The software/wetware distinction Comment on 'Toward a computational framework for cognitive biology: Unifying approaches from cognitive neuroscience and comparative cognition' by W. Tecumseh Fitch

摘要

Fitch [5] has not only articulated a growing consensus, after decades of ideological quarreling, about how to put cognitive science together, but in the process has attempted to advance the unification process with some bold strokes of his own. His proposal [4] that we take seriously the perspective which replaces "spherical neurons" (McCulloch Pitts logical neurons and their close kin) with neurons that are micro-agents with agendas and computational talents of their own, has been taken up by a variety of theorists, including myself [2,3]. Now his dendrophilia hypothesis promises to distill the core truths energizing the heated debates about the innate equipment that distinguishes the cognitive competences of our species from all others. Whether this promise can be kept is a wide-open empirical question, but Fitch has given us enough specification to justify a serious investment in answering it.