People don't really talk about this a lot, but as raised by this article, it could well be that the words we use to describe cognitive functions and states might well be in need of revision. "Many of our current cognitive categories—like 'attention,' 'memory,' and 'perception' - are due for revision: they're based on non-scientific, armchair introspection, and they are anthropocentric (human-focused)." Some suggest they should be replaced completely with words describing chemical and physical processes in the brain - this view is called eliminative materialism. But a more moderate approach might make more sense: Dan Burnston proposes an approach based on "character identity mechanism," or "ChIM." These would still be based in neural processes, but allow for the roles of context and learning. Here's the authors' full paper.
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