Cognitive Warfare Through the Lens of Critical Neuroscience: Data, Theory, and Values

This study examines cognitive warfare through the lens of critical neuroscience and situates it within peace research as a methodological contribution. Cognitive warfare-understood as the strategic modulation of perception, belief, and decision-making-highlights how the human mind has become a contested domain of contemporary conflict. The weaponization of neuroscience unfolds within sociocultural contexts where empirical findings, theoretical interpretations, and normative commitments are deeply entangled. Drawing on Johan Galtung’s epistemological triad of data, theory, and values, I propose a framework for analyzing cognitive warfare that makes explicit the normative dimensions of neuroscientific knowledge. This perspective highlights not only the weaponization of neuroscience itself, but also of its reputation: exaggerated claims and neuropolitical imaginaries can shape expectations, distort public discourse, and erode trust in science independently of actual technological capabilities. Applying this framework, the study examines resilience and solidarity as two domains in which empirical mechanisms, theoretical interpretations, and normative priors intersect. Cognitive warfare is shown to undermine resilience by destabilizing shared models of reality, while evolutionary and social dynamics demonstrate the long-term advantages of cooperation, reciprocity, and generosity over manipulation and defection. By integrating critical neuroscience with peace research, the article advances an expanded notion of peace as the safeguarding of mental and social autonomy-conditions under which cognition remains free from systematic manipulation and capable of sustaining cooperative forms of life.

Cognitive Surrender and Tri-System Theory · Today I Learned

How AI can support, displace, or bypass human deliberation

The Terrorist in the Brain

What can Robin Williams and Bruce Willis teach us about dementia? This article explores the complex biological realities of brain diseases, controversies in Alzheimer's research, the risks of new drugs, and the multi-billion-dollar industry exploiting our fear of cognitive decline.

Problems of Proliferation — LessWrong

Scientific progress and its perils. TLDR: The vulnerable world hypothesis is likely correct. Once enormous amounts of cognitive labor start getting a…

CFP: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT

This call for papers invites work on religion, politics, and cognitive warfare, exploring how belief, media, conspiracy, identity, and power shape struggles over reality, interpretation, and life in an age of disinformat

Thinking Fast, Slow, Artificially: AI and Your Brain

AI can boost your decisions — or quietly undermine them. Wharton researchers introduce a new theory of cognition that every leader needs to understand.

Cognitive engineering

Cognitive engineering is an interdisciplinary field that applies principles from cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and human factors to design and develop engineering systems that effectively support or enhance human cognitive processes.[1][2] The field emerged in the 1980s when Donald Norman and others recognized the need to better understand how humans interact with complex technological systems.[3]

Resisting Cognitive Surrender

This particular note is around exploring cognitive surrender: uncritically accepting whatever agents output without actually thinking, exploring or considering alternatives. Working this way is extremely fast, not particularly taxing, and unsurprisingly seductive.

Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (~100 Models Explained)

The smartest people in the world use mental models to make intelligent decisions, avoid stupidity, and increase productivity. Let's take a look at how ...

Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (~100 Models Explained)

The smartest people in the world use mental models to make intelligent decisions, avoid stupidity, and increase productivity. Let's take a look at how ...

Scaling Managed Agents: Decoupling the brain from the hands

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

You Can Increase Your Intelligence: 5 Ways to Maximize Your Cognitive Potential

You Can Increase Your Intelligence: 5 Ways to Maximize Your Cognitive Potential