Thank you, rl.

I watched all four videos comprising Dr. Churchland's lecture and enjoyed them. ...Learned something too about how humans reason. She is a professor at USC-San Diego.

For example, much of reasoning, she argues, is pattern recognition: it is finding a pattern most similar to the one we are currently conceiving of, perceiving, or experiencing.

Much of reasoning too - rather than being induction or deduction -is abduction: or inference to a good hypothesis It is what some have called "case-based reasoning."

Imitation of the parent's sounds and gestures by the infant and/or the very young child facilitates the child's learning; and it informs the parent that the child is normal. If the kid couldn't do that it would be a danger sigh. Then children get rewarded for it. The implications for Ethics are these: if a stranger enters a social group and does not show imitative behavior, he may not be trustworthy. If s/he does, trustworthiness may eventually be established. This is highly valued by any group of two or more.
Neuro-scientists lately are finding that it is in our genetic structure to share and to be cooperative.

I agree with her that studying the brain and its mysteries is fun.