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.