The Brain and its Boundaries

Abstract

These are heady times for the sciences of the mind. The pace of discovery is quickening, thanks to the mountain of data provided by the new brain-imaging technologies, but thanks even more to the computer simulations that have expanded and disciplined our imaginations, dramatically enlarging the logical space of models that can be investigated. We can now seriously consider hypotheses that a few years ago were simply unframable--"inconceivable", a philosopher might have been tempted to say. These computer-expanded powers are being vigorously exploited by a new generation of theorists and experimentalists. In some quarters the first symptoms of gold rush fever have been detected.