journal 27(3):379–423, 623–56. Available at: https://archive.org/details/bellsystemtechni27amerrich/page/379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turing, A. M. (1936) On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem. Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 2(1):230–65.Google Scholar
Turing, A. M. (1950) Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind 49:433–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar