Thursday, June 4, 2009

Clark on the Mark of the Cognitive?

I started (once again) working through Andy Clark’s Supersizing the Mind. In Chapter 1, I was struck by the following:
The mathematics of a system of interlocking differential equations can (at least in simple cases) accurately capture the way two or more systems engage in a continuous, real-time, and effectively instantaneous dance of mutual codetermining interaction. But it is a burden insofar as it threatens to obscure the specifically intelligence-based route to evolutionary success. That route involves the ability to become apprised of information concerning our surroundings and to use that information as a guide to present and future action. As soon as we embrace the notion of the brain as the principal (though not the only) seat of information-processing activity, we area already seeing it as fundamentally different from, say, the flow of a river or the activity of a volcano.

This seems to me to point out that the dynamical systems approach to extended cognition needs to take into account a distinction between cognitive processes (which Clark here treats as information processing processes) and other non-cognitive causal processes. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, this is one way of making one of my favorite points, namely, that the advocates of ExCog in general need a plausible theory for distinguishing cognitive and non-cognitive processing. They need a mark of the cognitive.

9 comments:

  1. Hi Ken,

    In the interest of self-promotion, but also in perhaps assisting you in reading Andy's book, I recommend a review of his book that Shannon Spaulding and I just published. It's at: http://ndpr.nd.eud/review.cfm?id=16245

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  2. Oops. That's http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16245

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  3. Hi, Larry.

    I wasted no time reading it.

    Oh, and I read it!

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  4. Hi Ken,

    I have Clarks book but haven't read it yet (next on the list!), so I don't know if my response is already anticipated or not, anyway here goes.

    There are two possible candidates for 'the mark of the cognitive', one is autopoiesis (c.f. Thompson 'Mind in Life') which provides a DST distinction between life and non-life dynamics, and further equates cognition with life. This would seem to fall short of the kind of cognition Clark is discussing though.

    The second candidate, which comes closer I think, is Barandiaran & Moreno's treatment.
    2006: what makes certain dynamical systems cognitive?
    2008: Adaptivity: from metabolism to behaviour

    This is a less continental version of the enactive approach, which though focused on the dynamics of life, provides an account of the dynamics of the nervous system and how it is coupled with its own substrate and environment

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  5. Part of what I find intriguing about Clark's answer to the "mark of the cognitive" is that it is in terms of information processing, which is sometimes another name for cognitivisim, which is what Adams and I have been pushing.

    In the back of my mind I have been thinking about writing a post regarding what seems to me to be the conflict between autonomy and extended cognition, as Thompson sets these up. Thompson (at about p. 59 or so, I forget exactly) tries to play down the conflict, but ultimately he seems to me to say that we have to go with autonomy over extension. Maybe after the SPP conference, where there will be a session on embodied cognition.....

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  6. Ken, you might be interested in Michael Wheeler's paper "Minds, Things, and Materiality". Wheeler argues that there is a "prima facie case for the incompatibility of EM and enactivism". The paper is available here:
    http://www.philosophy.stir.ac.uk/staff/m-wheeler/documents/minds_things_materiality_final.pdf

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  7. Olle,

    Thanks for the reference. I think it's very useful to highlight tensions within the embodied, extended movement broadly construed. It helps bypass the "us versus them" mentality that can impede discussion of the issues.

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  8. It's not the Hypothesis of Extend Cognition (HEC) that need to define the mark of the cognitive. If there isn't any mark of the cognitive, this means that we cannot draw any more than a purely pragmatic line between the brain body and world, and consequently HEC wins by default. The thing that makes HEC necessary is the discovery that the difference between neural activity and other causal factors responsible for experience is not as obvious as was previously assumed, which makes Mind/Brain identity problematic. When no one questioned mind/brain identity, there was no felt need for articulating the mark of the cognitive. It is only when the HEC demands a mark of the cognitive that this problem comes up. If the Mind/Brain Identity theory cannot explain why there is something special about the causal properties of the brain, it has no justification for itself. There is no going back to the naive assumption that there must be such a distinction, now that proof for its existence has been demanded.The real Coupling/Constitution fallacy is the assumption that the distinction between coupling and constitution is more than purely pragmatic.

    Adams and Aizawa, to their credit, have tried to articulate a definition of the mark of the cognitive, despite their frequent claims that the burden of doing this was on HEC. However, in my article in the most recent issue of Philosophical Psychology, I look at their definitions and gave them what I considered to be decisive criticisms. Any replies to those criticisms would be greatly appreciated.

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  9. This seems to me to point out that the dynamical systems approach to extended cognition needs to take into account a distinction between cognitive processes which Clarks Shoes Sale here treats as information processing processes and other non-cognitive causal processes. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, this is one way of making one of my favorite points, namely, that the advocates of ExCog in general need a plausible theory for Clarks distinguishing cognitive and non-cognitive processing. They need a mark of the cognitive.

    ReplyDelete