title: Self-organization takes time too.
abstract: Four articles in this issue of topiCS (volume 4, issue 1) argue against a computational approach in cognitive science in favor of a dynamical approach. I concur that the computational approach faces some considerable explanatory challenges. Yet the dynamicists' proposal that cognition is self-organized seems to only go so far in addressing these challenges. Take, for instance, the hypothesis that cognitive behavior emerges when brain and body (re-)configure to satisfy task and environmental constraints. It is known that for certain systems of constraints, no procedure can exist (whether modular, local, centralized, or self-organized) that reliably finds the right configuration in a realistic amount of time. Hence, the dynamical approach still faces the challenge of explaining how self-organized constraint satisfaction can be achieved by human brains and bodies in real time. In this commentary, I propose a methodology that dynamicists can use to try to address this challenge.
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen. i.vanrooij@donders.ru.nl
authors.forename: Iris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: van Rooij
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003071:Cognition; D019336:Cognitive Science / Q000379:methods*; D003142:Communication; D003243:Consciousness; D017709:Fractals; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013060:Speech