Cognitive Y2S2

• Field concerned with understanding how the human mind generates intelligent behavior, what we call cognition. 
• most complex and sophisticated computer in the known universe- the human brain.
• The human brain is 3 lbs
•  no machine has been able to come close to replicating the brain as of yet
• Sum of all intelligent mental activities is cognition- the act of acquiring and processing sensory information about the world and using it to make behavioural decisions
• different areas of cognition: perception, attention, short-term memory and long-term memory, language, problem solving, and decision making.
• cognition is primarily concerned with understanding the processes that allow things to go right.
• the 1990s were officially dubbed the Decade of the Brain
• the brain remains one of the most poorly understood systems in the world.
• No one can yet say they have a strong theory of how the brain works, how it generates intelligent behavior, or even how and when 
• the attempt to understand the brain and its functioning is now one of the most active areas of research on the planet, encompassing two major scientific disciplines: experimental psychology and neuroscience.
• Research in perception can facilitate the design of systems with which people interact, such as machine or computer consoles, a field known as human factors
• Human factors- a designer of the cockpit of a plane might want to know which kinds of displays are most easily read or attention grabbing.
• artificial intelligence, or AI, a branch of computer science and engineering that is concerned with building machines that can perform some (or all) of the tasks that humans can do
• A landmark event in the history of computing and AI involved chess-playing computer Deep Blue, created by IBM.
• in 1996, Deep Blue was matched against the best human chess player in the world, Gary Kasparov- the ability to play high-level chess was seen as a pinnacle of human intelligence- Kasparov won the first match but, one year later, in 1997, Deep Blue bested him to be the first computer to ever beat a world chess champion.
• • flexible intelligencepre-programmed machines have historically been unable to achieve. This is at the heart of human intelligence and how it happens still remains poorly understood. 
• the computers are programmed to learn, changing their behavior in order to get better at some task. This programming approach is called machine learning.
• In recent years, the evolution of AI models, particularly large language models, or LLMs, have led to transformative advances. These algorithms are trained on vast amounts of digital or digitized text as well as feedback from users who interact with the models- chat gpt
• Some theorists have proposed that true human-like artificial general intelligence, or AGI,  will arrive within the  decade or even sooner.
• 3 main approaches to understand the physical basis of intelligence: neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and computational modeling.
• One major arm of research on cognition is neuroscience, the study of the physical brain and related systems
• While scientific study of the brain was once mostly limited to post-mortem dissection of dead brains or observation of brain-damaged individuals, modern tools allow researchers to measure the activity of the intact brain while the animal is awake and behaving- non invasive imaging
• Another major arm of research into cognition is studying intelligent behavior itself. This is the field of cognitive psychology. As a subfield of psychology, cognitive psychology is concerned with studying intelligence using behavioral experiments
• naturalistic observation, in which researchers observe the behavior of people or other organisms in their natural habitat, without any experimental intervention.
• cognitive psychology depends on measuring behaviors, such as how long it takes to respond to some presented stimulus, in order to develop theories of the underlying neurophysiological processes.
• Its a bit harder to design cognitive experiments- indirect nature of cognition
• The third arm of progress in our understanding of the brain is based on simulating brain processes or functions using computer-based models.
• In the scientific field of cognition, theres a lot of dispute over the best type of measurement data to collect
• For much of human history, many people assumed that the human capacity for cognition could not be explained based on the kinds of observable physical processes with which they were familiar. 
• When ancient people dissected a human body, the bones, organs, tendons, nerves, and fluids that they encountered would likely have seemed capable of producing physical behaviors, even if the exact mechanisms by which they did so were not always well understood- cant do that with the brain
• You can reverse inference what functions a part of a dead body may have- cant do that with the brain
• mind-body problem, the question, or debate, of how mental events, such as thoughts, beliefs, and sensations, are related to, or caused by, physical mechanisms taking place in the body, such as cellular or molecular processes in the brain.
• For much of recorded history, it appears that most people subscribed to some form of dualism as the response to the mind-body problem.
• Dualism views the mind and body as consisting of fundamentally different kinds of substances or properties. While the body may be made of a physical material, the mind, in this view, was not.
• monism, which is the view that there is only one kind of basic substance in the world. 
• One type of monism is physicalism/materialism, the position that the only kind of reality is physical reality. In this view, cognition is just another physical phenomenon and mental states can ultimately be explained as being based in the processes of the physical brain. 
•  A more exotic kind of monism is idealism, the view that the only kind of reality is mental. In this case, the brain (and all physical reality) is really a mental construct, not the other way around
• neutral monism holds that there is only one kind of substance that is neither just physical or mental, and that mind and body are both composed of that same element.
• Dualism was, and remains, a commonly held view, including by some cognitive scientists. It is related to, and sometimes synonymous with, the idea of a soul or spirit that is common across people and time.