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Neural Redundancy and Its Relation to Neural Reuse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

John Zerilli
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Abstract

Evidence of the pervasiveness of neural reuse in the human brain has forced a revision of the standard conception of modularity in the cognitive sciences. One persistent line of argument against such revision, however, cites the evidence of cognitive dissociations. While this article takes the dissociations seriously, it contends that the traditional modular account is not the best explanation. The key to the puzzle is neural redundancy. The article offers both a philosophical analysis of the relation between reuse and redundancy as well as a plausible solution to the problem of dissociations.

Type
Cognitive Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1191 - 1201
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I gratefully acknowledge the suggestions of those who either read or heard this article, in particular Kim Sterelny, Andy Barron, and Richard Menary.

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