What neuroscience too often neglects: Behavior

February 27, 2017Posted inneurologism

A Quora conversation led me to recent paper in Neuron that highlights a very important problem with a lot of neuroscience research: there is insufficient attention paid to the careful analysis of behavior. The paper is not quite a call to return to behaviorism, but it is an invitation to consider that the pendulum has swing too far in the opposite direction, towards ‘blind’ searches for neural correlates. The paper is a wonderful big picture critique, so I’d like to just share some excerpts.

Krakauer, John W., Asif A. Ghazanfar, Alex Gomez-Marin, Malcolm A. MacIver, and David Poeppel. “Neuroscience needs behavior: correcting a reductionist Bias.” Neuron 93, no. 3 (2017): 480-490. [Paywalled]
neurobehav_krakauer_etal_poeppel2017

Could the brain be a radio for receiving consciousness?

February 17, 2017Posted inAxis Praxis, neurologism

 

bradio.pngHere’s an answer I wrote a while ago to the following question:

 Is there any conclusive proof that the brain produces consciousness? What rules out the case that brain acts as receptor antennae for consciousness?

This is actually a fun question! Taken in the right spirit, it can be a good way to learn about what science is, and also what the limitations of science are.