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Codes, communication and cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2019

Stevan Harnad Open the ORCID record for Stevan Harnad [Opens in a new window]
Stevan Harnad*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal (Québec) H3C 3P8, Canada; Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, SouthamptonSO17 1TW, UK. harnad@soton.ac.uk
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Abstract

Brette criticizes the notion of neural coding because it seems to entail that neural signals need to “decoded” by or for some receiver in the head. If that were so, then neural coding would indeed be homuncular (Brette calls it “dualistic”), requiring an entity to decipher the code. But I think Brette's plea to think instead in terms of complex, interactive causal throughput is preaching to the converted. Turing (not Shannon) has already shown the way. In any case, the metaphor of neural coding has little to do with the symbol grounding problem.

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Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e231
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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