Myin's Review of Menary's The Extended Mind

Unbounding the Mind
Erik Myin
Science 29 October 2010: 589-590.

The Shark Cognitivist-Style

In the spirit of the best defense being a good offense, in my other posts on the TSRM account of the shark, Andrew has been hounding me for a mechanistic cognitivist account of what is going on with the shark. I've been avoiding this as I hate to get off topic, but here's a post to reply to Andrew's challenge/question.

It seems to me that there is a mechanistic cognitivist account of the shark implicit in TSRM's account.  The idea is that the shark detects the electric field F, then infers (perhaps on the basis of an implicit assumption that if there is an electric field F, then there is probably something edible) that there is something edible.  By cognitivist lights, inference can be mechanistic, since inference is the kind of thing a computer can do and computers are mechanistic devices.  This is the account TSRM are evidently trying to forestall in the following passage:

To predicate of the shark (a) 'detects electric field of type F' and (b) 'takes to be an edible thing' is not to refer to two different states of affairs, one (viz. (b)) that is reached from the other (viz. (a)) by an inference. Rather, it is to make reference in two ways to a single state of affairs of the shark-niche system.

So, here is what seems to me to be the lay of the land.  It seems to be common ground to both cognitivists and TSRM that the shark detects the electric field F.  Then, the issue that separates them is how this detection relates to taking there to be a fish present.  The cognitivist answer is that the detection of the field and taking there to be a fish present are related by inference; one is among the premises for a conclusion of the latter.  The TSRM answer is that the detection of the field and taking there to be a fish present are identical.

What I have been challenging is the adequacy of the TSRM account.

Andrew won't like the cognitivist answer, but that's not the same as claiming that I don't have one or that there isn't one.

TSRM's Shark Example 3

Sharks electrically detect things to eat and things that impede locomotion (Kalmijn, 1974). An edible living thing such as a flatfish differs in ionic com• position from the surrounding water, producing a bioelectric field partially modulated in the rhythm of the living thing's respiratory movements. A flatfish that has buried itself in the sand will be detectable by a shark swimming just above it. Reproducing the bioelectric field of the flatfish artificially, bypassing a current between two electrodes buried in the sand, invites the same predatory behavior. The shark digs tenaciously at the source of the field departing from the site when the act fails to reveal an edible thing (Kalmijn, 1971). Now there is no intelligible sense in which it can be claimed that the source ought to have appeared inedible if the shark's perception were free of error and if the shark's perception of affordances were direct. In the niche of the shark 'an edible thing' and 'electric field of, say, type F' are nomically related. To predicate of the shark (a) 'detects electric field of type F' and (b) 'takes to be an edible thing' is not to refer to two different states of affairs, one (viz. (b)) that is reached from the other (viz. (a)) by an inference. Rather, it is to make reference in two ways to a single state of affairs of the shark-niche system. The linking of (a) and (b) is not something that goes on in the "mind" of the shark, as the Establishment would have it. The linking of (a) and (b) is in the physics of an ecological world, namely, that system given by the complementation of the shark and its niche.

Fourth, now, it is true, as TSRM note, that in their respective niches, these predicates are nomologically connected.  Thus, we cannot tell by looking at the behavior of fish in their standard niches what they are perceiving.  But by looking at how they behave outside their niches, we see that the fish are keying in on electric fields and red bodies, relying on the nomological connections.  And we can see that in the non-standard environment, when the shark takes something (the electric field) to be an edible thing, it is mistaken.  Similarly, in the non-standard environment, when the stickleback takes something  (a fake fish) to be a male stickleback, it is mistaken.  (Indeed, the non-standard conditions indicate how (a) and (b) are not the same.  (a) is true, but (b) is false.)  This is where EC seems to have trouble.  How can it be that the shark picks up the (Gibsonian) information that there is something edible in the non-standard case, when there is nothing that is edible?

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TRSM's Shark Example 2

Sharks electrically detect things to eat and things that impede locomotion (Kalmijn, 1974). An edible living thing such as a flatfish differs in ionic com• position from the surrounding water, producing a bioelectric field partially modulated in the rhythm of the living thing's respiratory movements. A flatfish that has buried itself in the sand will be detectable by a shark swimming just above it. Reproducing the bioelectric field of the flatfish artificially, bypassing a current between two electrodes buried in the sand, invites the same predatory behavior. The shark digs tenaciously at the source of the field departing from the site when the act fails to reveal an edible thing (Kalmijn, 1971). Now there is no intelligible sense in which it can be claimed that the source ought to have appeared inedible if the shark's perception were free of error and if the shark's perception of affordances were direct. In the niche of the shark 'an edible thing' and 'electric field of, say, type F' are nomically related. To predicate of the shark (a) 'detects electric field of type F' and (b) 'takes to be an edible thing' is not to refer to two different states of affairs, one (viz. (b)) that is reached from the other (viz. (a)) by an inference. Rather, it is to make reference in two ways to a single state of affairs of the shark-niche system. The linking of (a) and (b) is not something that goes on in the "mind" of the shark, as the Establishment would have it. The linking of (a) and (b) is in the physics of an ecological world, namely, that system given by the complementation of the shark and its niche.

Third, consider TSRM's claim that "to predicate of the shark (a) 'detects electric field of type F' and (b) 'takes to be an edible thing' is not to refer to two different states of affairs, one (viz. (b)) that is reached from the other (viz. (a)) by an inference."  This, too, seems to me to be overstated.  "Detects electric field of type F" and "takes to be an edible thing" have different intentional or semantic contents (maybe both have intentional contents that differ or maybe (a) lacks intentional content, where (b) does not), so doing the detecting and doing that taking are not the same state of affairs in a perfectly pedestrian sense that EPists often admit. This is part and parcel of seeing something as an electric field (which would not seem to be an affordance) versus seeing it as an edible thing (which would seem to be an affordance).  In fact, part of the rationale for this shark experiment is to try to disentangle these different intentional objects--these different objects of perception.

Now, maybe there is some sense in which (a) and (b) are the same (which TSRM do not explicate), but there is a crucial sense in which they are different (which I have explicated).  This is why I temper my objection, noting that their claim is overstated.

Hippo-world

Many of those who have enjoyed reading Clark's Supersizing the Mind will probably have much enjoyed Clark's thought experiment regarding Hippo-world.  Another version of this argument now appears in Clark's "Coupling, Constitution, and the Cognitive Kind: A Reply to Adams and Aizawa," which is published in the new collection of papers, The Extended Mind, by Richard Menary.

Adams and I have a reply to this, among other things, in a paper, "The Value of Cognitivism in Thinking about Extended Cognition" that should be coming out in about a month.

Having already replied to much of Clark’s rejoinder in defense of coupling-constitution arguments,  we here limit ourselves to one argument that we have yet to address.  This argument might be thought to vindicate coupling-constitution arguments.  This is Clark’s “Hippo-world” thought experiment, which goes something like this.   For idiosyncratic historical reasons (perhaps the enduring influence of the philosophical “picture” of one Hippo-Descartes), all neuroscientific attention is focused on the hippocampus.  Several decades of research using single cell recording techniques, brain lesions in animals, and so forth has lead to important and replicable findings about the processes that occur within the hippocampus.  Scientists on Hippo-world are nothing if not inventive and one day some turn their scientific attention to the rest of the brain, where they too begin to make some significant progress.  They discover new neural circuits and processes that are linked to processes within the hippocampus.  And among these new scientists, there are some who are so bold as to conjecture that cognitive processes occur within the whole of the brain.  Inspired by this new science, some philosophers, Hippo-Clark and Hippo-Chalmers, among countless others, openly disavow the remnants of the traditional Hippo-Cartesian view of the mind and declare that “Cognitive processes ain’t (all) in the hippocampus!”
    Yet, there are philosophers who resist the enthusiastic philosophical interpretations of the studies of the entire brain.  Some philosophers, such as Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa, conjecture that, in its studies of the hippocampus, science has discovered the scientific essence of cognition itself.  More boldly, these philosophers conjecture that what occurs within the hippocampus is cognitive, where what occurs within the other regions of the brain is of a distinct non-cognitive character.  These philosophers maintain that genuinely cognitive processes, processes bearing the mark of the cognitive, take place within the hippocampus, where other supportive non-cognitive processes take place within the other regions of the brain.
    In reflecting upon Hippo-world, Clark wants his reader to have the impression that the critics of whole brain cognition of the Hippo-A-Team variety have an overly narrow vision of what cognition is.  Like Adams and Aizawa of earthly fame, Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa display an overly restricted conception of cognition.  In Hippo-World there are extra-hippocampal processes that complement those of the hippocampus and that are integrated with hippocampal processes to augment the power and scope of human intelligence.  Similarly, on earth, there are bodily and environmental processes that complement those of the brain and that are integrated with brain processes to augment the power and scope of human intelligence.  Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa should accept extra-hippocampal brain processes as genuinely cognitive processes, just as Adams and Aizawa should accept environmental processes as genuinely cognitive.
    Unfortunately for Clark, such prima facie plausibility as the Hippo-World argument might enjoy evaporates on more careful examination.  The Hippo-World account relies upon a kind of philosophical misdirection.  In describing the case, Clark provides the usual extended cognition sorts of observations of the causal roles played by the surrounding structures and the interplay between them.  He observes the coupling of the hippocampus and the extra-hippocampal brain and the way in which the whole can do more than the isolated parts.  And in this case, one is inclined to think that the whole of the brain is indeed a cognitive processor.  One, therefore, might suppose that coupling and integration can indeed lead to the extension of cognition.  One gets the distinct impression that the whole brain is cognitive in virtue of the coupling of the extra-hippocampal regions to the hippocampal regions.  The misdirection, however, becomes apparent when we note that, it is perfectly legitimate to suppose that the whole of the brain is indeed a cognitive processor, but not in virtue of the fact that it is coupled or integrated with the hippocampus.  What makes the whole of the brain a cognitive processor is the fact that the whole bears the mark of the cognitive?   As cognitivists would point out, the whole of the brain realizes processes that transform or manipulate non-derived representations.  This has nothing to do with the coupling considerations brought forth by many advocates of the hypothesis of extended cognition.
    But, there is also a second way in which one might interpret Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa more sympathetically.  Although it is Clark’s thought experiment and he is free to develop it as he wishes, let us suppose that the Hippo-world brain, just like the real world brain, is a cognitive processor.  If so, then by our lights, there will be non-derived representations in the hippocampus and in the extra-hippocampal regions of the brain.  Further, in both worlds the brain will carry out transformations or manipulations of these non-derived representations.  So, there would be this level of similarity.  Nevertheless, there would still be some point to Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa drawing a theoretical difference between intra-hippocampal processes and extra-hippocampal brain processes.  What Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa might be trying to bring to the attention of the scientific and philosophical community are the ways in which, as a matter of contingent empirical fact, hippocampal processes differs from extra-hippocampal brain processes, not to mention environmental processes.  The hippocampus carries out, let us say, spatial mapping of the environment, but not visual or auditory or linguistic processing.  Part of what this means is that there are different kinds of information processing going on in the hippocampal and the extra-hippocampal brain regions, not to mention in the external environment.   Neither Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa nor Adams and Aizawa are satisfied to use “cognition” as a label for just any old information processing on non-derived representations.  Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa share with Adams and Aizawa a concern over the indiscriminate lumping together of distinguishable types of processes.  Hippo-Adams and Hippo-Aizawa wish to distinguish hippocampus processes from more general “cognitive processes,” where Adams and Aizawa wish to distinguish cognitive processes from more general causal processes.  There is sense to what the Hippo-A-Team is saying, just as there is sense to what the Earthly-A-Team is saying.  So, it seems that the discussion of Hippo-world does not avoid the tendency to fall prey to the Coupling-Constitution Fallacy.

TSRM's Shark Example 1

Here is TSRM's discussion of a case that is quite similar to the FAPs case, so I'll discuss it here:

Sharks electrically detect things to eat and things that impede locomotion (Kalmijn, 1974). An edible living thing such as a flatfish differs in ionic com• position from the surrounding water, producing a bioelectric field partially modulated in the rhythm of the living thing's respiratory movements. A flatfish that has buried itself in the sand will be detectable by a shark swimming just above it. Reproducing the bioelectric field of the flatfish artificially, bypassing a current between two electrodes buried in the sand, invites the same predatory behavior. The shark digs tenaciously at the source of the field departing from the site when the act fails to reveal an edible thing (Kalmijn, 1971). Now there is no intelligible sense in which it can be claimed that the source ought to have appeared inedible if the shark's perception were free of error and if the shark's perception of affordances were direct. In the niche of the shark 'an edible thing' and 'electric field of, say, type F' are nomically related. To predicate of the shark (a) 'detects electric field of type F' and (b) 'takes to be an edible thing' is not to refer to two different states of affairs, one (viz. (b)) that is reached from the other (viz. (a)) by an inference. Rather, it is to make reference in two ways to a single state of affairs of the shark-niche system. The linking of (a) and (b) is not something that goes on in the "mind" of the shark, as the Establishment would have it. The linking of (a) and (b) is in the physics of an ecological world, namely, that system given by the complementation of the shark and its niche.

First of all, this case is much like the stickleback case.  "Detects electric field of type F" is like the "detects red body of type R"  and "takes to be an edible thing" is like "takes to be a male stickleback".  (This is why I place the post here.)

Second, "Now there is no intelligible sense in which it can be claimed that the source ought to have appeared inedible if the shark's perception were free of error and if the shark's perception of affordances were direct"  The claim of "no intelligible sense" seems to me to be a bit strong, but it is probably right that just because a shark can (directly) perceive "edible" does not mean that it can (directly) perceive "inedible".  But, this is largely a misdirection on TSRM's part.  It will still turn out, I shall argue, that in the "non-standard" environments (i.e., in the experimental manipulation), the shark has the false perceptual belief that there is something edible below.  But, how can the shark pick up the information that there is something edible below if there is nothing edible below?  That's what the critic of EP is driving at.

Runeson's EP and FAPs 3

The third thing I wonder regarding EP and FAPs is this idea that agents, such as fish, perceive affordances.  But, it looks like what the fish perceive is red spot, not male stickleback.  But,  red spots are not "meaningful" to the fish; male sticklebacks are "meaningful" to the fish.

On this topic, tomorrow I'll jump to an example (or maybe two) of sharks from Turvey, Shaw, Reed, & Mace, 1981 ....

Runeson's EP and FAPs 2

FAPs are fixed action patterns.  The wikipedia gives this description (which is about all I know of them):

Another example of fixed action patterns is the red-bellied stickleback (fish). The male turns a bright red/blue colour during the breeding season. During this time they are also naturally aggressive towards other red-bellied sticklebacks, another FAP. However anything that is red, or has the appearance of being red, will bring about this FAP. The proximate response to this is that due to the stimuli, a nerve sends a signal to attack that red item. The ultimate cause of this behavior stems from the fact that the stickleback needs the area in which it is living for either habitat, food, mating with other sticklebacks, or other purposes. This is an inherited behavior, but it is has been found that this behavior may be more flexible than scientists thought at first. This interaction was studied by Niko Tinbergen. The threat display of male stickleback (fish) is also a fixed action pattern triggered by a stimulus.

Now, FAPs, to my mind, raise a couple of interesting questions vis a vis EP.  Here's another.

Suppose that the sticklebacks using a "smart" mechanism in the sense of one that "capitalize[s] on the peculiarities of the situation and the task".  That is, the sticklebacks rely on the fact that, by and large, the only things with red patches on them in the stereotypical stickleback environment is a male stickleback.

Yet, this is what cognitivists, I think, will often describe as relying on an "assumption" about the environment.  It might be what cognitivists call an implicit assumption, one that is not coded as a line in a program or as a data structure, but an assumption nonetheless.

Now, I don't have text to cite, here, but I think at least one thing EPists don't like
"assumptions" is that they don't like them construed as representations or what cognitivists might call "explicit assumptions".  But, perhaps non-representational, "implicit assumptions", are ok.  Indeed, I take it that Runeson's account of the information a person uses in state Ames room viewing relies on what cognitivists might call "implicit assumptions".

Andy Clark on “Think”

Andy Clark appeared on the KERA program “Think” at the University of Texas, Dallas, on October 20, 2010 to discuss natural-born cyborgs and Supersizing the Mind. Click here to listen.

Epistemology and Extended Cognition

As I noted in an earlier post, next month (November 24), Duncan Pritchard will be heading up a workshop on this topic.  The speakers are Krist Vaesen, Tom Roberts, Evan Butts, Orestis Palermos, Chris Kelp, and Richard Menary.

Although I have mostly been blogging on Gibsonian topics that I have been reading on background, I have been working more seriously on this topic of epistemology and extended cognition, reading such papers as I can get a hold of.  For example, I have found Duncan Pritchard's recent "Cognitive ability and the extended cognition thesis" in Synthese very interesting.  Although I am not convinced that things will work out as Pritchard, and others, expect, there does seem to me to be some fruitful points of exchange between the various forms of "virtue epistemology" and extended cognition.  There are a lot of reasonably subtle issues that merit attention.

Moreover, I understand that Pritchard and Andy Clark are planning another event on this topic for next year, so I hope others will be encouraged to take it up.

A Connectionist Approach to Embodied Conceptual Metaphor

Stephen J. Flusberg, Paul H. Thibodeau, Daniel A. Sternberg and Jeremy J. Glick

A growing body of data has been gathered in support of the view that the mind is embodied and that cognition is grounded in sensory-motor processes. Some researchers have gone so far as to claim that this paradigm poses a serious challenge to central tenets of cognitive science, including the widely held view that the mind can be analyzed in terms of abstract computational principles. On the other hand, computational approaches to the study of mind have led to the development of specific models that help researchers understand complex cognitive processes at a level of detail that theories of embodied cognition (EC) have sometimes lacked. Here we make the case that connectionist architectures in particular can illuminate many surprising results from the EC literature. These models can learn the statistical structure in their environments, providing an ideal framework for understanding how simple sensory-motor mechanisms could give rise to higher-level cognitive behavior over the course of learning. Crucially, they form overlapping, distributed representations, which have exactly the properties required by many embodied accounts of cognition. We illustrate this idea by extending an existing connectionist model of semantic cognition in order to simulate findings from the embodied conceptual metaphor literature. Specifically, we explore how the abstract domain of time may be structured by concrete experience with space (including experience with culturally-specific spatial and linguistic cues). We suggest that both EC researchers and connectionist modelers can benefit from an integrated approach to understanding these models and the empirical findings they seek to explain.

Link including a draft PDF.

Runeson's EP and FAPs 1

FAPs are fixed action patterns.  The wikipedia gives this description (which is about all I know of them):

Another example of fixed action patterns is the red-bellied stickleback (fish). The male turns a bright red/blue colour during the breeding season. During this time they are also naturally aggressive towards other red-bellied sticklebacks, another FAP. However anything that is red, or has the appearance of being red, will bring about this FAP. The proximate response to this is that due to the stimuli, a nerve sends a signal to attack that red item. The ultimate cause of this behavior stems from the fact that the stickleback needs the area in which it is living for either habitat, food, mating with other sticklebacks, or other purposes. This is an inherited behavior, but it is has been found that this behavior may be more flexible than scientists thought at first. This interaction was studied by Niko Tinbergen. The threat display of male stickleback (fish) is also a fixed action pattern triggered by a stimulus.

Now, FAPs, to my mind, raise a couple of interesting questions vis a vis EP.  Here's one.

Maybe FAPs are both rote and smart, i.e. "specialized".  Does the red-bellied stickleback have a mechanism just for detecting males?  Although the wikipedia doesn't mention a dedicated neural circuit, other accounts of other FAPs do:

Fig. 2. Female goose behavior of picking eggs up. When it sees an egg outside the nest (key stimulus), it begins a repeated movement of dragging the egg with its beak and neck. However, if the eggs slides off or if it is removed by the researcher, the goose continues to repeat the stereotypic movements even if the egg is absent, until it reaches the nest, when then it does it all over again. FAP seems to correspond to a fixed neural circuitry elicited by the overall trigger stimuli.  (italics added)

So, FAPs could be examples of mechanisms that are both rote and smart.

Runeson on Rote versus Smart Mechanisms 3

     Rote instruments consist of large numbers of a few types of basic components, each of which performs a rather simple task. The accomplishment of complex tasks is possible through intricate interconnections (programming) between the components. The important principles of operation reside in the program, and by changing the program the instrument can be put to different uses. New problems can be approached in a straightforward, intellectual, bureaucratic, "systems", manner. The solutions will be elementaristic and often a bit clumsy.
     Smart instruments are specialized on a particular (type of) task in a particular (type of) situation and capitalize on the peculiarities of the situation and the task, i.e. use shortcuts, etc. They consist of few but specialized components. For solving problems which are repeated very often, smart instruments, if they exist, are more efficient and more economical. They are also likely to be more reliable and durable. Solution of a new problem requires the invention of a new instrument. A straightforward and bureaucratic procedure is not likely to achieve that, since the task is creative and just as much intuitive as intellectual. (Runeson, 1977, pp. 173-4).

What started me on my post of yesterday was the observation that it looks to me at least as though the mechanisms of lateral inhibition in the retina (setting aside whether they are information processors or analogue computing devices) have most of the characteristics of rote mechanisms.  (The last two sentences probably do not, however, describe the retinal mechanisms of lateral inhibition.)  And, perhaps they are "specialized" for just lateral inhibition.

I haven't had time to look into these examples, but if I had the time I would look at:
1) The neural circuitry for the vestibulo-ocular reflex would be a rote mechanism that is also smart.  Rote, but "specialized" for stabilizing images on the retina during head motions. The VOR might be especially good as it might be adjustable to accommodate changes in head size during growth.
2) Spinal reflex circuitry.  Perhaps that is rote, but "specialized".
3) Neural circuits in area V4.  Perhaps they are rote mechanisms, but "specialized" for color processing.  (Pick any of the regions of visual cortex for that matter.)
4) Regions of motor cortex.  Perhaps rote, but specialized for initiating/controlling finger movements.

Andrew kind of invited this post when asking for an example of a wondrous sort of device that could be both rote and specialized, so I hard to pick the computer example to avoid trampling over today's post.

But, again, all of this depends on what is meant by being "specialized".

Perception, action, and consciousness: Sensorimotor Dynamics and Two Visual Systems

I just received my copy of this from Amazon.  Now I just need some time to read it!

Clenched Muscles Assist Self-Control

A 60-Second Science episode by Cynthia Graber ...

Runeson on Rote versus Smart Mechanisms 2

     Rote instruments consist of large numbers of a few types of basic components, each of which performs a rather simple task. The accomplishment of complex tasks is possible through intricate interconnections (programming) between the components. The important principles of operation reside in the program, and by changing the program the instrument can be put to different uses. New problems can be approached in a straightforward, intellectual, bureaucratic, "systems", manner. The solutions will be elementaristic and often a bit clumsy.
     Smart instruments are specialized on a particular (type of) task in a particular (type of) situation and capitalize on the peculiarities of the situation and the task, i.e. use shortcuts, etc. They consist of few but specialized components. For solving problems which are repeated very often, smart instruments, if they exist, are more efficient and more economical. They are also likely to be more reliable and durable. Solution of a new problem requires the invention of a new instrument. A straightforward and bureaucratic procedure is not likely to achieve that, since the task is creative and just as much intuitive as intellectual. (Runeson, 1977, pp. 173-4).

These categories are not that neat.  So, for example, one could have a device that has a large number of simple components which performs a rather simple task (hence looks to be to that degree a rote instrument), but which is also specialized on a particular (type of) task in a particular (type of) situation (hence looks to be to that degree a smart instrument).

Maybe this, however, is not what is important about the distinction.  Maybe it is the use of shortcuts.  Using a shortcut is a smart thing to do, right?

Runeson on Rote versus Smart Mechanisms

     Rote instruments consist of large numbers of a few types of basic components, each of which performs a rather simple task. The accomplishment of complex tasks is possible through intricate interconnections (programming) between the components. The important principles of operation reside in the program, and by changing the program the instrument can be put to different uses. New problems can be approached in a straightforward, intellectual, bureaucratic, "systems", manner. The solutions will be elementaristic and often a bit clumsy.
     Smart instruments are specialized on a particular (type of) task in a particular (type of) situation and capitalize on the peculiarities of the situation and the task, i.e. use shortcuts, etc. They consist of few but specialized components. For solving problems which are repeated very often, smart instruments, if they exist, are more efficient and more economical. They are also likely to be more reliable and durable. Solution of a new problem requires the invention of a new instrument. A straightforward and bureaucratic procedure is not likely to achieve that, since the task is creative and just as much intuitive as intellectual. (Runeson, 1977, pp. 173-4).

I don't much like this kind of speculative psychology.  (I prefer my psychology experimental.)  I also don't want to deny the possibility of smart mechanisms.

But, on the one hand, it seems to me that it would be pretty hard to eliminate an important role for rote mechanisms.  It seems to me that neural circuits pretty neatly fit the description of rote mechanisms, provided one construes "programming" broadly enough to include changes in patterns of synaptic connection and synaptic efficacy.  But, if that is the case, it's going to be hard to challenge the old-fashioned psychological theories that think that visual perception involves photoreceptors.

And, on the other hand, it would seem that the plausibility or pervasiveness (as opposed to the mere possibility of) smart mechanisms depends a long on how specialized "specialized" is.  I take it that it is implausible to suppose that the visual system is specialized for finding fruit or specialized for finding food.  Of course, if one says that the visual system is specialized for vision or for seeing things, then I don't see that one really needs to evolutionary argument for that.  That appears to be close to a tautology.

Human nature and cognitive–developmental niche construction

Human nature and cognitive–developmental niche construction

(Here.)

by Karola Stotz

Abstract
Recent theories in cognitive science have begun to focus on the active role of organisms in shaping their own environment, and the role of these environmental resources for cognition. Approaches such as situated, embedded, ecological, distributed and particularly extended cognition look beyond ‘what is inside your head’ to the old Gibsonian question of ‘what your head is inside of’ and with which it forms a wider whole—its internal and external cognitive niche. Since these views have been treated as a radical departure from the received view of cognition, their proponents have looked for support to similar extended views within (the philosophy of) biology, most notably the theory of niche construction. This paper argues that there is an even closer and more fruitful parallel with developmental systems theory and developmental niche construction. These ask not ‘what is inside the genes you inherited’, but ‘what the inherited genes are inside of’ and with which they form a wider whole—their internal and external ontogenetic niche, understood as the set of epigenetic, social, ecological, epistemic and symbolic legacies inherited by the organism as necessary developmental resources. To the cognizing agent, the epistemic niche presents itself not just as a partially self-engineered selective niche, as the niche construction paradigm will have it, but even more so as a partially self-engineered ontogenetic niche, a problem-solving resource and scaffold for individual development and learning. This move should be beneficial for coming to grips with our own (including cognitive) nature: what is most distinctive about humans is their developmentally plastic brains immersed into a well-engineered, cumulatively constructed cognitive–developmental niche.

Keywords  Ontogenetic niche - Developmental systems theory - extended mind - Cognitive niche construction - Human nature

EP and Levels

This is just a question post.

So, cognitivists typically (actually, without exception to my knowledge) hold that there are something like "levels".  So, for example, there is a psychological level that is realized by neuronal processes, which are realized by chemical processes, which are realized by quantum mechanical processes.  Sometimes the levels are, following Marr, input-output, algorithmic, and implementational.  Now, there are differences of opinion about what levels are, how many there are, and what relations there are between them, but do EPists have some version of this kind of picture of reality?

Runeson has something like this with his anti-reductionism and Gibson seems to insist on something like the psychological being a molar kind of enterprise distinct from physics, but I have never seen them talk about things like levels and their relations.  (Nor is it something I've seen in introductions to Phenomenology.)

Runeson on "being better off"

In his "On the Possibility of "Smart" Perceptual Mechanisms" (to which Andrew drew my attention), Runeson comments

The above mentioned tennis-player would be much better off if his perceptual systems were smart enough to make use of this geometrical invariant. (Runeson, 1977, p. 176).

I think that is not such a promising line of argument for a smart perceptual mechanism.  The problem is that even if we grant that an agent would be much better off performing a given task were she to be able to use a geometrical invariant, there are other considerations that might prevent the "smart" mechanism from being adopted.  For one thing, solving this particular task may not have been evolutionarily significant.  For another thing, there could be other selection pressures in play.  For a third thing, there could be physical or biological constraints that inhibit the adoption of the smart mechanism.  (To comment a bit on this last point, it might be smarter for human babies not to be born so immature, but being born immature seems to be a constraint imposed by having to get the baby's head out of the human birth canal before it gets too big to get out at all.) And the fact that we have relatively little knowledge of what those constraints might be encourages the view that there are no such constraints.

So, I think that this line of thinking is, as I've said before, a little dicey.  Maybe it would be better to have someone with more experience with evolutionary biology or philosophy of biology comment on this.  Old fashioned experimental work seems to me more reliable here.

22nd Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Luxembourg

The 22nd Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence will take place in Luxembourg from 25 to 26 October 2010.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often defined as the machine intelligence and the branch of computer science involved in its creation. Research in the field is technical and highly specialised. This has led to wide variations in the development of tools and research approaches.

In the past two decades, artificial intelligence has seen some significant achievements, especially in logistics, data mining and medical diagnosis. These advances have been the result of such factors as increased computing power, a greater emphasis on solving specific sub-problems, the creation of new ties between AI and other fields and work in solid mathematical methods and rigorous scientific standards.

Topics at the event are set to include:

- AI for ambient intelligence, games and entertainment;
- embodied artificial intelligence;
- intelligent agents and multi-agent systems;
- knowledge management and knowledge-based systems;
- logic in AI;
- natural language processing;
- speech and image processing and understanding;
- cognitive modeling;
- reinforcement learning;
- planning and scheduling;
- AI in law, music, art, education, tutoring, medicine, bioinformatics, software, e-commerce, logistics, robotics, and other business and industry applications.

For further information, please visit:
http://bnaic2010.uni.lu/index.html.

Power Posing

Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance

Dana R. Carney1, Amy J.C. Cuddy2, and Andy J. Yap1
1Columbia University and 2Harvard University

Abstract
Humans and other animals express power through open, expansive postures, and they express powerlessness through closed, contractive postures. But can these postures actually cause power? The results of this study confirmed our prediction that posing in high-power nonverbal displays (as opposed to low-power nonverbal displays) would cause neuroendocrine and behavioral changes for both male and female participants: High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk; low-power posers exhibited the opposite pattern. In short,
posing in displays of power caused advantaged and adaptive psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes, and these findings suggest that embodiment extends beyond mere thinking and feeling, to physiology and subsequent behavioral choices. That a person can, by assuming two simple 1-min poses, embody power and instantly become more powerful has real-world, actionable implications.

I found this via Mark's Daily Apple.  This embodiment stuff is getting out of control.

Runeson's objection to starting with physics

Now, if the theory of physics cannot be claimed to have monopoly on descriptions of "what is really there" , there is no longer any reason to assume that the perceptual systems must necessarily begin by registering what is basic to physics. On the contrary, we should expect perceptual mechanisms which directly register variables of high informational value to the perceiver. (Runeson, 1977, p. 173).

This seems to me a rash argument.  Grant that physics does not have a monopoly on reality.  That there are things, such as say trees, that are not a part of physics narrowly construed.  There still might be reason to believe (forget about "assuming") that perceptual systems begin by registering (set aside the "must necessarily") what is basic to physics (set aside quarks and think of photons).  I mean, Runeson seems to assume that something like reductionism to physics is the only possible reason to think that vision science should begin with entities of physics.

So, for example, why couldn't there be some experimental result is psychology or neuroscience that supports the view that perceptual systems begin by registering what is basic to physics?  By this, I take it that Runeson is not merely challenging the idea that vision science should begin with fundamental physical entities, such as quarks.  I'm assuming that he would not like a vision science that begins with, say, photons.  Why couldn't there be an experiment that shows that people respond to flashes of light or patterns of light.  That really is the mainstream view of vision.  EP folks think this; they just disagree with it.  

Is there a Gibsonian ur-case?

Having read a fair bit of stuff by ecological psychologists, I still feel I'm just not getting it.  I don't see what is driving the project; just a collection of (to me) weird beliefs.

But, here's what might work for me.  Simplifying:
Skinner thought he could extrapolate from what happens with Skinner boxes to much of cognition.
Chomsky thought he could extrapolate from what happens with syntax acquisition to much of cognition.
PDP folks thought they could extrapolate from what happens with variants of three-layer back-prop nets to much of cognition.
Dynamical systems folks think they can extrapolate from finger-wagging to large parts of cognition.

But, with Gibson, I don't know what the base case is, or even if there is one.  What, if anything, is the ur-case that is supposed to be the basis of the extrapolation?  I don't see the "successful case" that inspires the approach.  Instead, I see this huge mass of terminology and polemic.  Maybe this is just a matter of expository style, but I don't get it.  Maybe there is a story somewhere in the many pages of The Ecological Approach that I have not read.

If someone could tell me the Gibsonian ur-case, if there is one,that might help.

Why did Tribble need EM?

So, the question that started this segment was "How did the Elizabethan actors remember all their lines?"  The answer was roughly because of the many prompts in the organization of the Globe Theater.

Alan Saunders then asks a good question.  Why does this analysis of the Globe Theater performances require EM?  Why do we have to add the part about the whole of the Globe being a cognitive system?

The first part of Sutton's reply is that Hutchins' theory of EM inspired Tribble, but he admits after that that, in principle, Tribble's account can be given without the EM view.  Then, he turns to the point that prior to Tribble's work, scholars had supposed that there was a single prompter, but now there is the hypothesis that there were many prompts.

But, the obvious rejoinder here (right?) is to ask why multiple prompts versus a single prompt should make for extended cognition.  Note, moreover, that saying that the whole of the Globe is a cognitive system does not really address the original question of how the Elizabethan actors remembered all their lines.  The Globe-as-a-cognitive-system story just encourages a (trivial) reformulation of the question.  How did the Elizabethan actors (who were part of this larger cognitive system) remember all their lines?  Now the question is one of how certain components of a system did their job.  That seems to me to be no advance at all.  The real advance was in seeing the many components rather than the one.

Sutton adds that this single prompter was thought to be the single intelligent agent behind the performance and that that is not the case.

Personally, I'm kind of skeptical about this last bit of commentary.  Did anyone really think that the actors on stage were not intelligent agents behind the performance?  I guess that it depends on how much one loads into the word "behind".  Maybe the actors weren't "behind" the performance, but part of the performance.

 Now, I confess that I have not read the original Tribble paper, but I should have and it is on my list of things to read.  But, there is that Gibson thing I have to read .... =)

Memories, memory studies and my iPhone: Editorial

Amanda J. Barnier's free PDF download of this editorial from Memory Studies is here.

Future Posts 10/13/2010

Some weeks ago, Andrew Wilson sent me a link to Runeson's (1977).  "On the Possibility of 'Smart' Mechanisms" Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 18, 172-9.

I'll be working through some comments on this starting on Friday.  The paper is available here. 

After that, I have a number of comments on Chapter 4 of Gibson 1979.  Basically, I take exception to Gibson's objection to retinal images.  I have other scattered posts on Gibson, but it just occurred to me that it might be good to contrast Gibson's case against retinal images with Alva Noë's comments/ objections to retinal images in Action in Perception. 

And to think that I worried that I would not have enough to say for a blog.  It must be the brevity of the posts....

If the notebook prompts my recall of memory, does that make it part of my memory?

Sutton: If it is very heavily integrated in my ordinary attempts to remember information, then yes.

So, this looks to me like a version of the coupling-constitution fallacy.

Sutton: The Mind is not External to the Brain

It rather surprised me when Sutton says this, then proceeds to say that the mind does its best when it is hooked up with external resources.  But, I agree that the mind is not external to the brain and that there is a perfectly good sense in which the mind performs better when using external resources.  (That's what's so great about using tools.)  And I even think it's plausible that humans evolved to be apt tool users and tool adopters.  But, that's not HEC.

Two-way Brain-World Interaction

The host, Alan Saunders, prompts some discussion of the interactions between brain and world.  Now, it seems to me that when Menary takes up this idea of this two-way symmetrical interaction between brain and world this can only be a description of a two-way symmetrical causal interaction between the brain and the world.  But, while this sort of relation certainly exists and the EM folks often draw attention to this, the EM folks also want to say something other than just this.  (That is, they want more than HEMC, they want HEC.)  The EM folks want to say that, say, the iPhone or notebook is something like part of the realization base for someone's mental processes.  But, realization is often taken to be a one-way lower- to higher-level determination relation.  Or, maybe the EM folks want to say that the iPhone or notebook is something like the supervenience base for a person's mental states.  This, too, however, is not a two-way brain-world interaction.  It is something like a one-way lower- to higher-level determination relation.

Gibson and Mach Bands

In one version of the Mach bands, one has a dark field and a light field separated by a contrast gradient.  Yet, at the right edge of the bright field, there is an apparent brighter band, while at the left edge of the dark field there is an apparent darker band.

From Purves Lab

The standard account of Mach bands has to do with lateral inhibition in the retina.  But, Gibson writes things that seem to be highly dismissive of a) not just of this account, but of any such accounts and of b) attempts to understand them.

Not even the current theory that the inputs of the sensory channels are subject to "cognitive processing" will do. The inputs are described in terms of information theory, but the processes are described in terms of old-fashioned mental acts: recognition, interpretation, inference, concepts, ideas, and storage and retrieval of ideas. These are still the operations of the mind upon the deliverances of the senses, and there are too many perplexities entailed in this theory. It will not do, and the approach should be abandoned.

         ...

Let us remember once again that it is the perception of the environment that we wish to explain. If we were content to explain only the perception of forms or pictures on a surface, of nonsense figures to which meanings must be attached, of discrete, stimuli imposed on an observer willy-nilly, in short, the items most often presented to an observer in the laboratory, the traditional theories might prove to be adequate and would not have to be abandoned. But we should not be content with that limited aim. (Gibson, 1979, pp. 238-9).

Menary: Clark as the Originator of the Extended Mind

Near the beginning of the discussion, Menary bills Clark as the originator of the EM idea.  So, for at least some advocates of EM, perhaps, Gibson, Maturana & Varela, and Merleau-Ponty are not the originators.  Which probably goes to show some of the diversity of opinion in the EM world.  Or, it could just be that this discussion was intended to revolve around Clark & Chalmers' (1988), so that some extra praise for it is in order.

Wilson's Point in Contrasting Kanzi and Rush Hour

In my previous post, I commented on the way the Kanzi and Rush Hour cases seem to distinguish Clark's version of EC from some other versions of EC (in particular one that Wilson seems to prefer.)  Where Wilson goes with this, however, is to invoke it as a distinction between technological cases of extended cognition (such as Kanzi's) and sociological cases of extended cognition (such as Rush Hour).  (It seems to me to be a bit strained to see the Rush Hour case as a sociological instance, but set that aside.)  Here's the point:

This isn't to say that technological development and appropriation is unimportant in thinking about extended cognition, or that it is never a primary shaper of the extended mind. Rather, it is to claim that we need also to take the nonsymbolic environment seriously in articulating the extended mind thesis, and that the most important place to look in doing so is the social realm. The social and the technological are both significant aspects of extended cognition-evolutionarily, historically, biologically, culturally-and I suspect that it is in tandem that they have sculpted human cognition over tens of thousands of years to its present level. (Wilson, 2010, p. 182).

The symbolic/non-symbolic seems to me to be an odd way to draw a distinction between the technological and the sociological.  Some years ago, in personal communications, I found that Sandy Goldberg and Deb Tollefsen seemed to be interested in cases of extended cognition that involve interpersonal interactions.  [Wilson: "These social features include the interpersonal relations found in human social groups-from dyads through to face-to-face communities" (p. 182)]  They thought that these cases were more plausible cases of extended cognition than some of the standard cases, such as Otto and his notebook or the three modes of Tetris play, since other people's mind are plausibly construed as bearers of (non-derived) representations.  What is odd is that Wilson seems to think that humans are not symbol users.  I'm not sure I'm getting the picture here.

Someone Else is Having Trouble with Embodied Cognition

Here is Robert Kurzban on the Glenberg style of Embodied Cognition.

Future Posts 10/6/2010

Although I have prepared some posts on Runeson's "On the Possibility of 'Smart' Perceptual Mechanisms," I am going to put those on hold to try to make some timely comments on Menary and Sutton's discussion of EC in the Philosopher's Zone.

Now, having done that bit of "live" philosophizing on Philosophy TV, I know that one does not always makes ones most careful comments and analyses "on the fly".  So, I think my following comments should be taken more in the spirit of pointing out clarifications, rather than rendering objections.

Kanzi versus Rush Hour

This brings me to the chief difference between these two examples [Kanzi and Rush Hour] that I want to draw explicit attention to. This is that whereas the first involves the causal integration of explicit symbols located in an organism's environment into that organism's cognitive regime, the second appeals to the cognitive incorporation of nonsymbolic aspects of that environment. Much of the discussion of the extended mind has focused exclusively on cases of just the former kind. (Wilson, 2010, p. 181).

I think there is something to what Wilson is saying here.  Clark, it seems to me, focuses on instances of being causally integrated to informational resources as cases of EC, where others, such as Wilson, it seems to me, have been happy to let causal integration with any sort of thing count as instances of EC.  So, there is (another) division among those who advance EC.

(That said, there does seem to me to be some room for saying that those who play Rush Hour by moving the pieces around as aids are using the pieces as an informational resource, even if the pieces themselves are not representations.)

Rush Hour Revisited 2

Second, suppose that you are playing a visual problem-solving game, such as Rush Hour, or completing a jigsaw puzzle.

Here is, perhaps, a simpler way to get to my point.  Suppose that problem solving is a behavior.  Then, one might have extended behavior without extended cognition.  Cognitive processes are one thing; behavior another.  Cognitive processes contribute to cognitive behavior is the idea.  That's what I take to be the standard cognitivist line.  (Somewhere Chomsky says something like "linguistic behavior is the product of linguistic competence, along with poorly understood factors such as attention, set, etc."  I'm thinking this appeared in Chomsky's Language and Mind, or earlier.)  What muddies the water, perhaps, is the idea that problem solving is properly described as cognitive behavior.  But, why is it cognitive behavior?  Because it includes a cognitive process in the brain of course.

So, I see this appeal to problem solving inconclusive.

Moreover, I think that essentially the same story can be told about Gary Williams example of decision making in sortilege.

Rob Wilson Lecture: Mind Spread. October 15, 2010

A lecture, Mind Spread, on The extended mind thesis in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and philosophy of biology.

Oct. 15 5:30pm
Alumni Hall, University of King's College, 6350 Coburg Rd.

A part of Atlantic Region Philosophers Association's (ARPA)

Annual Meeting 2010
The Individual in Science and Philosophy

www.situsci.ca

Rush Hour Revisited 1

Second, suppose that you are playing a visual problem-solving game, such as Rush Hour, or completing a jigsaw puzzle. (Rush Hour involves a square board loaded with cars and trucks in various positions," and the object is to move these in a sequence so as to allow a designated car to leave the board through the only exit.) Here the problem solving in part consists of internal mental operations (let us suppose), but also in part it consists of the active physical manipulation of pieces on a board or pieces within the puzzle. One might suppose that these manipulations-rotations of puzzle pieces, or trials of car move sequences-were simply presented to you in a computer simulation, or through an automation of trial moves from which you select the best outcome. I suspect that this would change the problem-solving task in a significant way; but note that even here problem solving requires active engagement with a part of the world beyond the head, namely, the various visual displays from which one must select. In both cases, the problems are solved by utilizing, exploiting, or manipulating a set of resources, some of which are outside of the head. These are not simply inputs to those that are inside the head, because the very process of problem solving involves them as much as it involves resources inside the head. There is nothing bounded by the skull that counts as solving these kind of problems. (Wilson, 2010, pp. 180-181).

Ok.  So, the idea appears to be that problem solving is just going to be a term to describe all the things that go on in getting the red car out of the parking lot.  So be it.  Then, the question separating EC from anti-EC is how much of the problem solving is achieved by cognitive processing?  The EC answer is all of it; the anti-EC answer is only the stuff done by the brain is achieved by cognitive processing.

This might be clearer by an analogy.  Suppose you have to solve the problem of printing the numerals for the first one hundred prime numbers on a sheet of paper.  Also suppose that you have a computer with a program that computes these numerals and sends them to the printer.  All you have to do is hit the "return" key.  Now, I'm ok with saying that the problem solving involves the stuff that the computer and printer do, but why go further with Wilson and say that the cognitive contribution also includes the stuff the computer and printer do?  That is, why accept EC?  What's wrong with the view that the cognitive processing dedicated to solving the problem ends with your hitting the return key?  That is, what is wrong with the anti-EC interpretation?

Kanzi Revisited

First, consider the bonobo Kanzi's planning, thinking, and decision making that utilizes a 256-symbol keyboard, which Kanzi has, over the years, learned to use to communicate his beliefs and desires. Bonobos in the wild surely have desires (e.g., for bananas), but just as surely they don't have the kind of sophisticated, cooperative desires that Kanzi expresses, such as the desire to be taken by a particular person to a sequence of locations, or to do one activity first and then another. What the symbol board has done is to reconfigure Kanzi's capacity for belief and desire, much as our using pen and paper reconfigures our mathematical ability by augmenting the in-the-head capacity we have for multiplication. Both are cases in which an external symbol system becomes integrated with preexisting cognitive capacities in ways that significantly modify the nature of those capacities. We can, of course, distinguish between the parts of those capacities that are internal and those that are not, but this is already to concede that the overall cognitive process itself is extended. (Wilson, 2010, p. 180).

I'm going to guess that lodging a bullet in the brain would reconfigure Kanzi's capacity for belief and desire.  And it would be pretty well integrated with preexisting cognitive capacities in ways that significantly modify the nature of those capacities.  But, I wouldn't want to say that Kanzi's cognitive processes extend into the bullet.  (Maybe it would be a cognitive resource, but regarding that idea see my post on "Cognitive Resources".) 

This looks to me to be just a thinly veiled version of the coupling-constitution fallacy.  To reconfigure is to have a certain kind of causal influence.  To be integrated is to have a certain kind of persistent causal influence.

Maybe Wilson could add, following Clark, that the reconfiguring, integrated thing has to be an information processing resource.  How about embedding a measuring tape in Kanzi's brain?  (Maybe that would be a cognitive resource, but ... see above.)

Well, maybe, if the measuring tape were integrated in the right way in the overall information processing economy of Kanzi's brain, then cognitive processing would extend into it.  If, by this, Wilson means that, were the measuring tape to bear non-derived content and be manipulated in particular sorts of ways characteristic of cognitive processing, then yes.  That's the Adams and Aizawa view.  Our point is that such reconfigurations and integrations do not typically lead to the right sorts of information processing economies.   But, in any event, this line does not seem to be the sort of reconfiguration and integration Wilson has in mind, since he doesn't mention them.