arXivDaily arXiv每日学术速递 周一至周五更新
arXiv 2102.06592q-bio.NC
收藏

神经科学表征的哲学理解

A Philosophical Understanding of Representation for Neuroscience

Ben Baker, Benjamin Lansdell, Konrad Kording

摘要:

神经科学家经常将神经活动描述为某种事物的表征,或者声称已经找到了神经表征的证据。但这些声明是什么意思呢?将某些神经活动称为表征的理由以及与该术语相关的假设通常无法从其在神经科学中的常见用途中得到明确解释。表象是心灵哲学的一个核心概念,其历史可以追溯到古代。为了澄清它在神经科学中的用法,我们在这里提出了这个术语在这些学科中的内涵之间的联系。我们利用哲学中广泛的话语来区分表征的三个关键方面:对应、功能角色和目的论。我们认为,这些方面的每一个都隐含着这个术语在神经科学中所起的解释作用。然而,在旨在确定表征的个别研究过程中,很少提出或讨论与所有这三个方面有关的证据。忽视这三个方面的重要性阻碍了神经科学的交流,因为它掩盖了实验范式的局限性,掩盖了我们对主要感兴趣的现象的理解中的差距。从这三个部分的观点出发,我们讨论如何朝着更清晰的沟通大脑中的表征。

英文摘要:

Neuroscientists often describe neural activity as a representation of something, or claim to have found evidence for a neural representation. But what do these statements mean? The reasons to call some neural activity a representation and the assumptions that come with this term are not generally made clear from its common uses in neuroscience. Representation is a central concept in philosophy of mind, with a rich history going back to the ancient period. In order to clarify its usage in neuroscience, here we advance a link between the connotations of this term across these disciplines. We draw on a broad range of discourse in philosophy to distinguish three key aspects of representation: correspondence, functional role, and teleology. We argue that each of these aspects are implied by the explanatory role the term plays in neuroscience. However, evidence related to all three aspects is rarely presented or discussed in the course of individual studies that aim to identify representations. Overlooking the significance of all three aspects hinders communication in neuroscience, as it obscures the limitations of experimental paradigms and conceals gaps in our understanding of the phenomena of primary interest. Working from this three-part view, we discuss how to move toward clearer communication about representations in the brain.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

↑