Chapter 1 Linguistics and Brain Science

In the past half century, there has been intensive and often highly productive inquiry into the brain, behavior, and cognitive faculties of many organisms. The goal that has aroused the most enthusiasm is also likely to be the most remote, probably by orders of magnitude: an understanding of the human brain and human higher mental faculties, their nature, and the ways they enter into action and interaction. From the outset, there has been no shortage of optimistic forecasts, even declara-tions by distinguished researchers that the mind-body problem has been solved by advances in computation, or that everything is essentially understood apart from the ``hard problem' ' of consciousness. Such conclusions surely do not withstand analysis. To an objective outside observerÐsay, a scientist from MarsÐthe optimism too might seem rather strange, since there is also no shortage of much simpler problems that are poorly understood, or not at all. Despite much important progress in many areas, and justi®ed excitement about the prospects opened by newer technologies, I think that a degree of skepticism is warranted, and that it is wise to be cautious in assessing what we know and what w