TITLE:
The Cognitive Gap, Neural Darwinism & Linguistic Dualism —Russell, Husserl, Heidegger & Quine
AUTHORS:
Hermann G. W. Burchard
KEYWORDS:
Cognitive Gap, Perception, Phenomena, Transcendental Ego or Self, Prefrontal Cortex PFC, Parietal Cortex PC, Top-Down Processing, Default Mode Network DMN. Language L, Universe U, Language System (or Machine) LS, Logos Machine, Noumenal Cosmos NK, Conceptual-Categorical Apparatus CCA, Pre-Linguistic Structure pLs, Internal Structural-Historical Records ISHR, Formal Linguistic Dualism LD
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Philosophy,
Vol.4 No.3,
August
6,
2014
ABSTRACT: Guided by key insigths of the four great
philosophers mentioned in the title, here, in review of and expanding on our
earlier work (Burchard, 2005, 2011),
we present an exposition of the role played by language, & in the broader
sense, λογοζ, the Logos, in how the
CNS, the brain, is running the human being. Evolution by neural Darwinism has
been forcing the linguistic nature of mind, enabling it to overcome &
exploit the cognitive gap between an animal and its world by recognizing
environmental structures. Our work was greatly influenced by Heidegger’s
lecture notes on metaphysics (Heidegger, 1935).
We found agreement with recent progress in neuroscience, but also mathematical foundations
of language theory, equating Logos with the mathematical concept of
structure. The mystery of perception across the gap is analyzed as radiation
and molecules impinging on sensory neurons that carry linguistic information
about gross environmental structures, and only remotely about the physical
reality of elementary particles. The most important logical brain function is
Ego or Self, guiding the workings of the brain as a logos machine. Ego or Self
operates from neurons in frontopolar cortex with global receptive fields. The
logos machine can function only by availing itself of global context, its
internally stored noumenal cosmos NK, and the categorical-conceptual
apparatus CCA, updated continually through the neural default mode
network (Raichle, 2005).
In the Transcendental Deduction, Immanuel Kant discovered that Ego or Self is
responsible for conscious control in perception relying on concepts &
categories for a fitting percept to be incorporated intoNK. The entire CNS
runs as a “movie-in-the-brain” (Parvizi & Damasio, 2001),
at peak speed processing simultaneously in a series of cortical centers a stack
of up to twelve frames in gamma rhythm of 25 ms intervals. We equate global
context, or NK, with our human world, Heidegger’s Dasein
being-in-the-world, and are able to demonstrate that the great philosopher in
EM parallels neuro-science concerning the human mind.