A common picture of evolution by natural selection sees it as a process through which organisms change so that they become better adapted to their environment. However, agents do not merely respond to the challenges their environments pose. They modify their environments, filtering and transforming the action of the environment on their bodies A beaver, in making a dam, engineers a stream, increasing both the size of its safe refuge and reducing its seasonal variability. Beavers, like many other animals, are (...) ecological engineers. They act to modify the physical challenges posed by their environment. Nests, burrows and other shelters reduce the impacts of adverse weather and of other agents. Animal also modify their exposure to biological risks. Hygienic behaviour reduces the impact of disease. Intensive grooming; moving to new roosts; using a. (shrink)

At the phenomenal level, consciousness can be described as a singular, unified field of recursive self-awareness, consistently coherent in a particualr way; that of a subject located both spatially and temporally in an egocentrically-extended domain, such that conscious self-awareness is explicitly characterized by I-ness, now-ness and here-ness. The psychological mechanism underwriting this spatiotemporal self-locatedness and its recursive processing style involves an evolutionary elaboration of the basic orientative reference frame which consistently structures ongoing spatiotemporal self-location computations as i-here-now. Cognition computes action-output (...) in the midst of ongoing movement, and consequently requires a constant self-locating spatiotemporal reference frame as basis for these computations. Over time, constant evolutionary pressures for energy efficiency have encouraged both the proliferation of anticipative feedforward processing mechansims, and the elaboration, at the apex of the sensorimotor processing hierarchy, of self-activating, highly attenuated recursively-feedforward circuitry processing the basic orientational schema independent of external action output. As the primary reference frame of active waking cognition, this recursive i-here-now processing generates a zone of subjective self-awareness in terms of which it feels like something to be oneself here and now. This is consciousness. (shrink)

First paragraph: When we perform bodily gestures, are we ever literally thinking with our hands (arms, shoulders, etc.)? In the more precise, but correspondingly drier, technical language of contemporary philosophy of mind and cognition, essentially the same question might be asked as follows: are bodily gestures ever among the material vehicles that realize cognitive processes? More precisely still, is it ever true that a coupled system made up of neural activity and bodily gestures counts as realizing a process of thought, (...) in such a way that the gross bodily movements concerned should be granted cognitive status along with, and in essentially the same sense as, the neural activity? (shrink)

forthcoming in P. Robbins and M. Aydede (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (Cambridge UP).

I present experimental and computational research, inspired by the perspective of Embodied Embedded Cognition, concerning various aspects of language as supporting Everett’s interactionist view of language. Based on earlier and ongo- ing work, I briefly illustrate the contribution of the environment to the syste- maticity displayed in linguistic performance, the importance of joint attention for the development of a shared vocabulary, the role of (limited) traveling for language diversification, the function of perspective taking in social communica- tion, and the bodily (...) nature of understanding of meaning. (shrink)

To know is to cognize, to cognize is to be a culturally bounded, rationality-bounded and environmentally located agent. Knowledge and cognition are thus dual aspects of human sociality. If social epistemology has the formation, acquisition, mediation, transmission and dissemination of knowledge in complex communities of knowers as its subject matter, then its third party character is essentially stigmergic. In its most generic formulation, stigmergy is the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment. Extending this notion one might (...) conceive of social stigmergy as the extra-cranial analog of an artifcial neural network providing epistemic structure. This paper recommends a stigmergic framework for social epistemology to account for the supposed tension between individual action, wants and beliefs and the social corpora. We also propose that the so-called "extended mind" thesis offers the requisite stigmergic cognitive analog to stigmergic knowledge. Stigmergy as a theory of interaction within complex systems theory is illustrated through an example that runs on a particle swarm optimization algorithm. (shrink)

Embodied Cognition (EC) is a comprehensive approach to, and framework for, the study of the mind. EC treats cognition as a coordinated set of tools evolved by organisms for coping with their environments. Each of the key terms in this characterization-tool, evolved, organism, coping, and environment-has a special significance for understanding the mind that is discussed in this article.

I want to suggest that the major influence of classical arguments for embodiment like "The Embodied Mind" by Varela, Thomson & Rosch (1991) has been a changing of positions rather than a refutation: Cognitivism has found ways to retreat and regroup at positions that have better fortification, especially when it concerns theses about artificial intelligence or artificial cognitive systems. For example: a) Agent-based cognitivism' that understands humans as taking in representations of the world, doing rule-based processing and then acting on (...) them (sense-plan-act) is often limited to conscious decision processes; and b) Purely syntactic cognition is compatible with embodiment, or supplemented by embodiment (e.g. for 'grounding'). While the empirical thesis of embodied cognition ('embodied cognitive science') is true and the practical engineering thesis ('morphological computation', 'cheap design') is often true, the conceptual thesis ('embodiment is necessary for cognition') is likely false - syntax is often enough for cognition, unless grounding is really necessary. I conclude that it has become more sensible to integrate embodiment with traditional approaches rather than "fight for embodiment" or "against cognitivism". (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to sketch a preliminary framework for understanding the cognitive basis of the engagement of the mind with the material world. I advance the hypothesis that contrary to some of our most deeply-entrenched assumptions the relationship between the world and human cognition is not one of abstract representation or some other form of action at a distance but one of ontological inseparability. That is, what we have traditionally construed as an active or passive but always clearly (...) separated external stimulus for setting an internal cognitive mechanism into motion, may be after all a continuous part of the machinery itself; at least, ex hypothesi. (shrink)

The paper deals with some misconceptions concerning ‘privileged’ access to our own experiences from the first-person perspective, points to the limitations of this immediacy, and questions the solipsist privacy of subjectivity. Based on the conviction that the identification of ‘point of view’ with ‘perspective’ proves to be problematic, the author argues that we may take different perspectives from the same point of view. As embodied and embedded cognitive persons we practice the interchange of perspectival attitudes towards our own subjectivity in (...) our daily lives far more easily and frequently than we are prone to admit in our theories. This kind of methodology, part of which is also the objectivist third-person approach, does not have the power to revise the irreducibility between the subjective and the empirical, although it does appeal to the mind open to the intersubjective space, in which the irreducible can still be communicated, compared and complemented. (shrink)

This special issue, which includes papers first presented at two workshops on ‘Memory, Mind, and Media’ in Sydney on November 29–30 and December 2–3, 2004, showcases some of the best interdisciplinary work in philosophy and psychology by memory researchers in Australasia (and by one expatriate Australian, Robert Wilson of the University of Alberta). The papers address memory in many contexts: in dance and under hypnosis, in social groups and with siblings, in early childhood and in the laboratory. Memory is taken (...) as a test case for evaluating the optimistic vision of a new kind of cognitive science defended by Andy Clark. Clark (2001:154) argues: Much of what matters about human intelligence is hidden not in the brain, nor in the technology, but in the complex and iterated interactions and collaborations between the two ... The study of these interaction spaces is not easy, and depends both on new multidisciplinary alliances and new forms of modelling and analysis. The pay-off, however, could be spectacular: nothing less than a new kind of cognitive scientific collaboration involving neuroscience, physiology, and social, cultural, and technological studies in about equal measure. So the central motivation is to investigate critically how well the case of memory would fit the extended mind’ thesis put forward by Clark and Chalmers (Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 1997, 2006)—according to which mental states and processes can spread across the.. (shrink)

We have a striking ability to alter our psychological access to past experiences. Consider the following case. Andrew “Nicky” Barr, OBE, MC, DFC, (1915 – 2006) was one of Australia’s most decorated World War II fighter pilots. He was the top ace of the Western Desert’s 3 Squadron, the pre-eminent fighter squadron in the Middle East, flying P-40 Kittyhawks over Africa. From October 1941, when Nicky Barr’s war began, he flew 22 missions and shot down eight enemy planes in his (...) first 35 operational hours. He was shot down three times, once 25 miles behind enemy lines while trying to rescue a downed pilot. He escaped from prisoner of war camps four times, once jumping out of a train as it travelled from Italy into Austria. His wife Dot, who he married only weeks before the war, waited for him at home. She was told on at least three occasions that he was missing in action or dead. For 50 years, Nicky Barr never spoke publicly, and rarely privately, of his war-time experiences. He was very much a forgotten and forgetting hero (for further details, see Dornan, 2002). In his first public interview in 2002 on the Australian documentary program “Australian Story”, Nicky explained his 50 year silence by saying. (shrink)

This thesis articulates a novel interpretation of Heidegger’s explication of the being (Seins) of gear (Zeugs) in §15 of his masterwork Being and Time (1927/2006) and develops and applies the position attributed to Heidegger to explain three phenomena of unreflective action discussed in recent literature and articulate a partial Heideggerian ecological metaphysics. Since §15 of BT explicates the being of gear, Part 1 expounds Heidegger’s concept of the ‘being’ (Seins) of beings (Seienden) and two issues raised in the ‘preliminary methodological (...) remark’ in §15 of BT regarding explicating being. §1.1 interprets the being (Sein) or synonymously constitution of being (Seinsverfassung) of a being (Seienden) as a regional essence: a property unifying a region (Region), district (Bezirk), or subject-area (Sachgebiet) – a highly general (‘regional’) class of entities. Although Heidegger posits two components of the being of a being, viz. material-content (Sachhaltigkeit, Sachgehalt) and mode-of-being (Seinsart) or way-of-being (Seinsweise, Weise des Seins, Weise zu sein) (1927/1975, 321), the unclarity of this distinction means that it does not figure prominently herein. §1.2 addresses Heidegger’s distinction between ontological and ontic investigations and his notion of ‘modes of access’ (Zugangsarten, Zugangsweisen). Part 2 expounds §15 of BT’s explication of the being of gear. §2.1 analyses Heidegger’s two necessary and sufficient conditions for being gear and three core basic concepts (Grundbegriffe) enabling comprehension of these conditions and therewith a foundational comprehension of gear. Heidegger explicates the being of gear through content of unreflectively purposeful, non-intersubjective intentional states. I term such states ‘mundane concern’, which is almost synonymous with Hubert Dreyfus’s term ‘absorbed coping’ (1991, 69). Heidegger’s explication highlights around-for references (Um-zu-Verweisungen) as the peculiar species of property figuring in mundanely concernful intentional content. §2.2 clarifies Heidegger’s position on the relationship between to-hand-ness (Zuhandenheit) and extantness (Vorhandenheit) in the narrow sense: two of Heidegger’s most widely discussed concepts. I reject Kris McDaniel’s recent reading of Heidegger as affirming that nothing could be both to-hand and extant simultaneously (McDaniel 2012). Part 3 develops and applies Heidegger’s phenomenology of mundane concern. §3.1 explains the phenomena of situational holism, situated normativity, and mundanely concernful prospective control. §3.2 undertakes the metaphysical accommodation of around-for references, which §3.1 posited as featuring prominently within mundanely concernful intentional content. This thesis thus contributes not only to Heidegger scholarship, but also to contemporary debates within the philosophy of action and cognitive science. (shrink)

Traditionally, computational theory (CT) and dynamical systems theory (DST) have presented themselves as opposed and incompatible paradigms in cognitive science. There have been some efforts to reconcile these paradigms, mainly, by assimilating DST to CT at the expenses of its anti-representationalist commitments. In this paper, building on Piccinini’s mechanistic account of computation and the notion of functional closure, we explore an alternative conciliatory strategy. We try to assimilate CT to DST by dropping its representationalist commitments, and by inviting CT to (...) recognize the functionally closed nature of some computational systems. (shrink)

One claim reiterated with increasing boldness by the “analytic” tradition in philosophy is that what sets it apart from long-time rivals is a shared adherence to proper norms of argumentation. Gradated deviancy from this canon by English-speaking practitioners has therefore raised important questions about who can repair under the banner “professional philosopher.” We will portray as deeply worrisome the idea that argumentation should secure not just conclusions, but disciplinary membership as well.

If Australasian philosophers constitute the kind of group to which a collective identity or broadly shared self-image can plausibly be ascribed, the celebrated history of Australian materialism rightly lies close to its heart. Jack Smart’s chapter in this volume, along with an outstanding series of briefer essays in A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (Forrest 2010; Gold 2010; Koksvik 2010; Lycan 2010; Matthews 2010; Nagasawa 2010; Opie 2010; Stoljar 2010a), effectively describe the naturalistic realism of Australian philosophy (...) of mind. In occasional semi-serious psychogeographic speculation, this long-standing and strongly-felt intellectual attitude has been traced back to the influences of our light, land, or lifestyle (Devitt 1996, x; compare comments by Chalmers and O’Brien in Mitchell, 2006). Australasian work in philosophy of mind and cognition has become more diverse in the last 40 years, but is almost all still marked, in one way or another, by the history of these debates on materialism. (shrink)

The question “What is the nature of experience?” is of perennial philosophical concern. It deals not only with the nature of experience qua experience, but additionally with related questions about the experiencing subject and that which is experienced. In other words, to speak of the philosophical problem of experience, one must also address questions about mind, world, and the various relations that link them together. Both William James and Kitarō Nishida were deeply concerned with these issues. Their shared notion of (...) “pure experience” is the conceptual cornerstone of their attempt to deal with the philosophical problem of experience. This dissertation is an analysis of “pure experience” and its relevance to several issues in contemporary hilosophy of mind. Drawing upon James’s and Nishida’s “pure experience”, I argue both for a sensorimotor-based, “extended” conception of consciousness and a bodily skills-based account of moral psychology. (shrink)

For most archaeologists the meaning of prehistoric art appears to be grounded upon, if not synonymous with, the notion of representation and symbolism. This paper explores the possibility that the depictions we see already 30,000 years before present, for instance, at the caves of Chauvet and Lascaux, before and beyond representing the world, they first bring forth a new process of acting within this world and at the same time of thinking about it. It is argued that the unique ability (...) of those early depictions to disrupt or question the ways the world is experienced under normal conditions makes possible for the visual apparatus to interrogate itself and thus acquire a sense of perceptual awareness not previously available. (shrink)

Seeking to expand on previous theories, this paper explores the AIR (Applying Intelligence to the Reflexes) approach to expert performance previously outlined by Geeves, Christensen, Sutton and McIlwain (2008). Data gathered from a semi-structured interview investigating the performance experience of Jeremy Kelshaw (JK), a professional musician, is explored. Although JK’s experience of music performance contains inherently uncertain elements, his phenomenological description of an ideal performance is tied to notions of vibe, connection and environment. The dynamic nature of music performance advocated (...) by the AIR approach is illustrated by the strategies that JK implements during performance. Through executing these strategies, JK attempts to increase the likelihood of vibe and connection by selectively exercising agency over performance variables within his control. In order to achieve this, JK must engage in ongoing monitoring of his performance, whereby the spotlight of his attention pans across a vast array of disparate performance processes (and levels within these processes) in order to ascertain how he can most effectively meet the specific demands of a given performance situation. It is hoped that future research compiling data from numerous interviews and sources as well as using different research methodologies will further unlock the potential that the AIR approach holds for understanding expert performance. (shrink)

Cognitive sciences as an interdisciplinary field, involving scientific disciplines (such as computer science, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, economics, etc.), philosophical disciplines (philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, analytic philosophy, etc.) and engineering (notably knowledge engineering), have a vast theoretical and practical content, some even conflicting. In this interdisciplinary context and on computational modeling, ontologies play a crucial role in communication between disciplines and also in a process of innovation of theories, models and experiments in cognitive sciences. We propose a model for (...) this process here. An ontological commitment is advocated as the framework of a scientific realism, which leads computational modeling to search for more realistic models, for a complex systems perspective of nature and cognition. In that way multiagent modeling of complex systems has been fulfilling an important role. (shrink)

A growing conceptual and empirical literature is advancing the idea that language extends our cognitive skills. One of the most influential positions holds that language – qua material symbols – facilitates individual thought processes by virtue of its material properties (Clark, 2006a). Extending upon this model, we argue that language enhances our cognitive capabilities in a much more radical way: the skilful engagement of public material symbols facilitates evolutionarily unprecedented modes of collective perception, action and reasoning (interpersonal synergies) creating dialogically (...) extended minds. We relate our approach to other ideas about collective minds ( Gallagher, 2011, Theiner et al., 2010 and Tollefsen, 2006) and review a number of empirical studies to identify the mechanisms enabling the constitution of interpersonal cognitive systems. (shrink)

Eliminative functionalism is the view that mental attributes, of humans and other machines, consist ultimately in behavioural abilities or dispositions. Hence, ‘Strong AI’: if a machine consistently acts as if it were fully conscious, then conscious it is. From these assumptions, optimistic futurists have derived a variety of remarkable visions of our ‘post-human’ future; from widely-recognised ‘robot rights’ to ‘mind uploading’, immortality, ‘apotheosis’ and beyond. It is argued here, however, that eliminative functionalism is false; for at least on our present (...) knowledge, the subjectively qualitative characteristics of conscious experience are neither deducible from, nor logically required to generate, the performance of any sort of overtly ‘intelligent’, or indeed, characteristically human behaviour. Thus, a machine could easily be designed to report awareness of phenomenal qualities, without necessarily possessing them; and Alan Turing’s ‘Imitation Game’ test for artificial thinking is unable to determine whether or not a machine is sentient. An alternative test is proposed, in which the machine is asked phenomenological questions under conditions designed to detect any form of cheating—whilst also, potentially revealing evidence for the occurrence of genuine qualitative experience. (shrink)

We develop on the idea that everything is related, inside, and therefore determined by a context. This stance, which at first might seem obvious, has several important consequences. This paper first presents ideas on Contextuality, for then applying them to problems in philosophy of cognitive science. Because of space limitations, for the second part we will assume that the reader is familiar with the literature of philosophy of cognitive science, but if this is not the case, it would not be (...) a limitation for understanding the main ideas of this paper. We do not argue that Contextuality is a panaceic answer for explaining everything, but we do argue that everything is inside a context. And because this is always, we sometimes ignore it, but we believe that many problems are dissolved with a contextual approach, noticing things we ignore because of their obviousity. We first give a notion of context. We present the idea that errors are just incongruencies inside a context. We also present previous ideas of absolute being, relative being, and lessincompleteness. We state that all logics, and also truth judgements, are contextdependent, and we develop a “Context-dependant Logic”. We apply ideas of Contextuality to problems in semantics, the problem of “where is the mind”, and the study of consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper we expose the theoretical background underlying our current research. This consists in the development of behaviour-based knowledge systems, for closing the gaps between behaviour-based and knowledge-based systems, and also between the understandings of the phenomena they model. We expose the requirements and stages for developing behaviour-based knowledge systems and discuss their limits. We believe that these are necessary conditions for the development of higher order cognitive capacities, in artificial and natural cognitive systems.

In this thesis I present a virtual laboratory which implements five different models for controlling animats: a rule-based system, a behaviour-based system, a concept-based system, a neural network, and a Braitenberg architecture. Through different experiments, I compare the performance of the models and conclude that there is no best model, since different models are better for different things in different contexts. The models I chose, although quite simple, represent different approaches for studying cognition. Using the results as an empirical philosophical (...) aid, I note that there is no best approach for studying cognition, since different approaches have all advantages and disadvantages, because they study different aspects of cognition from different contexts. This has implications for current debates on proper approaches for cognition: all approaches are a bit proper, but none will be proper enough. I draw remarks on the notion of cognition abstracting from all the approaches used to study it, and propose a simple classification for different types of cognition. (shrink)

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2012.

The notion of representation has become ubiquitous throughout cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience and the cognitive sciences generally. This paper addresses the status of mental representations as entities that have been posited to explain cognition. I do so by examining similarities between mental representations and sense-data in both their characteristics and key arguments offered for each. I hope to show that more caution in the adoption and use of representations in explaining cognition is warranted. Moreover, by paying attention to problematic notions (...) of representations, a less problematic sense of representation might emerge. (shrink)

The notion of the cyborg has exercised the popular imagination for almost two hundred years. In very general terms the idea that a living entity can be a hybrid of both organic matter and mechanical parts, and for all intents and purposes be seamlessly functional and self-regulating, was prefigured in literary works such as Shelly
s Frankenstein and Samuel Butler
s Erewhon . This notion of hybridism has been a staple theme of 20th century science fiction writing, television programmes and the cinema. (...) For the most part, these works trade on a deep sense of unease we have about our personal identity – how could some non-organic matter to which I have so little conscious access count as a bona fide part of me? Cognitive scientist and philosopher, Andy Clark, picks up this general theme and presents an empirical and philosophical case for the following inextricably linked theses. (shrink)

It is now conventional wisdom that conscious experience — or in Nagel’s canonical characterization, “what it is like to be” for an organism — is what makes the mind-body problem so intractable. By the same token, our current conceptions of the mind-body relation are inadequate and some conceptual development is urgently needed. Our overall aim in this paper is to make some progress towards that conceptual development. We first examine a currently neglected, yet fundamental aspect of consciousness. This aspect is (...) the spontaneity of consciousness, by which we mean its inner plasticity and inner purposiveness. We then sketch a “neurophenomenological” framework for thinking about the relationship between the spontaneity of consciousness and dynamic patterns of brain activity as studied in cognitive neuroscience. We conclude by proposing that the conscious mentality of sentient organisms or animals is active and dynamic, and that this “enactive” conception of consciousness can help us to move beyond the classical dichotomy between materialism and dualism. (shrink)

In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of (...) living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields. (shrink)

The question of how a physical system gives rise to the phenomenal or experiential (olfactory, visual, somatosensitive, gestatory and auditory), is considered the most intractable of scientific and philosophical puzzles. Though this question has dominated the philosophy of mind over the last quarter century, it articulates a version of the age-old mind-body problem. The most famous response, Cartesian dualism, is on Daniel Dennett’s view still a corrosively residual and redundant feature of popular (and academic) thinking on these matters. Fifteen years (...) on from his anti-Cartesian theory of consciousness (Consciousness Explained, 1991), Dennett’s frustration with this tradition is still palpable. This frustration is primarily aimed at philosophers. (shrink)

Abstract Scientific discoveries must have more impact on philosophy (Bechtel, 2001. Part. I.I.). That is the thesis of the American professor of philosophy William Bechtel. Applications of the insights from the neurosciences could perhaps lead to a breakthrough in solving metaphysical and religious questions. Philosophers must assume the task of building bridges between the exact (and cognitive) sciences and contemporary philosophy (Bechtel, 2002. 49). This paper is a critical analysis of the promises of a relatively new discipline: Neurophilosophy.

Hohwy (Hohwy 2016, Hohwy 2017) argues there is a tension between the free energy principle and leading depictions of mind as embodied, enactive, and extended (so-called ‘EEE1 cognition’). The tension is traced to the importance, in free energy formulations, of a conception of mind and agency that depends upon the presence of a ‘Markov blanket’ demarcating the agent from the surrounding world. In what follows I show that the Markov blanket considerations do not, in fact, lead to the kinds of (...) tension that Hohwy depicts. On the contrary, they actively favour the EEE story. This is because the Markov property, as exemplified in biological agents, picks out neither a unique nor a stationary boundary. It is this multiplicity and mutability– rather than the absence of agent-environment boundaries as such - that EEE cognition celebrates. (shrink)

Kurt Gödel wrote (1964, p. 272), after he had read Husserl, that the notion of objectivity raises a question: “the question of the objective existence of the objects of mathematical intuition (which, incidentally, is an exact replica of the question of the objective existence of the outer world)”. This “exact replica” brings to mind the close analogy Husserl saw between our intuition of essences in Wesensschau and of physical objects in perception. What is it like to experience a mathematical proving (...) process? What is the ontological status of a mathematical proof? Can computer assisted provers output a proof? Taking a naturalized world account, I will assess the relationship between mathematics, the physical world and consciousness by introducing a significant conceptual distinction between proving and proof. I will propose that proving is a phenomenological conscious experience. This experience involves a combination of what Kurt Gödel called intuition, and what Husserl called intentionality. In contrast, proof is a function of that process — the mathematical phenomenon — that objectively self-presents a property in the world, and that results from a spatiotemporal unity being subject to the exact laws of nature. In this essay, I apply phenomenology to mathematical proving as a performance of consciousness, that is, a lived experience expressed and formalized in language, in which there is the possibility of formulating intersubjectively shareable meanings. (shrink)

Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary effort to understand the structures and functions of the brain and brain-mind relations. This effort results in an increasing amount of data, generated by sophisticated technologies. However, these data enhance our descriptive knowledge, rather than improve our understanding of brain functions. This is caused by methodological gaps both within and between subdisciplines constituting neuroscience, and the atomistic approach that limits the study of macro- and mesoscopic issues. Whole-brain measurement technologies do not resolve these issues, but rather (...) aggravate them by the complexity problem. The present article is devoted to methodological and epistemic problems that obstruct the development of human neuroscience. We neither discuss ontological questions nor review data, except when it is necessary to demonstrate a methodological issue. As regards intradisciplinary methodological problems, we concentrate on those within neurobiology and psychology. As regards interdisciplinary problems, we suggest that core disciplines of neuroscience can be integrated using systemic concepts that also entail human-environment relations. We emphasize the necessity of a meta-discussion that should entail a closer cooperation with philosophy as a discipline of systematic reflection. The atomistic reduction should be complemented by the explicit consideration of the embodiedness of the brain and the embeddedness of humans. The discussion is aimed at the development of an explicit methodology of integrative human neuroscience, which will not only link different fields and levels, but also help in understanding clinical phenomena. (shrink)

Francisco Varela’s work is a monumental achievement in 20th century biological and biophilosophical thought. After his early collaboration in neo-cybernetics with Humberto Maturana (“autopoiesis”), Varela made fundamental contributions to immunology (“network theory”), Artificial Life (“cellular automata”), cognitive science (“enaction”), philosophy of mind (“neurophenomenology”), brain studies (“the brainweb”), and East- West dialogue (the Mind and Life conferences). In the course of his career, Varela influenced many important collaborators and interlocutors, formed a generation of excellent students, and touched the lives of many (...) with the intensity of his mind, the sharpness of his wit, and the strength of his spirit. In this essay, I will trace some of the key turning points in his thought, with special focus on the concept of emergence, which was always central to his work, and on questions of politics, which operate at the margins of his thought. I will divide Varela’s work into three periods – autopoiesis, enaction, and radical embodiment – each of which is marked by a guiding concept; a specific.. (shrink)

This dissertation proposes the central elements of a Social Enactive Theory of Perception. According to SEP, perception consists in sensory-based practices of interaction with objects, events, and states of affairs that are socially constituted. I oppose the representational view that perception is an indirect contact with the world, consists of the passive receiving and processing of sensory input, is in need of constant assessment of accuracy, and is a matter of individuals alone. I share the basic enactivist insight that perception (...) is a type of activity, but I depart from standard enactivism on the grounds of its individualistic bias and its limited conception of activity. Instead of motor actions, I formulate the concept of perceptual practices as the appropriate framework to understand perception. Perception is woven into socially informed, contextual, sensory-based everyday activities, such as food, dance, and dress, and even seemingly independent, basic perceptual activities and concepts are constituted by such practices. Perceptual individual interactions instantiate social perceptual practices but are not just repetitions of a script. We perceive objects in virtue of perspectives or appearances, not in spite of them, and on this basis I offer SEPâs take on experience, properties, and contents. I conceive perceptual experience as finely grained interactions between subjects and objects, both of which are spatially, temporally, and pragmatically situated. Objects and their sensory properties are perceived dynamically and always in multiple appearances. Perceptual content offers a pragmatic specification of the perceptual objects in the specific ways they appear to subjects. For SEP, perception is normatively structured. SEPâs perceptual normativity is not a worry about a supposed constant threat that our perceptions be nonveridical, but about the placement of perceptual things in a system of possibilities and expectations, cast in terms of degrees of fulfillment of expectations and in a horizon of pragmatic significance, both of which are functions of the socially constituted interactions between a perceiver and a rich theory of appearances. (shrink)

The declared goal of this paper is to fill this gap: “... cognitive systems research needs questions or challenges that define progress. The challenges are not (yet more) predictions of the future, but a guideline to what are the aims and what would constitute progress.” – the quotation being from the project description of EUCogII, the project for the European Network for Cognitive Systems within which this formulation of the ‘challenges’ was originally developed (http://www.eucognition.org). So, we stick out our neck (...) and formulate the challenges for artificial cognitive systems. These challenges are articulated in terms of a definition of what a cognitive system is: a system that learns from experience and uses its acquired knowledge (both declarative and practical) in a flexible manner to achieve its own goals. (shrink)

Models of memory in cognitive science and philosophy have traditionally explained human remembering in terms of storage and retrieval. This tendency has been entrenched by reliance on computationalist explanations over the course of the twentieth century; even research programs that eschew computationalism in name, or attempt the revision of traditional models, demonstrate tacit commitment to computationalist assumptions. It is assumed that memory must be stored by means of an isomorphic trace, that memory processes must divide into conceptually distinct systems and (...) phases, and that human remembering consists in inner, cognitive processes that are implemented by distinct neural processes. This dissertation draws on recent empirical work, and on philosophical arguments from Ludwig Wittgenstein and others, to demonstrate that this latent computationalism in the study of memory is problematic, and that it can and should be eliminated. Cognitive psychologists studying memory have encountered numerous data in recent decades that belie archival models. In cognitive neuroscience, establishing the neural basis of storage and retrieval processes has proven elusive. A number of revised models on offer in memory science, that have taken these issues into account, fail to sufficiently extricate the archival framework. Several impasses in memory science are products of these underlying computationalist assumptions. Wittgenstein and other philosophers offer a number of arguments against the need for, and the efficacy of, the storage and retrieval of traces in human remembering. A study of these arguments clarifies the ways that these computationalist assumptions are presently impeding the science of memory, and provides ways forward in removing them. We can and should characterize and model human memory without invoking the storage and retrieval of traces. A range of work in connectionism, dynamical systems theory, and recent philosophical accounts of memory demonstrate how the science of memory can proceed without these assumptions, toward non-archival models of remembering. (shrink)

A recent version of the view that aesthetic experience is based in empathy as inner imitation explains aesthetic experience as the automatic simulation of actions, emotions, and bodily sensations depicted in an artwork by motor neurons in the brain. Criticizing the simulation theory for committing to an erroneous concept of empathy and failing to distinguish regular from aesthetic experiences of art, I advance an alternative, dynamic approach and claim that aesthetic experience is enacted and skillful, based in the recognition of (...) others’ experiences as distinct from one’s own. In combining insights from mainly psychology, phenomenology, and cognitive science, the dynamic approach aims to explain the emergence of aesthetic experience in terms of the reciprocal interaction between viewer and artwork. I argue that aesthetic experience emerges by participatory sense-making and revolves around movement as a means for creating meaning. While entrainment merely plays a preparatory part in this, aesthetic engagement constitutes the phenomenological side of coupling to an artwork and provides the context for exploration, and eventually for moving, seeing, and feeling with art. I submit that aesthetic experience emerges from bodily and emotional engagement with works of art via the complementary processes of the perception–action and motion–emotion loops. The former involves the embodied visual exploration of an artwork in physical space, and progressively structures and organizes visual experience by way of perceptual feedback from body movements made in response to the artwork. The latter concerns the movement qualities and shapes of implicit and explicit bodily responses to an artwork that cue emotion and thereby modulate over-all affect and attitude. The two processes cause the viewer to bodily and emotionally move with and be moved by individual works of art, and consequently to recognize another psychological orientation than her own, which explains how art can cause feelings of insight or awe and disclose aspects of life that are unfamiliar or novel to the viewer. (shrink)

To what extent are factors that are extrinsic to the artwork relevant to judgments of artistic value? One might approach this question using traditional philosophical methods, but one can also approach it using empirical methods; that is, by doing experimental philosophical aesthetics. This paper provides an example of the latter approach. We report two empirical studies that examine the significance of three sorts of extrinsic factors for judgments of artistic value: the causal-historical factor of contagion, the ontological factor of uniqueness, (...) and the contextual factor of appreciative environment. We explore the context of appreciation by performing studies in a museum as well as the lab. We found that contagion made a difference to judgments of artistic value in both settings. These results are congruent with previous empirical research as well as recent philosophical work that defends the artistic significance of authenticity. However, uniqueness only made a difference in the lab setting, but not in the museum. This suggests that the context of appreciation may make a difference to judgments of artistic value. Of broader significance, these studies show the value of experimental philosophical aesthetics and the value of doing in situ empirical research on art. (shrink)