Gentner on Psychology in Cognitive Science

This is an interesting historical account for the past and possible future of the Cognitive Science Society.

New Paper by Pierre Steiner

Perhaps a bit off the beaten path for many EC types over here in Pragmatics and Cognition. 

I met Pierre almost four years ago in the EEEE conference Shaun Gallagher organized at the University of Central Florida. 

This makes no sense in physical theory?

So, here is how Adams and I informally introduce the C-C fallacy in a recent paper:

In our view, the coupling arguments are fallacious.   They commit what we call the “coupling-constitution fallacy.”  We can see that it is in fact a fallacy by consideration of some examples.  Consider the bi-metallic strip in an ordinary thermostat.  The expansion and contraction of this strip is closely coupled to the ambient temperature of a room and the air conditioning apparatus for that room.  Nevertheless, this gives us no reason to say that the expansion and contraction of the strip extends beyond the limits of the strip and into the room or air conditioner.  (Adams & Aizawa, 2009, p. 81).

Of the many things that Adams and I have written, this would seem to me to be pretty tame and unproblematic.  But, not so to Ross and Ladyman,

Unfortunately, Adams and Aizawa's discussions of constitution appear to be wholly based on naive objectification of everyday containment metaphors. Their leading example appeals to intuitions denying that the processes by which the bimetallic strip of a thermostat expands and contracts in correlation with states of room temperature and the activation of the air conditioning system "extend beyond the limits of the strip and into the room or air conditioner" (Adams and Aizawa 2008a,b). But neither the sentence "The expansion and contraction occur inside the strip" nor "The room is not the smallest container inside which the expansion and contraction are contained" admits of any possible translation into the terms of physical theory; the claims are irreducibly metaphorical. (Ross & Ladyman, 2010, p. 161.)

So, neither of the sentences can be translated into the terms of physical theory.  But, so what?  Those sentences seem to be mere bad initial takes on what we are saying.  Reminds me of Mark Twain's own translation of a speech he delivered in German to the Vienna Press Club:

I am indeed the truest friend of the German language-and not only now, but from long since-yes, before twenty years already ....  I would only some changes effect. I would only the language
method-the luxurious, elaborate construction compress, the eternal parenthesis suppress, do away with, annihilate; the introduction of more than thirteen subjects in one sentence forbid; the verb so far to the front pull that one it without a telescope discover can. With one word, my gentlemen, I would your beloved language simplify so that, my gentlemen, when you her for prayer need, One her yonder-up understands.

(From Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct, p. 61)

But, more seriously, there is really no way to make sense of the fact that when the bimetallic strip gets warmer it expands, but the room does not?  I don't know the rules of Ross and Ladyman's translation game, but if you can't make sense of our first paragraph by those rules, it might be time to check the rules.

Future Posts 8/30/2010

Rob Wilson's "Meaning Making and the Mind of the Externalist" from Richard Menary's collection, The Extended Mind.  I have a large number of things to post on this paper.  Alas, much of it will repeat things I've said before, but I have a take on "cognitive resources" that is new.

I Know that I am a Harsh Critic at Times, but ...

Here are Two Scientific Psychologists on an EC-related paper:  "In which I am a bit rude about a rubbish paper and worry about how to kill papers like it"

Dretske and Thompson Redux 2

This goes back to a discussion a while back that I wanted to bleg.

Dretske and Thompson apparently differ in their theories of original meaning.  Has either published an objection to the other?  Has Thompson published an objection to Dretske's theory?  If so, what is the objection?  (I'm betting that Dretske has not published an objection to Thompson's theory, but I haven't read any of his later stuff.)

It seems to me that there is a good chance that D&T (or their supporters) have not really engaged each other, but any references or argument sketches would be great.

Where in the World are Cognitive Processes?

The grip of the containment metaphor on Adams and Aizawa is particularly clear when they claim that the following is an important question for science: "What regions of spacetime contain cognitive processing?" Not only is this not a question actually posed by any science, it is not a question that has literal sense in the technical vocabulary of any science. The closest we can get to it is (roughly): "Which set of events have episodes of cognitive processing in their backward light cones?" (Ross & Ladyman, 2010, p. 161).

I. "What regions of spacetime contain cognitive processing?" is one take on what is in question in the EC debate.  And, some cognitive scientists have embraced this kind of question.  So, it is at least to that degree an important question for science.  Maybe some philosophers do not think it is important.

II. In any event, I would have thought that the way to scientize a question like "What regions of spacetime contain cognitive processing?" would be in terms of something like some sort of spacetime "worm".  But L&R probably don't like the "worm" metaphor either, so why not take the mathematically correct interpretation of, or replacement for, the metaphor? 

iCub Open Resource Embodied Cognition Workshop

Wiki.

Personally, I find this robot kind of creepy and disturbing. ... something about a fully robotic four year old ...

Ladyman & Ross on the Metaphysics of Domestication

**

Elsewhere (Ladyman and Ross 2007) we argue against what we call the metaphysics of domestication, which consists of attempts to render pieces of contemporary science-and, more often, stylized or mythical interpretations of contemporary science-into terms that can be made sense of by reference to the containment metaphor. Domesticating metaphysicians seek to account for the world as "made of" myriad "little things" in roughly the way that (some) walls are made of bricks. Unlike bricks in walls, however, the little things are often held to be in motion. Their causal powers are usually understood as manifest in the effects they have on each other when they collide. Thus the causal structure of the world is imagined to be based on emergent or reducible consequences of reverberating networks of what we call "microbangings"-the types of ultimate causal relations that prevail among the basic types of little things, whatever exactly those turn out to be. Metaphysicians, especially recently, are heavily preoccupied with the search for "genuine causal oomph," particularly in relation to what they perceive to be the competition between different levels of reality.
     This picture, familiar as it is, finds absolutely no corresponding image in contemporary fundamental physics. The types of particles which physical theory describes do not have spatiotemporal boundaries in anything like what common sense takes for granted in conceptualizing everyday objects, and in that respect are not classical individuals-the philosopher's little things (French and Krause 2006). There are nothing like microbangings in fundamental physics; indeed whether there is causation in any sense that doesn't stretch the meaning of the word to the point of obscurantism is often disputed (Norton 2007; Ross and Spurrett 2007; Ladyman and Ross 2007, chap. 5).

Ok.  So, the metaphysics of domestication mischaracterizes fundamental physics.  So be it.  How does the metaphysics of domestication fare for contemporary psychology or neuroscience?  I'm thinking that the contact forces model of causation may well fail to characterize causation in contemporary psychology and neuroscience, but there are other theories of causation out there.  I'm thinking that synaptic vesicles contain neurotransmitters.

I'm thinking that contemporary "immature" (if you will) cognitive science includes drawing a distinction between what causes a cognitive process and what is a cognitive process, so that ignoring this would be a case of failing to be true to actual cognitive science.

Check out Philosophy TV

Philosophy TV is a Bloggingheads kind of deal just for philosophy.  It apparently goes live on September 6 with Peter Singer and Michael Slote. Then on September 9 it is Andy Egan and Josh Knobe.  Alas, it hits a minor bump in the road when Mark Rowlands and I talk about EC.

Next Summer

Since classes have started and the heat here has finally abated somewhat (highs only in the low 90's), I am already thinking about next summer.  It starts well with talks in Lausanne on May 11, 2011 (right after I finish with grades), then on to Jerusalem for a workshop on computation, realization, and the brain, May 16-19, 2011.

Lausanne

Ooohhhh ..... aahhhhh.....

Jerusalem

Ross, Ladyman, and "Metaphysical Hunches"

As is typical of philosophers promoting metaphysical hunches, Adams and Aizawa (2001) explicitly associate the internalist view with "common sense,"

I'm probably as much against "metaphysical hunches" as are 70% of philosophers, but I don't think that "common sense" must only be a reflection of prejudice, thoughtlessness, or metaphysical hunches.  I think the idea that mental or cognitive processes take place in the brain is supported by certain relatively informal experiences with injuries in battle.  (I've posted a sketchy speculative description of his idea here.)  It's a kind of defeasible empirical conjecture (that I happen to think is also reinforced by more rigorous scientific work) and not a mere metaphysical hunch. The conjecture could be false, but it would still be a false a posteriori, empirical conjecture.

Ross & Ladyman's "Alleged Coupling-Constitution Fallacy" 3

In the last post, I noted Ross & Ladyman seem to think that we should look to actual scientific practice to determine what one should believe.

The idea that there might be a justified general such claim about all cognitive models, which could rationally be made in advance of tackling specific modeling problems one at a time (Ross & Ladyman, 2010, p. 156).

Now, from this one might think that Ross and Ladyman think that the proper basis for making justified general claims about all cognitive models would be to look at the results of specific cognitive modeling problems.  But, that's not right.  Instead, they think the proper basis would be to look at the results of modeling in mature sciences, such as fundamental physics.

And, again, Rupert, Adams, and Aizawa suppose that they are not trying to justify their views in advance of tacking specific scientific problems. They try to justify their views by appeal to actual scientific practice.  It's the advocates of EC who sometimes want to appeal to something other than actual scientific practice.

3-year PhD Studentship: Investigating the embodied nature of mental representations ...

FYI.  I know nothing about this other than what is printed here, but it is, perhaps, of interest to some readers of this blog.
Ken 

Investigating the embodied nature of mental representations involved in production and comprehension of co-speech gestures

The objective of this 3-year PhD studentship is to investigate the embodied nature of mental representations involved in the production and comprehension of co-speech gestures. The project is due to commence January 2011 and provides full support for tuition fees, associated research costs and an annual tax-free stipend of £13, 590. Applicants must be UK/EU nationals due to the nature of the funding, which is provided by the Leverhulme Trust.

Recent theories have revolutionised our understanding of cognition by proposing that mental representations involve embodied simulations which are based on our past experiences of perception and action. By examining theories of embodied cognition in conjunction with gesture, this study will test the assumption that conceptual knowledge is grounded in experience of our bodies and the space around us.

The successful candidate will carry out experiments on gesture production (involving the handling of video- and computer-based recording equipment). They will be responsible for recruiting and testing participants, speech transcription, gesture coding (requiring annotation in ELAN), qualitative and quantitative statistical analysis and academic writing (for the thesis and publication). They will also have the opportunity to present their findings at prestigious conferences and seminars.

Applicants must hold, or expect to obtain, a minimum upper-second class honours degree (or equivalent) in psychology, linguistics, cognitive science or any cognate discipline. A Masters degree (merit or distinction) in any of the above named disciplines, and previous research training is desirable but not essential. In addition, applicants should have some experience of carrying out research independently. Previous experience in either gesture or embodied cognition research, or in the use of behaviour observational methods (e.g., video recording and editing equipment), would be another advantage.

Upon completion, a career in psychology, linguistics, cognitive science or any related cognate discipline would be anticipated.
Please direct expressions of interest in the following format to the project lead, Dr Louise Connell (louise.connell@manchester.ac.uk):

• A CV, including full details of all University course grades to date.
• Contact details for two academic or professional referees.
• A personal statement (750 words maximum) outlining your suitability for the study, what you hope to achieve from the PhD and your research experience to date.

Any enquiries relating to the project and/or suitability should be directed to Dr Connell at the address above. Applications are invited up to and including Wednesday 22 September 2010. Interviews will take place on Friday 1 October 2010 with shortlisted applicants invited to interview no later than Friday 24 September.

http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/research/groups/languageandcommunication/
http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/louise.connell

Ross & Ladyman's "Alleged Coupling-Constitution Fallacy" 2

extended mind thesis and its internalist rival can be interpreted as alternative claims about what kind of ontology of systems any cognitive model should presuppose.  The idea that there might be a justified general such claim about all cognitive models, which could rationally be made in advance of tackling specific modeling problems one at a time, would have to be based either on a universal tractability constraint or on metaphysics. (Ross & Ladyman, 2010, p. 156).

Two things here.

I) I don't see the internalist/externalist debate as, in the first instance, offering alternative claims about what kind of ontology of systems any cognitive model should presuppose.  There is some question about what the ontology of cognition is--e.g., whether cognition involves representations--but once that is settled the core question becomes where in the world one finds those bits of ontology.  So, ontology is, at most, only part of what is in play in the EC debates.

II) I think that Ross and Ladyman are missing what is going on in the EC literature.  They refer to this "idea that there might be a justified general such claim about all cognitive models, which could rationally be made in advance of tackling specific modeling problems one at a time".  But, Rupert, Adams and I take it that there has been this enterprise of cognitive psychology that has been going on for some decades and that one can extract from that some basic conclusions about cognitive ontology.  In fact, I think that most parties to the EC debate probably agree to the method of abstracting conclusions about cognitive ontology from actual scientific practice. (Maybe not the same scientific practice, mind you.  Some folks extrapolate from Gibson, where others extrapolate from other sources.)  Where parties to the EC debate differ is in what they think is correct to abstract from that actual scientific practice.

The Start of Classes Has Arrived

Ross & Ladyman's "Alleged Coupling-Constitution Fallacy" 1

This paper began life as an account of how Adams and Aizawa were stuck in the 17th Century with immature (pre-?)scientific metaphysical assumptions about causation and constitution.

After a very enjoyable dinner at King's College, Cambridge, (hosted by Mark Sprevak as part of a workshop on Computation in Cognitive Science), I was able to encourage James to revisit the draft of the paper that I had seen.  I proposed that the problems they had with causation and constitution were not the doing of Adams and Aizawa, but were part and parcel of much of the EC debate.  So, now the paper is about how (almost?) everyone in the EC debate is stuck in the 17th Century with immature (pre-?)scientific metaphysical assumptions about causation and constitution.

Ross and Ladyman should be happy about this revision, since they are now going after more and bigger fish than just Adams and Aizawa.  Adams and I are happy, since now the mess is not our fault.

One of the challenges of responding to the Ross-Ladyman critique, however, is that they are not so much interested in adjudicating the particular issues that arise in the EC debate as they are making the case that everything must go.

Nevertheless, I think that even though they are now dumping on the whole EC debate, they are coming down a bit too hard.  I won't try to "refute" the criticisms so much as try to make it less obvious that the whole EC debate is mired in the useless and primitive.  (A modest goal to be sure...)

Future Posts 8/20/2010

Still working through Menary's The Extended Mind.  Next up: Ross and Ladyman, then Wilson.

"Defending the Bounds of Cognition" Revisited 6

Perhaps there are futuristic science fiction scenarios in which humans have sufficient access to brain states that this situation could change, but then maybe it will be the case that cognitive content can at times be socially controlled.  Maybe.  After all, can a mental image of Abraham Lincoln really mean George Washington? (Adams & Aizawa, 2010, p. 73).

*

This last sentence seems a little cryptic to me now, but the idea is this.  Suppose you have a mental representation of Abraham Lincoln, so that you are thinking of Abraham Lincoln.  Could it really be the case that we can set up a convention so that when you get this mental image you are really thinking about George Washington rather than Lincoln?  Maybe the convention could get the image to mean George Washington for lots of people who are party to the convention, but could the convention get the image to mean George Washington for you?  Recall our earlier discussion of Thompson and Dretske regarding what something means for the subject?  They have the idea that mental meanings have to be meanings for the subject.  But, how could a public convention get a mental image to mean what it does for the subject?

"Defending the Bounds of Cognition" Revisited 5

We think that Jones wants to go to that restaurant in Philly because she said she wants to go to that restaurant and is looking up the address in the phone book.  Even when we know that Jones wants to go to that restaurant in Philly, we don’t know what specific syntactic item in the brain bears that content.  This is not how conventional meanings work.  (Adams & Aizawa, 2010, pp. 72-73).

"Defending the Bounds of Cognition" Revisited 4

DtBoC repeats what I now think is an insufficiently tight formulation of the non-derived content condition.  (I've posted on this before, but it is perhaps worth repeating.)  It has,

In Adams & Aizawa, (2001), we proposed that “A first essential condition on the cognitive is that cognitive states must involve intrinsic, non-derived content” (Adams & Aizawa, 2010, p. 69)

Andy Clark has observed (somewhere) that there our view is that there are mental representations in the head that apparently have non-derived content, so that when Otto manipulates his notebook that overarching notebook manipulating process does involve intrinsic, non-derived content.  

I think the better, and stronger, formulation requires that the vehicles of content must bear non-derived content.

My paper "Consciousness: Don't Give up on the Brain" is Now Officially in Print

Thanks, Basile, Julian, and Pauline for all the editorial work!

Consciousness: Don't Give up on the Brain (2010). In Pierfrancesco, B., Kiverstein, J., & Phemister, (Eds.) The Metaphysics of Consciousness: Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 67. (pp. 263-284).

Abstract

In the extended mind literature, one sometimes finds the claim that there is no neural correlate of consciousness.  Instead, there is a biological or ecological correlate of consciousness.  Consciousness, it is claimed, supervenes on an entire organism in action.  Alva Noë is one of the leading proponents of such a view.  This paper resists Noë’s view.  First, it challenges the evidence he offers from neuroplasticity.  Second, it presses a problem with paralysis.  Third, it draws attention to a challenge from the existence of metamers and visual illusions.

This volume is a collection of papers from a conference organized at the University of Edinburgh to honor the work and philosophical legacy of Timothy L. S. Sprigge (1932-2007).  (Obit here.) 

Thanks, also, to my friend Leemon McHenry, for the invitation to participate in this event.  Leemon (R), Fred Adams (L), and I (C) were colleagues together years ago at Central Michigan University.  It was great to catch up, especially in Edinburgh!

"Defending the Bounds of Cognition" Revisited 3

Ok.  I must admit that there is a point where I now think I misinterpreted Clark's view.  In "Defending" we wrote,

If you are coupled to a rock in the sense of always having it readily available, use it a lot, trust it implicitly, and so forth, Clark infers that the rock constitutes a part of your memory store."  (Adams and Aizawa, 2010, p. 68).

Now, I still think this is kind of funny, but alas not correct.  Insofar as a rock is typically not an information resource, then by Clark's lights it's not something into which cognition can extend.  I've mentioned in a couple of posts already that it's Clark's view that cognition only extends into information resources.  I like using the recipe versus the oven story in baking a cake to make the point.

Nevertheless, I think that the principal point we were driving at is still correct.  One cannot extend cognitive processing into an information resource just by being coupled to it in a "trust and glue" kind of way.

"Defending the Bounds of Cognition" Revisited 2

In two replies to "Defending the Bounds" Clark complains about the unintelligibility of "cognitive objects":

When Clark makes an object cognitive when it is connected to a cognitive agent, he is committing an instance of a "coupling-constitution fallacy. (Adams and Aizawa, this volume, p. 67; my emphasis)

But this talk of an object's being or failing to be "cognitive" seems to me almost unintelligible when applied to some putative part of a cognitive agent or of a cognitive system. What would it mean for the neuron or the pencil to be, as it were, brute factively "cognitive"? Nor, I think, is this merely an isolated stylistic infelicity on the part of Adams and Aizawa. For the same issue arose many times during personal exchanges concerning the vexed case of Otto and his notebook (the example used, with a great many riders and qualifications, in Clark and Chalmers 1998). And it arises again and again, as we shall later see, in the various parts of their recent challenge to engage the issue of "the mark of the cognitive." (Clark, 2010, p. 83)

But this talk of an object's being or failing to be "cognitive" seems almost unintelligible when applied to some putative part or aspect of a cognitive agent or of a cognitive system. What would it mean for the pencil or the neuron to be, as it were, brute factively "cognitive"? This is not, I think, merely an isolated stylistic infelicity on the part of Adams and Aizawa. For the same issue arose many times during personal exchanges concerning the vexing case of Otto and his notebook.s And it arises again, as we shall later see, in various parts of their more recent challenges concerning "the mark of the cognitive." (Clark, 2008, p. 87)

Several things here.
1) I guess I don't have this intelligibility sensibility that Clark does, but had we known this, we would have avoided that way of developing the issue.

2) In our 2001 paper, "Bounds of Cognition," we didn't describe the issue in terms of "cognitive objects".  We wrote about cognitive processes:

To begin, we may observe that the mere causal coupling of some process with a broader environment does not, in general, thereby, extend that process into the broader environment. Consider the expansion of a bimetallic strip in a thermostat. This process is causally linked to a heater or air conditioner that regulates the temperature of the room the thermostat is in. Expansion does not, thereby, become a process that extends to the whole of the system. It is still restricted to the bimetallic strip in the thermostat. Take another example. The kidney filters impurities from the blood. In addition, this filtration is causally influenced by the heart’s pumping of the blood, the size of the blood vessels in the circulatory system, the one-way valves in the circulatory system, and so forth. The fact that these various parts of the circulatory system causally interact with the process of filtration in the kidneys does not make even a prima facie case for the view that filtration occurs throughout the circulatory system, rather than in the kidney alone. So, a process P may actively interact with its environment, but this does not mean that P extends into its environment. (Adams & Aizawa, 2001, p. 56).

3) All that is old hat, but I was surprised on rereading "Defending the Bounds" that we had done a reasonable job of not making object versus process an issue.  Here is the relevant text:

When Clark makes an object cognitive when it is connected to a cognitive agent, he is committing an instance of a coupling-constitution fallacy. This is the most common mistake that extended mind theorists make. The fallacious pattern is to draw attention to cases, real or imagined, in which some object or process is coupled in some fashion to some cognitive agent. From this, one slides to the conclusion that the object or process constitutes part of the agent's cognitive apparatus or cognitive processing. If you are coupled to your pocket notebook in the sense of always having it readily available, use it a lot, trust it implicitly, and so forth, then Clark infers that the pocket notebook constitutes a part of your memory store. If you are coupled to a rock in the sense of always having it readily available, use it a lot, trust it implicitly, and so forth, Clark infers that the rock constitutes a part of your memory store. Yet coupling relations are distinct from constitutive relations, and the fact that object or process X is coupled to object or process Y does not entail that X is part of Y. The neurons leading into a neuromuscular junction are coupled to the muscles they innervate, but the neurons are not a part of the muscles they innervate. The release of neurotransmitters at the neuromuscular junction is coupled to the process of muscular contraction, but the process of releasing neurotransmitters at the neuromuscular junction is not part of the process of muscular contraction.  (Adams and Aizawa, 2010, pp. 67-8)

 4)

"But this talk of an object's being or failing to be "cognitive" seems to me almost unintelligible when applied to some putative part of a cognitive agent or of a cognitive system." 

Is it really unintelligible to think that the left hemisphere of the brain is cognitive?

*

"Defending the Bounds of Cognition" Revisited 1

Fred and I wrote this paper a long time ago now (September of 2003, I think), so it was interesting to reread it.  Although I think I still agree with all the principal points, there are a few tweaks worth noting in blog posts.

First a boring a side story.  The paper begins,

Question: Why did the pencil think that 2 + 2 = 4?
Clark's answer: Because it was coupled to the mathematician. 

Fred made me tone it down (I used to be a lot worse than I am now) and take out, among other things,

Question: Why did the pencil think that multinational corporations are the greatest threat to world democracy?
Answer: Because it was coupled to Noam Chomsky.

Much has been made of the idea that it is not the pencil alone that is supposed to be cognitive but instead the "person + pencil + paper" system.  Ok.  But, that really doesn't help.  The point is that cognitive processing does not extend just in virtue of causal coupling.

Menary(?) and Wheeler(?) Buy the Distinction between Causation and Constitution

Wheeler (chapter 11) argues that the extended mind is a kind of extended functionalism. Wheeler points out that the extended mind is not simply a weak claim about the causal dependence of some cognition on external factors (cf. Adams and Aizawa's coupling-constitution fallacy). It is a stronger claim involving the constitution of cognition, at least in part, by external factors. Therefore, the extended mind is not simply an embodied-embedded thesis that treats external props and tools as causally relevant features of the environment. It is a thesis that takes the bodily manipulation of external vehicles as constitutive of cognitive processes. (Menary, 2010, p. 21).

So, this pretty clearly buys into the causation/constitution distinction in order to make out the hypothesis of extended cognition.  So, as I noted earlier, pace Hurley, it seems to me that it is the job of the advocates of EC, not the critics, to explicate this distinction.

Dale Review of Chemero's Radical Embodied Cognitive Science

Also in the Journal of Mind and Behavior.

My Reply to Fisher is Now Officially in Print

"The Boundaries Still Stand: A Reply to Fisher" in the Journal of Mind and Behavior. 

I've discussed this a bit with Gary Williams here.

Discrimination on the Basis of Underlying Causal Processes

Menary quotes us on this:

Adams and Aizawa stipulate that "the cognitive must be discriminated on the basis of underlying causal processes" (Adams and Aizawa 2001, p. 52). 

But, I think this misrepresents what we do.  I don't think we stipulate anything.  We point out that other sciences have worked this way, so we might plausibly assume that cognitive science will go this way.  Here's the broader context (perhaps a little too much):

The second necessary condition is a condition on the nature of processing. This point bears much more elaboration than did the preceding. The old saw is that science tries to carve nature at its joints. Part of what this means is that, to a first approximation, science tries to get beneath observable phenomena to find the real causal processes underlying them; science tries to partition the phenomenal world into causally homogeneous states and processes. Thus, as sciences develop a greater understanding of reality, they develop better partitions of the phenomenological. A range of examples will point out what we are driving at.

     In the Novum Organum, Francis Bacon proposed a set of methods for determining the causes of things. According to one of these methods, to find the cause of X, one should list all the positive instances of things that are X, then find what is common to them all. As an example, Bacon applies this method to the “form of heat.” On his list of hot things, Bacon includes the rays of the sun, fiery meteors, burning thunderbolts, eruptions of flame from the cavities of mountains, all bodies rubbed violently, piles of damp hay, quicklime sprinkled with water, horse-dung, the internal portions of animals, strong vinegar which when placed on the skin produces a sensation of burning, and keen and intense cold that produces a sensation of burning. Bacon conjectured that what was common to these was a high degree of molecular vibration and that the intensity of heat of a thing is the intensity of molecular vibration. Bacon clearly intended to carve nature at its joints, but it simply turns out as a matter of contingent empirical fact that the things that appear hot, or produce the sensation of being hot, do not constitute a natural kind. The rays of the sun, meteors, friction due to heat, body heat, and so forth, simply do not have a common cause. There is no single scientific theory that encompasses them all; the phenomena are explained by distinct theories. Friction falls to physics. Decomposition
falls to biology. Exothermic reactions to chemistry.

     As a second example, there are the late 19th century developments in the theory of evolution. By this time, Darwin’s biogeographical, morphological, taxonomic, and embryological arguments had carried the day for evolution and many biologists had come to accept the theory of evolution by common descent. Despite this, the majority of biologists were reluctant to accept Darwin’s hypothesis that evolution is caused primarily by natural selection. In this intellectual environment, biologists returned for a second look at Lamarckian theories of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. In support of their theory, neo-Lamarckians pointed to cases which, in retrospect, proved to be instances in which a mother would contract some disease, then pass this disease on to her offspring in utero. Phenomenologically, this looks like the inheritance of acquired characteristics, but, in truth, inheritance and infection
involve distinct causal processes. Inheritance involves genetic material in sex cells of a parent being passed on to offspring; infection is the transmission of an alien organism, perhaps via the circulatory system in isolation from the sex cells. To a first approximation, inheritance is a process in the germ line of an organism, where infection is a process in the soma line of an organism. It is only after the true causal differences between inheritance and infection are made out that one can conclude that we have one less instance of the inheritance of acquired characteristics than we might at one time have thought. Throughout the episode, Lamarckians were aiming to carve nature at its joints, but in the absence of a true understanding of the nature of the processes underlying inheritance and infection, these distinct processes had to appear to be the same, both as instances of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

     The cognitive may, therefore, be assumed to be like other natural domains, namely, the cognitive must be discriminated on the basis of underlying causal processes. The point we have been driving at here might be approached in another way, namely, we believe there is more to cognition than merely passing the Turing test. Some of the mechanisms that might be used to pass the Turing test will count as cognitive mechanisms for doing this, while other mechanisms that might suffice will not count as cognitive mechanisms. A computer program might pass the Turing test by having a listing of all possible sensible conversations stored in memory. Such a program, however, would not   constitute a cognitive mechanism for passing the test. This is presumably because we have sufficient ground for saying that the look-up table process is not of a kind with the complex of processes that go into enabling a normal human to carry out the same sort of conversation. The look-up table may, for example, answer questions in a constant amount of time for each sentence. Computer chess provides another famous sort of case where behavior can be carried out by both a cognitive and a non-cognitive process. In chess, there is a combinatorial explosion in the number of possible moves, responses, counter responses, and so forth. As a result, it quickly proves to be impractical to examine all the logically possible moves and countermoves. The most powerful chess playing programs, therefore, use special techniques to minimize the number of possible moves and countermoves they have to consider. Nevertheless, there is pretty strong reason to believe that the chess-playing methods currently employed by digital computers are not the chess-playing methods that are employed by human brains. Based on observations of the eye movements of grandmasters during play, it appears that grandmasters actually mentally work through an extraordinarily limited set of possible moves and countermoves, far fewer than the millions or billions considered by the most powerful chess-playing computer programs. The point is not simply that the computer processes and the human processes are different; it is that, when examined in detail, the differences are so great that they can be seen not to form a cognitive kind. The processes that take place in current digital chess playing computers are not of a kind with human chess playing.  (Adams & Aizawa, 2001, pp. 51-52, italics added for emphasis).

I think this is a pretty important idea.  I think that rejecting it in favor of things like "cognitive behavior" leads to all kinds of bad consequences for, for example, Rupert and, sometimes, Clark.

Why Neurons Don't Have Conventional Content

Finally, Adams and Aizawa reject the notion that cognitive content could be conventionally determined. They do this because agreement on what an artifact means is dependent on the artifact being publically accessible; for example, we can make "bad" or "cool" into positive adjectives by agreement. However, we cannot do this with neuronal states; we cannot agree that a group of neurons will mean something by agreement. This, Adams and Aizawa claim, gives us reason "to believe that cognitive content is not normally derived via any sort of social convention" (ibid., p. 73).

I'm not sure that our argument here comes through in Menary's explication.  Take things like white flags, idiot lights on automobile gas tanks, and the bells on timers.  One thing that seems to be requisite to establishing their conventional content is that they be publicly accessible.  One can easily and directly tell when they are tokened.  By contrast, we cannot easily and directly tell when particular brain states, such as when certain neurons are active, are tokened.  We might infer that some brain-internal meaningful state occurred, but that would not be like the detection of a token of surrender flag.

Thinking about this now, I can see someone going after this argument.

The Ambiguity of "Constitution"

Hurley (chapter 6) and Ross and Ladyman (chapter 7) are concerned about the very nature of the alleged fallacy. Hurley complains that philosophers employ the causal-constitutive distinction, on which the causal coupling fallacy trades, without motivating or explaining the distinction in detail. Ross and Ladyman argue that the distinction itself is not used in mature sciences such as economics and physics. (Menary, 2010, p. 13).

Another important thing to note is that "constitute" has at least two meanings.  "X constitutes a cognitive process" could mean something like X is a part, among perhaps others, that gives rise to a cognitive process.  On this reading, "X constitutes a cognitive process" would be closely related to "X realizes a cognitive process".  Alternatively, "X constitutes a cognitive process" could mean simply that X is a cognitive process.  Compare: That constitutes a good answer = That is a good answer.

So, on this second reading, the coupling-constitution distinction comes down to a distinction between X causing, or being caused by, a cognitive process, versus X being a cognitive process.  The nice thing about the word "constitution" is that it does have this ambiguity, which picks up on the ambiguity I think is to be found in the EC literature.

Here's what I found at www.dictionary.com:

1. to compose; form: mortar constituted of lime and sand.

2. to appoint to an office or function; make or create: He was constituted treasurer.

3. to establish (laws, an institution, etc.).

4. to give legal form to (an assembly, court, etc.).

5. to create or be tantamount to: Imports constitute a challenge to local goods.

I'm thinking #1 and #5 get at the ambiguity I'm describing.

Perception as Knowing How to Act: Alva Noë's Action in Perception

Here.

Burden Shifting

Hurley (chapter 6) and Ross and Ladyman (chapter 7) are concerned about the very nature of the alleged fallacy. Hurley complains that philosophers employ the causal-constitutive distinction, on which the causal coupling fallacy trades, without motivating or explaining the distinction in detail. Ross and Ladyman argue that the distinction itself is not used in mature sciences such as economics and physics. (Menary, 2010, p. 13).

I don't take it to be my job to explicate the coupling-constitution distinction that the EC folks use to articulate their view.  That's their job.  They are the ones who say that the environment does not merely causally influence cognitive processes, but that they constitute those cognitive processes.

But, matters are not as hopeless as Hurley might suggest.  There is some discussion of causation versus realization and constitution in, for example, Aizawa, K., and Gillett, C., The (Multiple) Realization of Psychological and other Properties in the Sciences. (2009). Mind & Language, 24, 181-208.  Maybe giving this reply is a mug's game though.  No matter how much we might say in explication of the distinction, it's easy enough for a philosopher to complain that we have not said enough or that what we say is not convincing.

So, really, if the distinction collapses, it's mostly ok by me.  Maybe psychologists can press on without the burdens of rethinking their discipline based on a confused philosophical distinction.

Preston Review of Rupert's Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind

In Analysis.

New Paper by Weiskopf

I think Dan does a very nice job in "Embodied cognition and linguistic comprehension".  I'm basing this on a version I saw a few years back.

Noë's OOOH at Concious Entities

Peter's discussion of Noë's treatment of Sur's ferrets seems to me, like Elpidorou's review, to go rather easy.

My take on Noë's treatment, in cartoon version is here, ... or is the cartoon version the one in "Consciousness: Don't Give up on the Brain"?

UPDATE: Corrected link toe Elpidorou's Review.

The Point of Menary's Cognitive Integration

Menary writes,

This is also the point of Menary's cognitive integration: we need to understand how bodily processes and the manipulation of external vehicles are coordinated in such a way that they jointly cause further behavior (see Menary 2006, 2007, this volume). (p. 13).

*

Now, I don't think this can be right about the point of Menary's cognitive integration.  Menary does not merely want to understand how bodily processes and the manipulation of external vehicles are coordinated in such a way that they jointly cause further behavior.  He also wants to champion a particular way of understanding how bodily processes and the manipulation of external vehicles are coordinated in such a way that they jointly cause further behavior, namely, that the entirety of the processing is cognitive.  Right?  By contrast, Adams and Aizawa and Rupert encourage a different way of understanding how bodily processes and the manipulation of external vehicles are coordinated in such a way that they jointly cause further behavior, namely, it's a matter of cognitive processes in the brain interacting with non-cognitive processes outside the brain.

Portability Conditions? What Portability Conditions?

C&C raise a potential objection to EM that some commentators have picked up on, and that it is the issue of portability and reliability (Adams and Aizawa 2001, this volume). The brain and body constitute a package of cognitive capacities that are portable in that they can always be brought to bear on a cognitive task; they form the constant cognitive core of an individual. The coupling of these core cognitive resources to the local environment is too contingent: the cognitive core can be too easily decoupled from its environment. Two conclusions can be drawn from this observation. First, it is the core cognitive resources that are of real interest to cognitive scientists, who are largely interested in the cognitive processes to be found in the brain. Second, the contingency of coupled cognitive resources shows that they are not really part of the reliable and portable cognitive resources that agents bring to bear on the world.  (Menary, 2010, p. 7).

Since Menary refers to two A&A papers, it kind of looks to me as though he thinks that we think that lack of portability and reliability counts against EC.  But, I don't think we think this.

A&A defend some weak form of cognitivism.  So, suppose we have a device that runs the right kind of program on the right kind of non-derived representations so that it counts as a cognitive system.  Now, let the system be such that it repeatedly and spontaneously splits in half for one minute, then comes back together for one minute.  It's one, then two, then one, then two.  It's fine by me if the system is a cognitive system for one minute, then (probably) not a cognitive system for a minute.  To my mind, it's having the right program on the right kind of representations that makes for the cognitive.  Durability doesn't seem to me to matter too much.  The wrinkle in this is the degree to which one has to accept some "historical" condition on content or having a mind.  If you think that Swampman has no content and no mind, then you won't like the fast switching.  But, if you are ok with Swampman having a mind, then the repeated connected/unconnected case should probably be a minded/unminded case.  That's all pretty rough (especially for those who do not know about Swampman), but maybe good enough for blog work.

Kiverstein Review of Noë 's Out of Our Heads

Julian Kiverstein (co-editor with Andy Clark of that special issue of Topoi) has a new review of Noë 's Out of Our Heads in the Journal of Consciousness Studies.

Julian kindly sent me a draft of this a while ago, but it is now available for easy download here.

It also contains a reply to my criticism of Noë's treatment of Sur's work on ferrets sketched here.  The full manuscript of my paper is available here.

Lambros Malafouris at Seed Magazine

Maybe folks have not seen this. 

Gary Williams' "Minds and Brains" Blog

Williams, a grad student at LSU, has a very nice blog, "Minds and Brains," here.  I've found several of his posts interesting and informative, probably because he embraces much of the Heideggerian, Gibsonian, picture that I often find baffling.

We have been discussing Noë's enactivism here.  There are also links to a forthcoming paper of mine and another soon-to-exist link to a forthcoming paper by Nivedita Gangopadhya.

Do Rupert, A&A, Misunderstand the Parity Principle?

Menary writes,

These critics think that the main argument for the extended mind is simply the claim that if external processes are sufficiently similar to internal ones, then they are cognitive. Is this really the argument for EM? I believe that the critics have reached this conclusion by misinterpreting the PP.  (Menary, 2010, p. 6).

Clark has previously suggested that Rupert, Adams and Aizawa have been misinterpreting the Parity Principle, but I'm not really sure why he and Menary think this.  What have we written that leads them to think that the PP is the basis for our thinking that one argument for the extended mind is that external processes are sometimes sufficiently similar to internal ones?  Here is why I think that there is such an argument.  It comes from the Inga-Otto example (but also the three modes of Tetris play case.)  Note the following:

For in relevant respects the cases are entirely analogous: the notebook plays for Otto the same role that memory plays for Inga.  The information in the notebook functions just like the information constituting an ordinary non-occurrent belief; it just happens that this information lies beyond the skin (Clark & Chalmers, 1998, p. 13).

Certainly, insofar as beliefs and desires are characterized by their explanatory roles, Otto’s and Inga’s cases seem to be on a par: the essential causal dynamics of the two cases mirror each other precisely (ibid.)

Reciprocal Coupling Again

Although we can identify the relevant components, and factorize them into internal and external components, the nature of reciprocal coupling makes it difficult to study the components as separate systems because they are continuously influencing and responding to one another. They are coordinating with one another to produce behavior.  (Menary, 2010, p. 4).

Now, why would reciprocal coupling per se make it difficulty to study the components (brain and body) as separate systems?  Even by the EC line, isn't this how things have been done up to this point?  There has to be more to the story.  The thermostat and the furnace continuously influence and respond to one another, but they look to be separable systems (or at least separable sub-systems or components of a single system).

Menary on Symmetric Versus Asymmetric Causal Coupling

In his introduction to The Extended Mind, Menary offers this explication of Clark and Chalmers' causal coupling.

There are two possible interpretations of causal coupling here, and it is important to be clear about which one is implied by C&C.

A. Asymmetric influence: environmental features have a causal influence over inner processes. It may still be the case that we can change the exter­nal environment and that affects competence and behavior of the subject. If you take my diary away from me I won't be able to remember all my engagements. The diary prompts my recall of memories, but there is no need to go further and say that because the diary has a causal influence on me that it is thereby part of my memory, or the cognitive processes that allow me to remember. It would be a mistake to make this claim simply on the basis of a causal connection.

B. Symmetric influence: the inner and outer features have a mutually constraining causal influence on one another that unfolds over time. It is not simply that the diary prompts or causes, as input, various cognitive processes to unfold in my brain; rather, the external process of retrieving the information from the diary and the concurrent processes in my brain jointly govern my future behavior. This is what Menary calls cognitive integration (2006, 2007, this volume).  

This distinction is important because, critics of EM, such as Adams and Aizawa (2001, this volume) are working with interpretation A, but Clark is working with B. Hence there is a misunderstanding between exponents of EM and their critics. The critics may wish to claim that although EM is supposed to endorse B, very often A is what is endorsed, and A is not a constitutive thesis. Exponents of EM must be careful to indicate when and why they are using interpretation B. (Menary, 2010, pp. 3-4)

Ok.  I don't see that reciprocal coupling matters at all.  Take the original story about the bimetallic strip in a thermostat.  You get reciprocal coupling there, but not extended strip expansion.

To begin, we may observe that the mere causal coupling of some process with a broader environment does not, in general, thereby, extend that process into the broader environment. Consider the expansion of a bimetallic strip in a thermostat. This process is causally linked to a heater or air conditioner that regulates the temperature of the room the thermostat is in. Expansion does not, thereby, become a process that extends to the whole of the system. It is still restricted to the bimetallic strip in the thermostat.  (Adams and Aizawa, 2001, p. 56)