Cognition

Poincaré's experience shows that cognition, while originally stemming from less complex psychological mechanisms, such as perception, is not literally tied to the world of sense-perception. Without contradicting the statement about perception providing the spatio-temporal context of cognition, we can say that cognition also operates in the seemingly unlimited expanses of imaginary space (as in art and mathematics) and inner space (as in introspection). In addition, while cognition is traditionally defined as rational and conceptual, it can contain such non-intellectual components as feelings, intuitions, and physical acts. The process of learning to play a musical instrument, for example, although a rationally structured endeavor, contains many repetitive, mechanical operations that could be defined as elements of unconscious learning. When the source of new knowledge is unknown, when we do not know why we know something, we are probably dealing with the hidden, silent, non-conceptual dimensions of cognition. A new skill, insight, ability, or perspective suddenly appears "out of nowhere." But this "nowhere" is not really outside the realm of cognition. As in the case of perception, conceptual thinking provides a framework but does not limit cognition. While cognition is certainly limited by human biology, it has no limits of its own. Finally, cognition is also never complete; despite repeated attempts, throughout the history of thought, to create closed intellectual systems postulating absolute knowledge as a theoretical goal, the human mind-as evidenced, for example, by the tremendous development of science since the Scientific Revolution-inevitably finds a way to widen the horizons of knowledge. That cognition is an open-ended process is also demonstrated by the seemingly unlimited human capacity for learning, introspection, change, and adaptation to a changing world.