Kant & Cognitive Sciences

According to evolutionary biology, homo sapiens is the result of several billion years of evolution. For these vast eons of time, our sensory and intellectual abilities have been honed and shaped by the requirements of survival, through billions of lifetimes in various life-forms - fish, lizard, mammal, primate and so on - in such a way as to eventually give rise to the mind that we have today.

Scientific disciplines such as cognitive and evolutionary psychology have revealed that conscious perception, while subjectively appearing to exist as a steady continuum, is actually composed of a hierarchical matrix of millions of interacting cellular transactions, commencing at the most basic level with the parasympathetic system which controls one's respiration, digestion, and so on, up through various levels to culminate in that peculiarly human ability of 'conscious thought' (and perhaps beyond, although this is beyond the scope of science.)

Our consciousness plays a central role in co-ordinating these diverse activities so as to give rise to the sense of continuity which we call 'ourselves' - and also the apparent coherence and reality of the 'external world'. Yet it is important to realise that the na?ve sense in which we understand ourselves, and the objects of our perception, to 'exist', is in fact totally dependent upon the constructive activities of our consciousness, the bulk of which are completely unknown to us.

When you perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in 'creating' an object from the raw material of perception. Your eyes receive the lightwaves reflected or emanated from it, your mind organises the image with regards to all of the other stimuli impacting your senses at that moment - either acknowledging it, or ignoring it, depending on how busy you are; your memory will then compare it to other objects you have seen, from whence you will (hopefully) recall its name, and perhaps know something about it ('star', 'tree', 'frog', etc).

And you will do all of this without you even noticing that you are doing it; it is largely unconscious.

In other words, your consciousness is not just the passive recipient of sensory objects which exist irrespective of your perception of them. Instead, your consciousness is an active agent which constructs reality partially on the basis of sensory input, but also on the basis of an enormous number of unconscious processes, memories, intentions, and so on.

The question I have is that isn't this, in broad terms, similar to Immanuel Kant's view of the matter? For it seems to say that reality is not just 'objects of perception' that are given to us 'as a blank slate' - but that our cognitive capacities are fundamental to the construction of reality.

So it would seem to me that Kant's general idea about the nature of knowledge has been vindicated rather than undermined by subsequent science.

I am interested to know about any particular books or writers on the cognitive science aspects, suitable for a non-specialist reader. I have Robert Ornstein's The Evolution of Consciousness, which seems quite good. Also have been reading from Steve Pinkers The Blank Slate.

Any other input, criticisms, comments, welcome. I am gradually absorbing more of Immanuel Kant - I have the Paul Guyer 'Kant' and am working through that.