COGNITIVE SCIENCEDr. Tom Froese

Asimo breaks down (again)

Problems with classic AI• Robustness (noise and fault-tolerance)• Adaptability (generalizability)• Integrated learning• Real-time performance• Sequential processing

• The Symbol Grounding Problem• The Frame Problem• The ‘Chinese Room’ Argument

Cognitive science map (Varela et al. 1991)

New cognitive science (4E)

New cognitive science: “4E” Cognition

• Cognition is Embodied, Embedded, Extended and Enactive …• And Ecological! And Emotional!

• “Mind Embodied, Embedded, Enacted: One Church or Many?” • (Kiverstein and Clark 2009)

• "Introduction to the special issue on 4E cognition” • (Menary 2010)

• "Es are good. Cognition as enacted, embodied, embedded, affective and extended” • (Ward and Stapleton 2012)

The Embodied Mind• Cognitive linguistics (Lakoff and Johnson 1999)• Cognitive robotics (Pfeifer and Bongard 2007)• Cognitive science (Varela et al. 1991; Gallagher 2005)• Emotion science (Colombetti 2014)• Bio-phenomenology (Thompson 2007)

The Embedded Mind• Situated cognition is a theory that posits that

knowing is inseparable from doing.

• All knowledge is situated in activity that is bound to social, cultural and physical contexts.

• It suggests a model of knowledge and learning that requires thinking on the fly rather than the storage and retrieval of conceptual knowledge.

• Mind is analyzed as a form of material practice. • (Hutchins 1995; Malafouris 2013)

The Extended Mind• Clark and Chalmers (1998) – one of the most cited papers

in philosophy of mind in recent history!

• This approach retains much of the computationalist theory of mind (e.g., computation, representation, internalism)

• But it allows the mind to extend beyond the brain if some of its functions are realized externally.

• Extended functionalism! (Clark 2008)

The Ecological Mind• The world appears in terms of its affordances for potential

actions (Gibson). • Affordances are relations between organisms and environments

that can be shaped by physiological, cognitive and cultural factors.

• The environment is perceived directly (Gibson).

Optic flowChemero (2009)

The Enactive Mind• Organisms actively bring forth their own worlds of

significance via agent-environment interaction.• Life-mind continuity thesis (Thompson 2007)• Enactive perception (Varela et al. 1991; Noë 2004)

• To perceive is to act.• Sensorimotor approach (O’Regan & Noë 2001)

• Radical enactivism (Hutto & Myin 2013)

• “Exploring the Diversity within Enactivism and Neurophenomenology” Constructivist Foundations

Oustanding issues• Many advances, but core questions of cognitive are still

left unanswered.

• How to define a body?• How to define agency?• How to define an action?• How to define cognition?• Etc…

• Enactivism tries to provide the answers.

References• Chemero, A. (2009). Radical Embodied Cognitive Science.

Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press• Clark, A. (2008). Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action,

and Cognitive Extension. New York, NY: Oxford University Press

• Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. J. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7-19

• Colombetti, G. (2014). The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

• Di Paolo, E. A. (2015). El enactivismo y la naturalización de la mente. In D. Pérez Chico & M. G. Bedia (Eds.), Nueva Ciencia Cognitiva: Hacia una Teoría Integral de la Mente (in press). Zaragoza: PUZ

References• Gallagher, S. (2005). How the Body Shapes the Mind. New York, NY: Oxford

University Press• Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin• Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press• Hutto, D. D., & Myin, E. (2013). Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds without

Content. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press• Kiverstein, J., & Clark, A. (2009). Introduction: Mind Embodied, Embedded,

Enacted: One Church or Many? Topoi, 28, 1-7• Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied

Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York, NY: Basic Books• Malafouris, L. (2013). How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material

Engagement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press• Menary, R. (2010). Introduction to the special issue on 4E cognition.

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 459-463• Noë, A. (2004). Action in Perception. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

References• O'Regan, J. K., & Noë, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision

and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(5), 939-1031

• Pfeifer, R., & Bongard, J. C. (2007). How the Body Shapes the Way We Think: A New View of Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

• Thompson, E. (2007). Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

• Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

• Ward, D., & Stapleton, M. (2012). Es are good: Cognition as enacted, embodied, embedded, affective and extended. In F. Paglieri (Ed.), Consciousness in Interaction: The Role of the Natural and Social Context in Shaping Consciousness (pp. 89-105). Amsterdam: John Benjamins

HomeworkPlease read the whole article if possible:

• Di Paolo, E. A. (2015). El enactivismo y la naturalización de la mente. In D. Pérez Chico & M. G. Bedia (Eds.), Nueva Ciencia Cognitiva: Hacia una Teoría Integral de la Mente (in press). Zaragoza: PUZ

• Optional:

• van Gelder, T. & Port, R. F. (1995). It’s about time: An overview of the dynamical approach to cognition. In: R. F. Port & T. van Gelder (eds.), Mind as Motion: Explorations in the Dynamics of Cognition (pp. 1-43). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press