What About an Integrated Cognitive Sciences Forum

[loseyourname]

What About an Integrated Cognitive Sciences Forum?

Anyone that peruses should notice that the metaphysics and epistemology forum is dominated by discussions of consciousness and the philosophy of mind. Many times these discussions necessarily delve into topics of neurology, physics, and computer science (particularly artificial intelligence), and even the occasional treatment of cognitive psychology. If we were to apportion the topics properly, these would belong to five different forums as of right now. I think it would do the forums well to go the route of most major universities and create a forum specifically for the cognitive sciences (including the philosophy of cognitive science). I feel this would not only do better justice to the subject itself, but it would also encourage the participation of interested parties of particular scientific specialities who do not otherwise post in or even look at any of the philosophy forums.

What does the forum think?

 

[PerennialII]

What you say makes perfect sense to me ... I think it would "clear" the philosophy section to a preferable direction.

 

[chem_tr]

I saw a cognitive science subforum in another science forum; so your offer is worth considering.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Would posts on consciusness from a philosophical standpoint be acceptible on a cognitive science forum? And would the ever-metastatizing topic of IQ be acceptible there?

 

[Rothiemurchus]

I think that given so many people (including myself) relate consciousness
to particle physics ,string theory etc. there is a need for three consciousness forums:
physics,biological/physiological, and psychological.
Consciousness is a subject most scientists don't think about at all
and an accurate description of it could prove immensely useful
to everyone - even if we can only define limitations on what can be
known about consciousness.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Heck, I'd be all for it... but I can't imagine it being a very popular section of the site.

 

[loseyourname]

Would posts on consciusness from a philosophical standpoint be acceptible on a cognitive science forum? And would the ever-metastatizing topic of IQ be acceptible there?

I'd say posts from every angle would be acceptable. That's exactly the reason I'm suggesting it. People post about cognitive ability in the social sciences forum, theories of mind in the metaphysics forum, neurological correlates of cognitive functions and consciousness in the biology forum, and heck, according to Rothie, apparently it's even brought up in strings and quantum physics. Why not bring it all together so interested posters can get a better idea of the interdisciplinary scope of the relevant topics?

 

[quantumdude]

Our front page is already quite busy. When we expanded the forums, there was actually negative reaction to it, but that quickly calmed down. In order to add a new forum, I would think that it would take more than a poll. It's going to take interest that manifests itself through participation. Look at the last new forum we added: Academic and Career Guidance. We did that because of the number of threads along those lines that were popping up. And when the new forum was created, we had threads to move into it right from the start. I think it should be like that every time a new forum is created.

So, if you want to have a forum for Cog Sci, my advice would be to do your darndest to show that it warrants its own forum by leading a significant number of members in substantial, meaningful discussion. Then post links to the discussion threads here.

That's just my $0.02. Keep in mind that I have no authority to accept or refuse this proposal. I'm just talking based on what I've seen go on here.

 

[Moonbear]

I haven't voted in the poll. I'm not sure. There are posts that bridge philosophy and biology and social sciences in this area, but the same is true in physics and engineering (um, not for cognitive sciences though, but in terms of interdisciplinary cross-over of topics). I'm not sure there's really a HUGE volume of posts in any of those forums to justify breaking them down further. I guess I've always just lumped cognitive sciences into that not-too-scientific side of psychology, so it probably wouldn't hold my interest long if folks were unwilling to delve into some serious neuroscience.