2 Receive Prestigious MacArthur Foundation Awards : Philosopher: UC San Diego Prof. Patricia Smith Churchland is working to bridge the gap between philosophy and science.

UC San Diego philosophy professor Patricia Smith Churchland, who is using computers and brain cells to learn the answer to the age-old question of being, was one of two San Diego County residents who received prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowships Monday.

Churchland, 47, a native of Canada, will receive $290,000 no strings attached over five years. She said she will use the money to continue working on a research project that shows how the brain manages time.

The other local winner was Guillermo Gomez-Pena, 35, a writer and artist.

Churchland, a philosopher identified with the analytic school of philosophy, relies on modern science and technology to study the brain’s behavior and how the brain’s actions affect an individual’s life.

“I have a couple of research projects that I’m working on, and can work on them only if I’m freed from teaching,” Churchland said. “ . . . These are projects that require a long haul. For me, this award is an opportunity that is golden. I’m very honored by it.”

Although her approach to learning about knowledge also has some ties to 19th Century Empiricism, Churchland’s research is pushing philosophy more and more into the field of science. She is using a synthesis of technology, neurophysiology (molecules and brain cells) and neurophilosophy to answer questions about being that philosophers have asked for centuries.

Being is the nature of existence or living.

“I think we’re still trying to answer what it is to be conscious . . . and learning how to understand knowledge. Now, so much more data is available that we are able to give answers that are scientifically based, rather than answers that are reflections from an armchair,” said Churchland.

She and colleague Terry Sejnowski, head of the computation neurobiology lab at the Salk Institute, are doing research in neuroscience to learn how the human brain works. The two are studying neurons, or individual brain cells, to study how they interact with each other and the effects of this interaction.

“It has to do with using computer models that are to some degree brain-like, but constrained by neurobiological data in order to understand how networks of neurons work,” Churchland said. “Brain cells talk to each other. They interact with each other. Out of these interactions you get a complex effect, like detecting individual motion.”

Her work might appear esoteric and incomprehensible to the average person, but Churchland said it is rooted in traditional philosophy.

“It’s all part of the grand tradition of philosophy,” she said. “I’m interested in aspects of the world. What is the nature of life, motion and humans? How is it that we’re conscious?”

For centuries, philosophers have always sought answers to these questions and went about looking for answers in different ways. But their quest for answers was always constrained by the limits of contemporary technology and science.

“We have a different perspective in answering these questions . . . . We want to know how the brain processes information. Modern technology allows us to go inside the brain. This wasn’t possible before,” Churchland said.

She published a book, “Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain,” in 1986. Churchland and Sejnowski recently collaborated on a book that is based on findings from their research.