The Endogenously Active Brain: The Need for an Alternative Cognitive Architecture

Most proposals of cognitive architectures in cognitive science and accounts of brain processes in neuroscience construe the mind/brain as reactive: processing is initiated by a stimulus and terminates in a response to it. But there is growing evidence that brains are endogenously active: oscillations in electrochemical activity at multiple frequencies are ongoing in the brain even in the absence of stimuli and stimuli serve to modulate these oscillations rather than initiate activity. Moreover, evidence is growing that this endogenous activity is used in various information processing activities. I appeal to evidence from single-cell recording, EEG, and resting state fMRI to support the claim of ongoing oscillatory behavior in the brain and identify several ways it may contribute to cognition. If cognitive science is to understand how we perform Philosophia Scientiæ, 17 (2), 2013, 3–30.