by Albert Major
The human brain is estimated to contain 10 to 100 billion individual nerve cells or neurons Each of these neurons can have as many as 10,000 connections to other neurons.
the mind is the most complex entity in the known universe
We have learned more about the mind in the past half-century than in all the time that came before that.
Cognitive science is the scientific interdisciplinary study of the mind. Its primary methodology is the scientific method
Cognitive science is a collaborative effort among researchers working in the various fields (philosophy, psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and neuroscience, among others)
Cognitive science is the intersection between these fields
Cognitive scientists started out viewing the mind as an information processor. (this is Cognitive science’s “theoretical perspective”)
Information processing = Computation
Information processors must:
A mind, according to this perspective, must incorporate some form of mental representation and processes that act on and manipulate that information
Most cognitive scientists view the mind as a machine or mechanism whose workings they are trying to understand
Cognitive science is heavily influenced by the development of the digital computer