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  Although cognitive science has obtained abundant data on neural and brain processes, we are far from understanding what happens when we see color, recognize a face, or recall a memory. In this book Sunny Auyang tackles what she calls "the large pictures of the human mind," exploring the relevance of cognitive science findings to everyday mental life. Auyang proposes a model of an "open mind emerging from the self-organization of infrastructures," which she opposes to the "closed mind controlled by mind designers" of cognitive science. Her model consists of three parts: 1) a mind open to the world; 2) mind's infrastructure, the unconscious processes studied by cognitive science; and 3) emergence, the relation between the open mind and its infrastructure.

At the heart of Auyang's model is the open mind making its environment intelligible. The open mind feels, thinks, recognizes, believes, doubts, anticipates, fears, speaks, and listens. Cognitive scientists refer to the "binding problem," the question of how myriad unconscious processes combine into the unity of consciousness. Auyang approaches the problem from the other end--by starting with everyday experience rather than with the infrastructure. In so doing, she shows how cognitive science can help us to understand ourselves as autonomous subjects.		  
     
 
 

Contents

  
  1.  Introduction
         1.    The Emergence of Mind
         2.    The Openness of Mind
2.  The Prevailing Theory of Mind and Its Discontents
         3.    Genesis of the Prevailing Theory
         4.    The Closed Mind as Brain or Computer
         5.    The Control Power of Mind Designers
         6.    Mind Engaged in and Open to the World
3.  The Emergence of Mind From Its Infrastructures
         7.    Towards a Self-consistent Model of Mind
         8.    The Mental Infrastructure: Locus of Cognitive Science
         9.    How Scientists Probe Infrastructural Processes
        10.   The Connection Between Mind and its Infrastructure
        11.   The General Notion of Emergence
        12.   The Emergence of the Unity of Consciousness
        13.   Situated Properties and the Engaged-personal Level
4.  How Far is Mind Analyzable? Language and Modularity
        14.   Universal Grammar and Its Interpretations
        15.   Syntactic Competence and Its Infrastructure
5.  Making Things Intelligible: Concepts in Perception
        16.   Two-way Traffic in the Visual Infrastructure
        17.   Open, Closed, and Ecological Theories of Perception
6.  Making Time Intelligible: Constructive Memory 
        18.   More than Files on a Wet Disk
        19.   Giving Meanings to the Past and the Future
7.  Making Purposes Intelligible: Emotion and Reason
        20.   From Bodily Feeling to Motivation
        21.   Impulsive and Cognitive Circuits Underlying Emotion
8.  Mind Open To The World
        22.   How Is the Intelligibility of the World Possible?
        23.   Intelligence, Consciousness, Intentionality
        24.   Possibility: Opening the Informative Horizon
        25.   Perspectives and the Objectivity of Experiences
        26.   Subjectivity, Intersubjectivity, Community
        27.   The Intelligible World: Everyday and Scientific
        28.   Language, Narrative, Freedom of Action
Appendix.  The Human Brain
Notes
Bibliography		  
 
 
  Mind in Everyday Life
and Cognitive Science

Sunny Y Auyang
 MIT Press

2001
ISBN 0-262-01181-6
$ 49.95 hardcover
529 pages