Empirical Arguments for Group Minds: A Critical Appraisal

cognitive systems, collective intentionality, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, group cognition, group minds, mark of the cognitive, neurophilosophy, philosophy compass, philosophy of mind, robert rupert, social epistemology, social facts, social ontology

Look out for Rob Rupert’s forthcoming survey for Philosophy Compass. (Thanks to Rob for the heads up).

Abstract

This entry addresses the question of group minds, by focusing specifically on empirical arguments for group cognition and group cognitive states. Two kinds of positive argument are presented and critically evaluated: the argument from individually unintended effects and the argument from functional similarity. A general argument against group cognition – which appeals to Occam’s razor – is also discussed. In the end, much turns on the identification of a mark of the cognitive; proposed marks are briefly (and inconclusively) surveyed in the final section.

Symposium on Clark’s “Supersizing”

active externalism, Andy Clark, cognitive science, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, edwin hutchins, extended mind, externalism, Michael Wheeler, parity principle, philosophy of mind, robert rupert, situated cognition, Supersizing the Mind

I’ve only just come across this wonderful symposium (Philosophical Studies Volume 152, Number 3 / February 2011, from p. 413) on Andy Clark’s Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. The line-up:

Précis of Supersizing the mind: embodiment, action, and cognitive extension (Oxford University Press, NY, 2008)
Andy Clark

In search of clarity about parity
Michael Wheeler

Cognitive systems and the supersized mind
Robert D. Rupert

Enculturating the Supersized Mind
Edwin Hutchins

Finding the Mind
Book Symposium on Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension (Oxford University Press, NY, 2008)
Andy Clark

Self-organized cooperation between robotic swarms

cognition, cognitive science, cognitive systems, collaboration, collective intentionality, complex adaptive systems, complexity, computational intelligence, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, robotics, robots, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence

Check out this new paper from Swarm Intelligence.

Symposium on Mind in Life

biology, cognitive science, complexity, consciousness, dan zahavi, Dennett, Embedded, embodied cognition, embodiment, emergence, empty mind, Enacted, enaction, enactivism, Evan Thompson, francesco varela, Mike Wheeler, Mind in Life, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, situated cognition, Tobias Schlicht

Check out this special issue (Ed. Tobias Schlicht) of Journal of Consciousness Studies devoted to Evan Thompson’s Mind in Life. Participants include Dennett, Grush, Hutto, Siewert, Van Gulick, Wheeler, Zahavi and others.

Robot “thespians”

cognitive science, Dennett, philosophy of mind, robotics, robots, Turing, turing machine, turing test

For once the comments are quickly and pointedly onto this shallow techno-ebulliance that is so prevalent in techno-journalism. What is apparently lost on the writer is Lodge’s in-joke reference to a character from his own Thinks  . . . – Ralph Messenger (supposedly based upon Dennett), director of the Centre for Cognitive Science at the University of Gloucester (a fictional “new” university). Helen, a novelist and writer in residence at the university, is his seducee.

In it, Ralph, a married, groundbreaking cognitive scientist, meets Helen, a recently bereaved novelist, and “sparks fly” (presumably not from the robot short-circuiting).

What the rationale behind reworking of Thinks . . . is not known to me.  If I may invoke Ralph’s dictum “We can never know for certain what another person is thinking.”  The play is entitled “Secret Thoughts”.

Res cogitans extensa: A Philosophical Defense of the Extended Mind Thesis

active externalism, active perception, Adams & Aizawa, Andy Clark, Boundaries of the Mind, Bounds of Cognition, brain, brain science, Chalmers, consciousness, cyborgs, Descartes, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, Embedded, embodied cognition, embodiment, enactivism, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, Georg Theiner, ghost in the machine, philosophy of mind, situated cognition, social cognition, sociocognition, stigmergy

Look out for Georg Theiner’s book (publisher, Peter Lang) that is about to hit the shelves. I’m reproducing the cover blurb from the preprint he so kindly sent me. Georg has already done some good work for an Extended Mind project and I’m looking forward to his contribution to the stigmergy issue.

Abstract for Res cogitans extensa: For Descartes, minds were essentially immaterial, non-extended things. Contemporary cognitive science prides itself on having exorcised the Cartesian ghost from the biological machine. However, it remains committed to the Cartesian vision of the mental as something purely inner. Against the idea that the mind resides solely in the brain, advocates of the situated and embodied nature of cognition have long stressed the importance of dynamic brain-body-environment couplings, the opportunistic exploitation of bodily morphology, the strategic performance of epistemically potent actions, the generation and use of external representations, and the cognitive scaffolding provided by artifacts and social-cultural practices. According to the extended mind thesis, a significant portion of human cognition literally extends beyond the brain into the body and its environment. This book aims to clarify the nature and the scope of this thesis, and to defend its central insight that cognition is not confined to the boundaries of the biological individual.

About Georg: Georg Theiner, born in Vienna, received his Ph.D. in Philosophy, with a Joint Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and a Minor in History and Philosophy of Science, at Indiana University, Bloomington in 2008. His research interests are in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. During his tenure as a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta, he worked on the extended mind thesis and socially distributed cognition.

Zombie Blues by NYC Consciousness Collective

brain, brain science, cognitive science, consciousness, david chalmers, neural correlates, neural networks, neurobiology, neuron, neurophilosophy, Neurophysics, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, qualia, zombies

Philosophers as you don’t normally see them (they are not going to give up the day job). The in-joke revolves around the zombie thought experiment.

On a more formal note, here is Dave Chalmers on a recent radio show.

The Man Without Qualities

burton pike, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, L’homme sans qualité, Leonard Lopate, man without qualities, robert musil

Leonard Lopate discusses with Burton Pike, editor and translator of Robert Musil’s titanic though unfinished novel, the philosophical and aesthetic ideas circulating in pre-war Viennese society as depicted in The Man Without Qualities. Download the audio file here:

Underappreciated: Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities (19 mins)

Cognition and the Symbolic Processes: Hayek and Gibson

bernard baars, brain science, cognitive science, cognitive systems, connectionism, hayek, jj gibson, mind body, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, qualia, spontaneous order, the "hard" problem, the sensory order, walter weimer

Here are some fuzzy but nevertheless recognizable Polaroid photos taken at the now legendary conference convened by Walter Weimer. Weimer was so crucial to bringing Hayek’s The Sensory Order back to life after it had “fallen still-born from the press”. In attendance was also J.J. Gibson who, though was favorably disposed towards TSO in the early 50s, pretty much snubbed Hayek at this conference (put down to his [Gibson’s] politics). Thanks to Bill Mace for this info and the conference link. Thanks to John Johnson for documenting and posting these snapshots.

Walt, by the way, was interviewed by Bernard Baars some 25 years ago in The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology but, so far as I can see, with no mention of TSO. I have been in touch with a few of Weimer’s students – in many ways his legacy is assured through their interests and respect for the man. Walt must have had the most amazing foresight to back a outsider such as Hayek.