The temporal dimension of thought

Markus Werning

pp. 203-224

in: Gerhard Schurz, Hannes Leitgeb (eds), Non-monotonic and uncertain reasoning in cognition, Synthese 146, 2005.

Abstract

The paper argues that cognitive states of biological systems are inherently temporal. Three adequacy conditions for neuronal models of representation are vindicated: the compositionality of meaning, the compositionality of content, and the co-variation with content. Classicist and connectionist approaches are discussed and rejected. Based on recent neurobiological data, oscillatory networks are introduced as a third alternative. A mathematical description in a Hilbert space framework is developed. The states of this structure can be regarded as conceptual representations satisfying the three conditions.