Refocusing Neuroscience: Moving Away from Mental Categories and Toward Complex Behaviors

Abstract

Mental terms—such as perception, cognition, action, emotion, as well as attention, memory, decision making—are epistemically sterile. We support our thesis based on extensive comparative neuroanatomy knowledge of the organization of the vertebrate brain. Evolutionary pressures have molded the central nervous system to promote survival. Careful characterization of the vertebrate brain shows that its architecture supports an enormous amount of communication and integration of signals, especially in birds and mammals. The general architecture supports a degree of “computational flexibility” that enables animals to cope successfully with complex and ever-changing environments. Here, we suggest that the vertebrate neuroarchitecture does not respect the boundaries of mental terms, and propose that situating research in terms of behavior systems provides a more promising approach.

The future of intelligence: The central meaning-making unit of intelligence in the mind, the brain, and artificial intelligence

“…Although mental structures, such as attention, memory, and reasoning need not correspond to brain structures on one-to-one basis (Pessoa et al, 2021), grounding the theory above in the brain would require demonstrating that brain functioning involves the (search-andvary), (align-and-abstract), and (integrate-and-cognize) processes involved in noetron. Evidence is supportive (see Table 1).…”