The Extended Mind and Religious Thought

Adams & Aizawa, Andy Clark, Bounds of Cognition, Chalmers, cognition, cognitive science, cognitive systems, consciousness, david chalmers, distributed cognition, embodiment, extended mind, Joel Krueger, Leonard Angel, leslie marsh, Lynne Rudder Baker, mark rowlands, Matthew Day, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, psychology, religion, robert rupert, robert wilson, social constructivism, Supersizing the Mind, susan hurley, teed rockwell

Here is an uncorrected proof of my introduction to the mini symposium on The Extended Mind to appear in Zygon. Vol. 44, no. 3 (September 2009).

Complexity 101

cognitive anthropology, cognitive modeling, cognitive systems, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, epistemology, financial markets turmoil, particle swarm optimization, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence

Here are some nice distinctions drawn about complexity theory by someone coming to the subject with a fresh and curious mind.

The A.I. Report

artificial intelligence, cognition, cognitive closure, cognitive modeling, cognitive science, cognitive systems, complexity, computational intelligence, connectionism, consciousness, distributed cognition, philosophy of mind, robotics, robots, situated cognition, the "hard" problem, Turing

Forbes features a symposium on A.I: it’s past, present and future.

The editor writes:

Can machines think? In 1950, Alan Turing, considered by some to be the father of modern computing, published a paper in which he proposed that, “If, during text-based conversation, a machine is indistinguishable from a human, then it could be said to be ‘thinking’ and, therefore, could be attributed with intelligence.” He predicted that a computer would pass this “Turing Test” by the end of the century. That hasn’t happened–yet. But the question continues to provoke and inspire. AI might be just around the corner, or it might be centuries away.

To this I might add, maybe never.

 

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Being Heidegger

being and time, cognitive science, cognitive systems, Descartes, Heidegger, phenomenology, ryle, simon critchley

Simon Critchley has the first of an eight-part series of blog postings on Heidegger’s Being and Time. Will he discuss the influence Heidegger has had on non-Cartesian cognitive science? We will see. Unlikely as it sounds, Gilbert Ryle’s critical notice (Mind XXXVIII 1929, 355-370) warmly welcomed Sein und Zeit despite the inherent difficulties of the work (usually misappropriated or vulgarized in contexts where there is no philosophical culture): 

Ryle on Heidegger

As Critchley puts it: “Reading Being and Time can sometimes feel like wading through a conceptual mud of baroque and unfamiliar concepts.” Check out the BBC documentary on Heidegger.

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Hayek in Mind: Hayek’s Philosophical Psychology

austrian economics, cognitive closure, cognitive science, cognitive systems, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, concept of mind, connectionism, consciousness, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, Edelman, Enacted, enactivism, extended mind, externalism, frame problem, functionalism, Fuster, intentionality, leslie marsh, mind body, neurobiology, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, psychology, qualia, situated cognition, social cognition, sociocognition, spontanous orders, the "hard" problem, the sensory order

Call for papers

Hayek in Mind: Hayek’s Philosophical Psychology

Leslie Marsh, Volume Editor

Advances in Austrian Economics

Hayek’s philosophical psychology as set out in his The Sensory Order (1952) has, for the most part, been a neglected work. Social theory, Hayek’s traditional disciplinary constituency, has recently begun to take note and examine its place in the complete Hayek corpus. Despite being lauded by computer scientist grandee Frank Rosenblatt and more recently by neuroscientists Gerald Edelman and Joaquin Fuster, cognitive science (with few exceptions) has yet to discover Hayek’s philosophical psychology. This volume seeks to redress this lacuna by soliciting critical assessments on some aspect(s) of Hayek’s philosophical psychology. Proposals that offer a suggestive deployment of Hayek’s philosophical psychology are also welcome. What makes this volume distinctive is that the editors are seeking submissions that examine Hayek from the perspective of recent philosophy of mind.

Suggested topics include (but is not exhaustive):

Mind-body problem; connectionism; externalism; intentionality; knowing how-knowing that; the frame problem; enactivism; Hayek’s non-Cartesianism; cognitive closure; qualia; the hard vs. the easy problems; Hayek’s Kantianism; functionalism; individuation of mental states; cognitive science as a multi-disciplinary enterprise.

Accepted articles will form chapters in the hardcover book series Advances in Austrian Economics. All articles are subject to double blind review: further details about this series can be found on the publisher’s webpage.

Proposals not exceeding 500 words should be sent to Leslie Marsh by December 15, 2009.

The Bounds of Cognition

Adams & Aizawa, Adams and Aizawa, Andy Clark, Bounds of Cognition, Chalmers, cognition, cognitive systems, consciousness, Embedded, embodiment, extended mind, journal of mind and behavior, Justin Fisher, memory, metaphysics, mind body, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, situated cognition, Supersizing the Mind

Once again I want to bring your attention to the superb Critical Notice by Justin Fisher in the latest issue of The Journal of Mind and Behavior on Adams’ and Aizawa’s The Bounds of Cognition.

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Oakeshott on Religion, Science and Politics

british idealism, byron kaldis, category error, corey abel, creationist science, elizabeth corey, experience and its modes, hermeneutics, idealism, ignoratio elenchi, intelligent design, leslie marsh, liberalism, michael oakeshott, modality, oakeshott, podoksik, political philosophy, politics, science, science wars, sociology, stephen jay gould, timothy fuller, wittgenstein

The recent Zygon symposium on Oakeshott on religion, science and politics is now available as a free download. Click here and scroll down to the REFLECTING ON MICHAEL OAKESHOTT section.

Extended hype?

Alva Noë, Andy Clark, Chalmers, cognitive science, Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind, colin klein, conservatism, cyborgs, Descartes, Dorothée Legrand, Evan Thompson, extended mind, Feuerbach, Mind in Life, neurophilosophy, Nietzsche, out of our heads, robert rupert, robert wilson, Shaun Gallagher, situated cognition, Supersizing the Mind

Galen Strawson, while thinking there is much to be said for non-Cartesianism, doesn’t think that the radical turn taken by the extended mind hypothesis, is fruitful nor indeed really all that new. Stay tuned for an excellent review by Chris Onof of Strawson’s Consciousness and Its Place in Nature: Does physicalism entail panpsychism? in The Journal of Mind and Behavior as well as reviews of Clark by Rob Rupert and Thompson by Dorothée Legrand. Rupert, long since an opponent of the extended mind, will be reviewed by Colin Klein.

Swarm cognition

aggregation, artificial intelligence, cognitive closure, cognitive systems, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, consciousness, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, Embedded, emergence, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, extended mind, hayek, neurophilosophy, particle swarm optimization, scott turner, situated cognition, social cognition, sociocognition, spontaneous order, stigmergic, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence

Here is a terrific presentation entitled  “Macrotermes as models of swarm cognition” by Scott Turner. He writes:

This presentation was given at the Workshop on Research Efforts and Future Directions in Neuroergonomics and Neuromorphics sponsored by the US Army Research Office on 23-25 October 2007 in College Park Maryland. The presentation outlines the developing theme of our research of the termite-mound system as a cognitive system that has knowledge of its world and can map that knowledge onto functional structure. I concentrate on the “Collective Structural Defense” (CSD), which is the process of mound regeneration, repair and structural regulation 

Download here (28 mins, 65 MB, swf slide show with audio)

There is much else of interest on Turner’s website – well worth checking out if you have an interest in swarm intelligence and related topics. For those with an interest extended mind (for or against) Turner’s book THE EXTENDED ORGANISM: The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures should be consulted. I’ve rarely seen this work cited – it offers grist to the extended mind mill:

Building on Richard Dawkins’s classic, The Extended Phenotype, Turner shows why drawing the boundary of an organism’s physiology at the skin of the animal is arbitrary.

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