Monday, December 20, 2010

Menary on Causation and Manipulation

What I do say is that a clear way of motivating cognitive integration was first presented by Mark Rowlands which he calls the manipulation thesis: “Cognitive processes are not located exclusively in the skin of cognising organisms because such processes are, in part, made up of physical or bodily manipulation of structures in the environments of such organisms.” (Rowlands 1999 p. 23)
     It is very clear, to me at least, that the manipulation thesis does not depend upon any kind of causal coupling (in Adams and Aizawa’s sense)
Ok.  Here's something I don't get at all.  Manipulation does not depend on any kind of causal coupling?  But, how can one manipulate structures in the environment without a causal connection to them?  It looks to me as though manipulation just is one kind of causal coupling.

Note when Rowlands writes that "[cognitive] processes are, in part, made up of physical or bodily manipulation of structures in the environments of such organisms.” (Rowlands 1999 p. 23), it seems plausible to me at least to think that he means all cognitive processes are, in part, made up of physical or bodily manipulations of structures, so that all cognitive processes are extended.  Granted in other places he claims only that some cognitive processes are extended.

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