On Theories Of Mind In Cognitive Science

How does mind work? This is an old philosophical question while it is a hot question of contemporary scientific research too. There is great theoretical and realistic meaning to deep study on this question for enriching Marxism epistemology, for standardizing and promoting contemporary cognitive science. New developing cognitive science tries to explain the working mechanism of mind in the way of information process of the computer in the 20th century. The main task of this paper is to probe into the solution of the mind's working mechanism problem in cognitive science under the guidance of Marxism philosophy, to analyze Computer Metaphor and two paradigms~the rationality and limitation of Symbolism Paradigm and Connectionism Paradigm in the field of mind, and to make apropos appraisal on their position and function in it.In the first chapter of this paper the historical process of " Computer Metaphor" is discussed from the ideal to the reality. The possibility of Computer Metaphor and the significance of the metaphor in epistemology research are also analyzed in this chapter. For thousands of years, being unable to hold one's own mind directly, the mankind usually imagines psychological world according to a certain tangible thing. This metaphor about the brain is a computer nowadays. As to the issue on "why computer can be a metaphor of brain ", this paper comes to answer from two aspects. The answer in substantial level is that the working principles of both computer and human brain are basically similar. The answer in metaphysical level is to analyze the possibility of Computer Metaphor philosophically. The philosophical foundation of Computer Metaphor is: the unity of mind and material, the consistency of thinking law and natural law, and the implicating relationship between the advanced movement forms and the low-grade movement forms. The appearance of Computer Metaphor has great significance on the study on epistemology; it turns to the mankind'srecognition of subject. It is the sign that mankind turns to study on the subject. It indicates the research of the subject is no longer discussed only in philosophical level, but diligent in the accurate and specific direction. The mankind 's recognition developed from the perspective of material, energy to information is a leap in history. Computer can provide enlightenment for development of human intelligence.The second chapter of the paper discussed two major achievements of Computer Metaphor: Symbolism Paradigm and Connectionism Paradigm. They come to imitate the human brain functionally and structurally. Symbolism Paradigm imitates the human brain in terms of function, and makes greater success in some aspects such as playing chess, theorem identification, and expert system. In the paper the function simulation of Symbolism Paradigm has analyzed about its practice and theory, and has probed into its ontology prerequisite and methodology foundation in terms of philosophy. The mind-body relation theory of Symbolism Paradigm has discussed in the paper. The theoretical foundation of Symbolism Paradigm is "Physical Symbolic System Hypothesis". This hypothesis assumes that the human brain is a kind of physical symbol system. Symbolism Paradigm has stronger explanatory strength, especially in explaining the advanced cognitive course, such as thinking, question solving, language comprehension, etc. The paper has carried on the philosophical analysis to function simulation. The extreme of Symbolism Paradigm is to regard human mind vs. human brain just as computer's software vs. the hardware. The software of the computer is independent of the hardware; a kind of software can run on different hardware, accordingly, the mind does not depend on the human brain either. So, the ontology of Symbolism Paradigm is a dualism. Methodologically, it is a kind of function simulation, "black box "method and a kind of holism research tactics. On the mind-body relationship, it belongs to functionalism. Connectionism Paradigm comes to imitate the human brain in terms of the structure. Its theoretical foundationis Parallel Distributed Processing. Connectionism pays attention to the hardware. Many connectionists think that the hardware is really important. It is opposite to the "Hardware does not matter" of Symbol Processing Paradigm. Connectionist model, Artificial Neural Networks, embodies the basic characteristics of the human brain. The paper has also carried on the analysis on philosophy in Connectionism Paradigm. On ontology, Connectionism is obviously materialism monism. On methodology, Connectionism overweighs structure simulation, "gray box" method, adopts the reductionism research tactics. On the mind-body relationship, it belongs to Identity Theory of mind-brain, the doctrine of such strong physicalism. The end of this chapter discussed the possibility that these two kinds of research paradigms merge each other. The paper holds that these two kinds of research paradigms can be united.The problem of machine intelligence is discussed in Chapter three of this paper. In this chapter the standard of intelligence has been probed into at first, then the discussion on the theoretical predicament of the intelligence of the machine has been carried on from four respects. I . The challenge from mathematics. The challenge from mathematics comes from the two aspects of algorithm and complexity. As there are limitations in algorithm, many things in the universe can't be calculated in algorithm. Once meeting with the index number explosive, computer will do nothing about it. II .The challenge from phenomenology. The essential feature of consciousness lies in the aspects of its intentionality and qualia, and self-consciousness is a kind of unique form among consciousness, but machines can't have these features, which are characterized by consciousness. III. The challenge from folk psychology. For some easy questions, people will have no difficulty in answering them, but it is a big problem for computers. Language comprehension is not difficult for human being while it is not so easy for machines. IV. The challenge from sociology. The computer models designed nowadays neglected the details ofexternal surroundings with no exception. The most computers used for establishing models have no connection with this world except that there is a keyboard by which the programs are put into commands. After analyzing the challenges that computers meet, we have got to know that we shall take an attitude to Computer Metaphor. Those viewpoints of strong AI think that computers themselves have the same intelligence with human mind are totally wrong. We must give them up. Weak AI thinks that it is reasonable to regard computers as just a kind of tool for the research in human mind.At the end of the paper, the world ideology of computationalism is criticized. The paper points out that the essential feature of computers is machines. The world ideology of computationalism thinks that not only cognition and life can be regarded as a calculating process but also whole cosmos can be regarded as a huge calculating system. The book of the nature is written in algorithm language and cosmos is a huge calculating system. This viewpoint of all-purpose calculation is wrong. In fact, computer is no more than a kind of machine. The author offers the assumption on the research of mind in the conclusion: we can borrow "ant metaphor" to study the human mind from the angle of the exchange between mind and surroundings. The ant metaphor implies the research strategies that will focus on the relation between mind and objectivity, including the relation between human being and physical world, the internal relation among human being, etc. Through the combinations between computer metaphor and ant metaphor, macro cosmos and micro cosmos, internal and external brain, individual and society, we can interpret the mysteries of mind. Thus, they can give useful inspirations to each other if we combine the individual brain consciousness and the social consciousness.