Abstract
The paper argues that cognitive states of biological systems are inherently temporal. Three adequacy conditions for neuronal models of representation are vindicated: the compositionality of meaning, the compositionality of content, and the co-variation with content. Classicist and connectionist approaches are discussed and rejected. Based on recent neurobiological data, oscillatory networks are introduced as a third alternative. A mathematical description in a Hilbert space framework is developed. The states of this structure can be regarded as conceptual representations satisfying the three conditions.
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Werning, M. The Temporal Dimension of Thought. Synthese 146, 203–224 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-005-9089-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-005-9089-2