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.

Bold enough to be exciting; tame enough to be plausible 1

That's what advocates of EC want.  So, it seems to me to lead to some fancy philosophical footwork.

So, for example, in the preface to Mind in Life, Thompson writes, "Where there is life there is mind" (p. ix).  Bold indeed.  Plants and slime molds have minds.  But, then he immediately walks this back.  "Life and mind share a core set of formal or organizational properties, and the formal or organizational properties distinctive of mind are an enriched version of those fundamental to life".  Tame.

In truth, it appears that the second clause of this second sentence contradicts the claim that where there is life there is mind.  More specifically, we can have life without mind in those cases where one does not have the enriched version of the properties fundamental to life.

I'm sure there are ways out of this.  So, the first might be taken to be a true empirical generalization, where the latter a claim about (logical, nomological, metaphysical, conceptual) possibilities that are not, in empirical fact, actualized.  Fancy philosophical footwork.  It's really hard to pin philosophers down enough to convict them of inconsistency.

Is sense-making cognition?

Thompson and Stapleton write,

Whether we choose to call the sense-making of bacteria cognitive or proto-cognitive is not something we need to dispute here.  ... The important point is that a living organism is a system capable of relating cognitively to the world ... because it is a sense-making system (Thompson and Stapleton, 2010, p. 24).

This seems to me to just talk around the issue.  Now, one should have some sympathy for not wanting to get into a terminological dispute.  Fine.  But, then why insist on saying that cognition is sense-making?  Thompson and Stapleton don't do that exactly, but it is not clear why anyone who resists the idea that sense-making is cognition would be willing to accept the claim that a living organism is a system capable of relatively cognitively to the world because it is a sense-making system.  This move seems to me merely to change the way in which the issue is framed, but not its substance.

A Prediction of Chemero's Theory of Cognition?

In RECS, Chemero writes,

I take it that cognition is the ongoing, active maintenance of a robust animal-environment system, achieved by closely co-ordinated perception and action.  Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, p. 212.

So, is it a prediction of this theory that a normal human being who is subsequently completely immobilized by neuromuscular blockade (hence cannot act) and who has all cranial nerves severed (or whatever) (hence cannot perceive) not a cognitive agent?  That seems to be an implausible thing to predict.

It seems just like predicting that a computer with all of its peripherals (keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, etc.) removed is no longer a computer.

Rowlands (2009) on Noë's Enactivism

Although I very often offer criticisms, it is nice to be able to draw attention to points of common ground with others in the EC literature.  In earlier posts, I noted some points of agreement between Rowlands and myself regarding such things as the need for a MotC and a target for the concept of cognition to be studied.  I am in fairly widespread agreement with almost everything in Rowlands (2009), but I want to draw attention to Rowlands' discussion of Noë's enactivism.  This brings out other points of agreement.

Rowlands identifies two distinct claims in Noë's enactivism

Visually perceiving the world is made up of two things: 

(1) Expectations about how our experience of an object will change in the event of our moving, or the object of our vision moving, relative to us (or some other
object moving with respect to that object—for example, in front of it). Noe¨ calls this sensorimotor knowledge or knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies.
When our expectations are correct, this is because we have mastered the relevant sensorimotor contingencies.
(2) The ability to act on the world—i.e., to probe and explore environmental structures by way of the visual modality. (p. 55).

Rowlands also distinguishes two versions of (2).  (2a), we might label it, claims that perceiving only requires an ability, where (2b) claims that perceiving requires the exercise of an ability.  (1) and (2a) come very close to being what I have called "weak enactivism", where (2b) is very close to "strong enactivism" (See my forthcoming "Consciousness: Don't Give up on the Brain" )  It's good to have some agreement on at least some of the options in Noë's view.

Rowlands and I also agree that (1) and (2a) do not support EC (Cf, Aizawa, 2007, pp. 17-18), but get to those conclusions by distinct arguments.  Rowlands and I also agree that (2b) is not very plausible, though we again get there by distinct arguments.

Noë on Mach's Picture

In Action in Perception, Noe writes,

Let us now ask, is it really the case that our experience represents the world in sharp focus, uniform detail, and brilliant color, from the center out to the periphery of the visual field, as Mach's picture would have it? ...
     It's pretty easy to demonstrate that this snapshot conception is wrong-headed.  Fix your gaze on a point straight ahead.  Have a friend wave a brightly colored piece of paper off to the side.  You'll immediately notice that something is moving in the periphery of your visual field, but you won't be able to tell what color it is.  As your friend to move the paper closer to the center of the visual field.  You won't be sure what color the paper is until it has been moved to within twenty to thirty degrees from the center.  This proves that we don't experience the periphery of our visual field in anything like the clarity, detail, or focus with which we can take in what we are directly looking at. (p. 49).

 I don't think this argument works.  (The Machian picture may be wrong, but this argument as it stands does not support that conclusion.)  Remember that the Machian picture is supposed to be about one's perceptual experience, not about, say, the relationship between the world and one's perceptual experience.  The view is that "our experience represents the world in sharp focus, uniform detail, and brilliant color, from the center out to the periphery of the visual field".  Now, it is perfectly possible for us to have this kind of experience by way of some mental representation without the putative representation of that experience being created using input from the periphery.  So, the reason you cannot tell the color of the paper when it is waved in the periphery is that you are not using color input (although definitely motion input) from the paper to create the putative mental representation of the periphery of you visual field. You are using other mechanisms to fill this out.  Which is, of course, just the kind of thing one typically postulates when one tries to explain the blindspot phenomena.

Special Issue of Topoi on Extended Cognition and Enactivism

Link here.

Maybe Topoi is a bit off the beaten path, so those interested in EC may not have heard of this special issue.  The nice thing is that these papers are available for free download. 

I've already written a few future posts on Rowlands paper...

Noë on Sur's Ferrets: Here's the picture(s)

Noë claims that "The character of conscious experience can vary even though the neural activity underpinning it does not change.  This is the basic lesson of Sur’s studies. "   (Noë, 2009, p. 54).  So, this is what Noë thinks the experiments show:

But, this is what they really show:

In other words, Noë thinks that Sur's intervention does not change the intrinsic structure of rewired ferret A1, but the intervention does change the intrinsic structure.

Noë on Locked in Syndrome?

Consciousness is not something the brain achieves on its own.  Consciousness requires the joint operation of brain, body, and world.  (Noë, 2009, p. 10).

Noë notes that there are individuals who suffer from locked in syndrome.  (Noë, 2009, p. 17f).  They appear to be totally unconscious displaying no actions or behaviors commonly taken to be indicative of consciousness, but they are nonetheless conscious.  How is this possible on Noë’s view?  If consciousness requires the joint operation of brain, body, and world, then how can there be inactive individuals who are nonetheless conscious?

Noë on Perceiving the Alarm Clock?

"The world makes itself available to the perceiver through physical movement and interaction" (Noë, 2004, p. 1).

So, how is it that one perceives one's alarm clock going off in the morning when one is in deep sleep?  How is it that this happens through something like a blind person tap-tapping her way through a cluttered space?

Chemero's Radical Embodied Cognitive Science is also an e-book

So, this is kind of cool: The MIT Press E-book.

Fred Adams was interested in an e-book version of Bounds.  Maybe next time around ...

Maturana and Varela on Cognitive Systems

A cognitive system is a system whose organization defines a domain of interactions in which it can act with relevance to the maintenance of itself, and the process of cognition is the actual (inductive) acting or behaving in this domain.  Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition.  This statement is valid for all organisms, with and without a nervous system. 
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 13).

I don't think M&V are speaking my language here.  Plants are cognitive systems?

(This also looks to be at odds with Chemero's account, which is apparently limited to animals and which invokes perception and action.  But, I've not read Chemero's account of perception and action in RECS.)

The Hypothesis of Extended Active Maintenance Cognition

In Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, Chemero writes "I take it that cognition is the ongoing, active maintenance of a robust animal-environment system, achieved by closely co-ordinated perception and action." (fn #8, p. 212).

This, of course, allows us to frame what we might call the hypothesis of extended active maintenance cognition
(HEAMC):  Active maintenance cognition (sometimes?) extends beyond the boundaries of the brain into the body and physical world.

Now, we have something to talk about.  We can begin to explore, for example, what relation there might be between (HEFC), (HESC), and (HEAMC).

Dotov, Nie, and Chemero on Extended Cognitive Systems

Tony Chemero sent me a link to his paper in PLoS.

Their theory of cognitive systems jumped out at me:

Hammers and other tools that are ready-to-hand are literally part of the cognitive system. When a tool malfunctions, however, and becomes unready-to-hand, it becomes the object of primary concern; it is no longer part of the extended cognitive system, rather it is the thing that that the cognitive system is concerned with.

This seems to raise some questions.

I. When I get a piece of dust in my eye and it becomes an object of primary concern, then my eye is no longer part of my cognitive system?  Or, I have a nervous system breakdown or brain tumor that draws attention to the nervous system, that makes my nervous system not a part of my cognitive system?

II. By this account, the general moral is that one cannot pay attention to one's own cognitive system. Is this a desired result?

III. This account seems to conflict with van Gelder's theory of what a dynamical systems cognitive system is:

In this vision, the cognitive system is not just the encapsulated brain; rather, since the nervous system, body, and environment are all constantly changing and simultaneously influencing each other, the true cognitive system is a single unified system embracing all three.  The cognitive system does not interact with the body and the external world by means of the occasional static symbolic inputs and outputs; rather, interaction between the inner and the outer is best thought of as a matter of coupling, such that both sets of processes continually influencing [sic] each other’s direction of change (van Gelder, 1995, p. 373).

I don't buy van Gelder's account, but the conflict would go something like this.  You might be constantly influencing your injured, malfunctioning eye and your injured, malfunctioning eye is constantly influencing you, so that by the van Gelder standard, your injured, malfunctioning eye is part of your cognitive system.  But, by the Heiddeggerian standard, since your injured, malfunctioning eye is a subject of your attention, it is not part of your cognitive system.  Is this a desired result?