  This paper describes the outlines of a research program for understanding the
cognitive-emotional brain, with an emphasis on the issue of dynamics: How can
we study, characterize, and understand the neural underpinnings of
cognitive-emotional behaviors as inherently dynamic processes? The framework
embraces many of the central themes developed by Steve Grossberg in his
extensive body of work in the past 50 years. By embracing head on the
leitmotifs of dynamics, decentralized computation, emergence, selection and
competition, and autonomy, it is proposed that a science of the mind-brain can
be developed that is built upon a solid foundation of understanding behavior
while employing computational and mathematical tools in an integral manner. A
key implication of the framework is that standard ways of thinking about
causation are inadequate when unravelling the workings of a complex system such
as the brain. Instead, it is proposed that researchers should focus on
determining the dynamic multivariate structure of brain data. Accordingly,
central problems become to characterize the dimensionality of neural
trajectories, and the geometry of the underlying neural space. At a time when
the development of neurotechniques has reached a fever pitch, neuroscience
needs to redirect its focus and invest comparable energy in the conceptual and
theoretical dimensions of its research endeavor. Otherwise we run the risk of
being able to measure 'every atom' in the brain in a theoretical vacuum.
