“认知革命”与“第二代认知科学”刍议

Cognitive Revolution and Second-Generation Cognitive Science

以计算隐喻为核心假设的传统认知心理学以及联结主义心理学均不能克服离身心智(disembodied mind)的根本缺陷,当代认知心理学正面临着新的范型转换。以具身性和情境性为重要特征的第二代认知科学将日受重视,并促使认知神经科学进入新的发展阶段。作者认为在身心关系上应该坚持生理只是心理的必要条件,而非充分条件的立场,克服生理还原论的危险;应该重新审视基于二元论的生理机制这种说法;心理学传统中的科学主义和人文主义有可能在第二代认知科学强调认知情境性的基础上达成某种融合;第一代认知科学对意识的研究是不成功的,因为对知觉、注意、记忆、思维等心理过程的研究不能代替意识的研究,同时还应避免以意识内容的研究取代心理学研究的倾向。第二代认知科学中的动力系统理论关于变量(因素)之间的偶合(coupling)关系完全不同于变差分析中的变量之间的交互作用关系,其动力系统模式可能更有助于破解意识的产生(涌现)之谜,并引发心理学研究的方法论的变革新潮。第二代认知科学的兴起将启发人们对身心关系、生理还原论、意识研究在心理学中的地位、人工智能对心智完全模拟的可能性等重大问题重新思考。

Neither the traditional cognitive psychology with computation metaphor as core hypothesis nor the connectionist psychology can overcome the fundamental problem of so-called disembodied mind. Thus the contemporary cognitive psychology is in need of change for a new paradigm. The second-generation cognitive science highly features embodiment and situatedness. It will lead cognitive neuroscience into a new era and create potentials of eventually combining the scientism and humanism in psychology. It is based on the dynamic system model, which might result in the revolution of psychological methodology because the relationship among variables （factors） in this model is completely different from the interaction relationship among variables in the traditional analysis of variance. The emergence of the second-generation cognitive science will encourage people to reconsider some important issues, such as psychological ontology, mind-body relationship, physiological reductionism, consciousness research and the possibility of complete mind imitation by artificial intelligence. The author contends that with regard to the mind-body relationship, we should consider physiology as the necessary condition but not the substantial condition of psychology, avoid physiological reductionism and re-examine the theory of dualism-based physiological mechanism. The scientism and humanism in psychology tradition are likely to combine together on the basis of cognitive situatedness, which is emphasized by the second-generation cognitive science. Psychologists should put much emphasis on how mind process information. The first-generation cognitive science fails to conduct reliable studies on consciousness, because it confounds conscious with mind processing, such as perception, attention, memory and thinking. This tendency of replacing consciousness with psychology should be avoided. The dynamic system model used by the second-generation cognitive science is more likely to help us uncover the mystery of how the consciousness comes into being.