Talk:Cognition/Archive 1

EntmootsOfTrolls would have liked this article to be part of User:EntmootsOfTrolls/WikiProject Body, Cognition and Senses, which provides guidelines for articles on those topics, and seeks stronger cross-linkage and cross-cultural treatment of all of these topics.

It seems to me that reality is reduced to "bits": on;off, zeroes;ones, photon; no photon, vibration; no vibration. All of your speculation boils down to this fundamental idea: Cognition is the conversion of photons and sound waves to molecluar shapes (neurotransmitters) which neurons recognize and respond to.

I suppose we need a more general treatment here before the discussion of the international journal.

Errr, yes, this is probably, along with scientific method and history, on the list of top-three important concepts to define properly here. Hmmmm. It is very disturbing that it took this long to be approached. But not all that surprising, given the many 20th century dinosaurs we have here with their adherence to various theories of truth via symbol. Experience also is quite crap. The two must be corrected in tandem, and knowledge with 'em. EofT

My starting assumption is that cognition is how experience becomes knowledge. Any objection to that starting point? EofT

Agreed - some philosophical, psychological, intellectual-type wikipedian needs to write an article on the thought processes etc... I'd think that the 'journal' Cognition ought to be a mere sidenote. KJ

I have a couple of questions about this sentence (keep in mind I'm only a second year university student so I may be a little off). It seems to me that reality is reduced to "bits": on;off, zeroes;ones, photon; no photon, vibration; no vibration. All of your speculation boils down to this fundamental idea: Cognition is the conversion of photons and sound waves to molecluar shapes (neurotransmitters) which neurons recognize and respond to. Does that mean that our cognitive thought is done throughout the entire brain? If so then I'm wondering how could anyone offer any compelling evidence to back that claim up? Or does it mean that human thought is restricted to one section? If so what is that section? Lurter 18:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there,

I've rewritten a large chunk of the article. The last few paragraphs (from "By the 1980s...") reflect a minority view that I'm not sure should be in an encyclopaedic article, especially one about cognition. Certainly societies can make decisions but almost no psychologists would describe them as cognitive processes.

The gate control theory of pain seems to be a wide open door to that. Ron Melzac does seem to make the claim that there is collective cognition or at least sharable perception of human pain - and pain control methods. This may be a radical view, and you can note that it is if you think so, but it can't really be omitted. Especially not with stuff like morphogenetic fields and our sharing visual perception being so reliant on culturally shaped norms. It's really up in the air just how much cognition, as we can define it scientifically via mathematics as a measurement system, can be said to be objectively confined to individual bodies. See cognitive science of mathematics and some of the views of Eugene Wigner on this.

I've left them in for the time being but I think they should ultimately go. Anyway, my 2ps worth - Vaughan 14:22, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Always good to have a scrap over this stuff. But I'd say that no one approaches cognition from the mechanistic paradigm (brain is like machine, body is like machine) any more.

Unfortunately, it is probably the dominant view in cognitive science. Interpretations vary though from 'computation is a metaphor we use to understand cognition' to 'cognition is computation'. Zenon Pylyshyn argues specifically for this latter view. - Vaughan 08:36, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The point about

By the 1980s, researchers in the Engineering departments of the University of Leeds, UK hypothesized that 'Cognition is a form of compression'

is that Cogn. is a survival mechanism which utilizes data compression to gain efficiency, and thereby a competitive advantage over other forms which do not cognize. If a situation can be 'tagged', it can be manipulated. 169.207.90.178 16:09, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

An amplification, here is the chain of reasoning based on statement 1:

Cognition is a form of compression
For embodied entities, which have to survive,the compression process is a form of optimization.
i.e., this confers a competitive advantage in speed, storage, efficiency etc
Species with a competitive advantage will propagate more than those who do not.
Thus more cognition occurs.
This is self-similar, and hence self-organizing behavior.

169.207.90.100 03:57, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hm, either way it's uncited, and never has been - I can't find anything in google scholar searching for those keywords. has anyone successfuly done this? It's probably the oldest passage in the article, dating back to 2003 (!)

--150.203.47.8 02:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting. It reminds me of Donella Meadows' twelve leverage points to intervene in a system. But it seems to accept an information theory assumption that reality can be reduced to "bits" - I think that is a weak assumption, one that is increasingly challenged as having a subject-object problem. Cognition isn't really reducible to a sequence of bits, and if it could be, we'd have to ask: to whom is it so "reducible"?

Self-ness is not the point. See, for example, the logical truth-functions. The "bits" correspond directly to human words, such as "If P then Q". Logic consists of propositions ala Bertrand Russell. The Cyc project regularly produced cognitions by a machine. 169.207.90.17 08:02, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I would very much like to see a source regarding cognition as compression as I'm doing a research project on the topic next semester. Anybody have any luck tracking this down? I'm going to try and do some cleanup on this article this winter, if I have time. J.S. Nelson (talk) 08:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Conation[edit]

I created a stub on conation. I know next to nothing about it, but I feel it deserves similar treatment as cognition. If you know anything about conation, please expand it. Thanks! --Lenehey 17:02, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Very small change, may help[edit]

It seems to me that reality is reduced to "bits": on;off, zeroes;ones, photon; no photon, vibration; no vibration. All of your speculation boils down to this fundamental idea: Cognition is the conversion of photons and sound waves to molecluar shapes (neurotransmitters) which neurons recognize and respond to.

(01/02/06)

Counterintuitive verbiage[edit]

I'm having trouble making sense of the first two sentences of the "Cognition in mainstream psychology" section:

The sort of mental processes described as cognitive or cognitive processes are largely influenced by research which has successfully used this paradigm in the past. Consequently this description tends to apply to processes such as memory, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery.

Does anyone else cognate this? Perhaps it is trying to say "In mainstream psychology, the term cognition is used to refer to memory, attention, perception . . . and processes associated with these phenomena are termed cognitive processes." --Smithfarm 14:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Definition[edit]

Definition of Cognition is elusive. I find that Tolman's is still best albeit all these years: “mental models” of information, “indicating routes and paths and environmental relationships” in Tolman, Edward C., 1948, “Cognitive Maps In Rats And Men”, The Psychological Review, 55(4), 189-208. Comments please. Editors of the article may like to insert it in the approp. location.--Connection 18:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal[edit]

How about a section on the classical philosophers views of cognition? Would that be appropriate? For example, Descartes (i.e. his famous passage on cognition and 2 + 2 equalling 4), Liebnitz, Hume, Locke, Kant. --Kenneth M Burke 01:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Confused about confusion[edit]

The article says this: {{Articleissues|original research=September 2007|confusing=September 2007|technical=January 2008|contradict=January 2008}}

I would love to try and help improve the article, but it would help if people would be specific about what technical issues and contradictions there would be? --Michelle