The hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) has been criticized as committing what is called the coupling?constitution fallacy, but it is the critic's use of this concept which is fallacious. It is true that there is no reason to deny that the line between the self and the world should be drawn at the skull and/or the skin. But the data used to support HEC reveal that there was never a good enough reason to draw the line there in the first (...) place. The burden of proof has fallen on the mind?brain identity theory, now that our intuitions/prejudices no longer support it. One of those ?intuitions? is the Aristotelian assumption that the world can be neatly divided into objects that possess intrinsic causal powers, and the causal relations that connect those objects. In modern science, however, the concept of intrinsic causal powers is only a temporary stopgap that makes it possible to begin research in a particular area. It therefore seems best to assume that the line between mind and world is both pragmatic and dynamic. Consequently, the mind might best described as a fluctuating field, rather than an object or structure. (shrink)

Paul Churchland's epistemology contains a tension between two positions, which I will call pragmatic pluralism and eliminative materialism. Pragmatic pluralism became predominant as his epistemology became more neurocomputationally inspired, which saved him from the skepticism implicit in certain passages of the theory of reduction he outlined in Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind. However, once he replaces eliminativism with a neurologically inspired pragmatic pluralism, Churchland cannot claim that folk psychology might be a false theory, in any significant sense; cannot (...) claim that the concepts of Folk psychology might be empty of extension and lack reference; cannot sustain Churchland's criticism of Dennett's "intentional stance"; cannot claim to be a form of scientific realism, in the sense of believing that what science describes is somehow realer that what other conceptual systems describe. (shrink)

Certain philosophers and scientists have noticed that there are data that do not seem to fit with the traditional view known as the Mind/Brain Identity theory. This has inspired a new theory about the mind known as the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition. Now there is a growing controversy over whether these data actually require extending the mind out beyond the brain. Such arguments, despite their empirical diversity, have an underlying form. They all are disputes over where to draw the line (...) between intrinsic and relational causal powers. The second-century Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna deals with similar issues when he argues for a middle way between the two positions that were known in his time by the terms eternalism and nihilism. Eternalism, like MBI, asserts that the mind is a permanent enduring substance. Nihilism argued that the mind had no intrinsic existence, and today some argue that HEC could lead us to a similar conclusion. Nagarjuna's argument for a middle way between these two extremes is similar to an argument that can be made for HEC. We can accept that neither the brain nor any other single physical item is identical to the mind without falling down the slippery slope that leads to "The mind does not really exist, and therefore we are one with everything." Nagarjuna was correct to say that the mind has conventional reality—that the mind exists even though there is no sharp border between the mind and the world. (shrink)

Both Dennett and his critics believe that the invalidity of the famed Stalinist-Orwellian distinction is a consequence of his multiple drafts model of consciousness . This is not so obvious, however, once we recognize that the question ‘how do you get experience out of meat?’ actually fragments into at least three different questions. How do we get: a unified sense of self, awareness and mental phenomena? In the latter chapters of Consciousness Explained, Dennett shows how MDM has a radical and (...) profound way of interrelating awareness and self . But the Stalinist-Orwellian distinction can be dissolved by analysing the nature of mental phenomena, without making any reference to awareness or self or the MDM. This is because The Stalinist-Orwellian distinction rests on much the same category mistake which Ryle pointed out in his Concept of Mind. Once we recognize that a theory of awareness is trying to do something different from a theory of mental phenomena, we can see why Dennett and his critics frequently talked past each other, and how we can resolve these controversies by incorporating something like Rosenthal's theory of higher order thoughts into the MDM. This would require, however, that Dennett abandon his principle of first person operationalism, and recognize that it is possible for us to be mistaken about our own internal states. (shrink)

At least one of my professors told me that in order to write a good philosophy paper, one should always try to defend as little territory as possible. The danger of this advice is that although it may make one's points defensible, it may also make them not worth defending. In order to avoid both of these extremes, I am going to defend a relatively modest claim, which appears to be necessary but not sufficient for another more ambitious claim, which (...) itself is also necessary for another more ambitious claim, and so on for several layers. I will start with the most ambitious claim, and then work my way down until I come to the claim I believe I have some chance of defending. I will, however, continue to make references to the other layers, to help us remember why the more modest claims are worth thinking about. (shrink)

It is remarkable how similar today's mind-body debates are to the philosophical critiques of biological science, such as Henri Bergson's Vitalism at the turn of the last century. Philosophers like Bergson became famous arguing that science could never account for life. One reason was that living creatures could not be decomposed into fundamental units, in spite of the empirical finding that all animate things consist of basic cells with remarkably general properties in a bewildering profusion of variation. Today we know (...) that each of those cells has nearly identical DNA-RNA mechanisms, and that, to give one example, humans have about 50% of DNA in common with such creatures as yeast and C. elegans, the tiny worms that is now almost completely defined in genotype and phenotype. The cell and its genetic machinery can plausibly be called the atom of life. So Bergson's anti-atomism was wrong in large part. Indeed, had we followed his advice about 1900, we would still be living in the first great industrial age. (shrink)

In the seventh paragraph of the post, you say "This question [which machine, if any or both, is conscious/] seems to be in principle unfalsifiable, and yet genuinely meaningful." (I'm assuming that you mean that any answer to it is unfalsifiable.) My neo-Carnapian intuitions diagnoses the problem right at this point. Forget about attributions of meaningless and all that stuff. Replace it in your statement with more pragmatically-oriented evaluative notions: theoretically fruitless, arbitray without even being helpful for any theoretical, experimental, (...) or practical purpose, and so on. Any answer to the question will be those. Thus the question is not worth pursuing, especially since the thought experiment is science fiction right now. A much more useful way to spend one's time is addressing frutiful questions, like the ones involved in constructing your postulated robots, or investigating neural mechanisms, and so on. So acknowledge the connection between unfalsifiability/verifiability/confirmability and theoretical and practical worthlessness (rather than "meaningless"). Then get on with the theoretically and empirically worthwhile questions. Many of the latter are quiter abstract and "philosophical," anyway (about the scope and limits of various methodologies, existing theories, and so on). Aren't those enough to occupy even the most abstract theorist's attention? Why puzzle about questions whose answers can't be rationally justified? (shrink)

1. Throughout the paper, and especially in the section called "LISP vs. DST", I worried that there was not enough focus on EXPLANATION. For the real question, it seems to me, is not whether some dynamical system can implement human cognition, but whether the dynamical description of the system is more explanatorily potent than a computational/representational one. Thus we know, for example, that a purely physical specification can fix a system capable of computing any LISP function. But from this it (...) doesn't follow that the physical description is the one we need to understand the power of the system considered as an information processing device. In the same way, I don't think your demonstration that bifurcating attractor sets can yield the same behavior as a LISP program goes any way towards showing that we should not PREFER the LISP description. To reduce symbolic stories to a subset of DST (as hinted in that section) requires MORE than showing this kind of equivalence: it requires showing that there is explanatory gain, or at the very least, no explanatory loss, at that level. I append an extract from a recent paper of mine that touches on these issues, in case it helps clarify what I am after here. (shrink)

Sellars and Dewey each isolated and critiqued different aspects of the atomistic epistemology of the logical positivists: Dewey labeled his target "Sensationalistic Empiricism", and Sellars labeled his "the Myth of the Given." The main theme of this paper will be the similarity and differences in their responses to this kind of philosophy, and how both responses can be clarified and strengthened by considering recent discoveries in Cognitive Neuroscience. What we have recently learned about neural architecture accounts for a distinction between (...) knowledge and experience that is a recurrent theme in both Sellars and Dewey. Dewey, however, made a sharper break from the positivists by seeing all experience as shaped by skills and abilities which were designed to acheive certain goals and were colored by emotions. The connectionist architecture used in Cognitive Neuroscience supports this view, as does the psychological research of J.J. Gibson. Once we consider the ways in which connectionist cognitive abilities differ from linguistic ones, Sellars' distinction between thoughts and sensations, and Dewey's distinction between knowledge and experience, can both be plausibly accounted for. (shrink)

I should say, before beginning, that I am hearing what you say about Rorty now from the perspective on his work I have (for the time being, at least) as a result of having heard a working paper he presented to the scholars’ workshop of which I was a member at The Getty this winter, and then participating with him in a 4-hour discussion (and following small dinner gathering). I have also recently read his curious rather autobiographical essay, "Trotsky and (...) Wild Orchids," and that too has had some effect. So, I think I am speaking about my sense of where Rorty is now with his thinking, rather than primarily about the Rorty who is contained in the works you are discussing. You might say that whether I am at all right or quite wrong, I am speaking about what I understand to be a person’s evolving thinking, and you are speaking about a body of work bearing a name, Rorty. These are never, of course, quite the same, but engagement of the two is always at least interesting (perhaps particularly so to those of us interested more in philosophizing than in Philosophy, if I may put it that way). (shrink)

Surprisingly, Dennett and Baars have no real quarrel with each other, despite the fact that Dennett wants to escape from the Theatre of Consciousness and Baars is happy to stay there. Both believe that consciousness has structures that can be analysed, and is not just ‘the mysterious glow that no one but me can see’ described by Chalmers and Searle. Both acknowledge that their theories of consciousness are only metaphors, and there is no conflict in saying that Consciousness is both (...) like a theatre and like a series of multiple drafts. And both Dennett and Baars would agree that Consciousness seems to be like a theatre. Their main disagreement is how deep the similarity goes, and whether the similarity is more misleading than useful. There are other scientific controversies that could probably be dissolved by such an ecumenical attitude: there is no paradox in saying that an electron is both like a wave and like a particle, or that thought is both like a language in the head and like a connectionist network. But a non-aggression pact of this sort does not absolve us from enumerating the ways in which each of these metaphors does and does not map onto its object. And as this enumeration continues, it is likely to make one of these metaphors seem more plausible than the other. (shrink)

Darwinian atheists ridicule the “God of the Gaps” argument, claiming that it is theology and/or metaphysics masquerading as science.This is true as far as it goes, but Darwinian atheism relies on an argument which is equally metaphysical, which I call the “No Gaps,No God” argument. This atheist argument is metaphysical because it relies on a kind of conceptual necessity, rather than scientificobservations or experiments. “No Gaps No God” is a much better metaphysical argument than “God of the Gaps,” because the (...) latteris based on a clearly false conditional inference. However, there are also good, but not decisive, arguments against the “No Gaps NoGod” argument. Because metaphysical arguments never resolve as decisively as scientific research questions, there will probablyalways be a legitimate controversy at the metaphysical level on this topic, even though there is no serious controversy about Darwinianscience itself. If this fact were more widely acknowledged, it could help to defuse the controversy over teaching Darwin in the public schools. (shrink)

Darwinian atheists ridicule the “God of the Gaps” argument, claiming that it is theology and/or metaphysics masquerading as science.This is true as far as it goes, but Darwinian atheism relies on an argument which is equally metaphysical, which I call the “No Gaps,No God” argument. This atheist argument is metaphysical because it relies on a kind of conceptual necessity, rather than scientificobservations or experiments. “No Gaps No God” is a much better metaphysical argument than “God of the Gaps,” because the (...) latteris based on a clearly false conditional inference. However, there are also good, but not decisive, arguments against the “No Gaps NoGod” argument. Because metaphysical arguments never resolve as decisively as scientific research questions, there will probablyalways be a legitimate controversy at the metaphysical level on this topic, even though there is no serious controversy about Darwinianscience itself. If this fact were more widely acknowledged, it could help to defuse the controversy over teaching Darwin in the public schools. (shrink)

Many modern theological debates are built around a false dichotomy between 1) an atheism which asserts that the universe was created by purposeless mechanical processes and 2) acceptance of a religious system which requires both faith in the infallibility of sacred texts and belief in a supernatural God. I propose a form of naturalistic theism, which rejects sacred texts as unjustified, and supernaturalism as incoherent. I argue that rejecting these two elements of traditional organized religion would have a strongly positive (...) impact on the beliefs and practices of religion, even though many religious people feel strongly attached to them. It is belief in sacred texts that is responsible for most of the evil done in the name of religion, not belief in God. Many of the strongest arguments for atheism work only against a supernatural God, and have no impact on the question of the existence of a natural God. (shrink)

My claim that Skinner believed in psychological atoms is actually strengthened by Baars' remark that Skinner 's behaviorist atoms could take a variety of physical forms. Baars is correct that Pavlov, unlike Skinner, thought that psychological atoms were identical to certain physiological items. But Skinner, as a non-reductive atomist, thought he could permit his psychological atoms to have a variety of physical forms. He still believed that even though each S-R connection was not really physical, it could nevertheless be understood (...) as being independent of all other S-R connections,and without reference to the laws of physics. It doesn't really make sense to speak of something as being both ontologically determined by its function, and ontologically independent, but philosophical clarity was not Skinner 's strong point. (shrink)

Clark ends his appendix with a description of what he calls "dynamic computationalism", which he describes as an interesting hybrid between DST and GOFAI. My 'horseLISP" example could be described as an example of dynamic computationalism. It is clearly not as eliminativist as Van Gelder's computational governor example, for I am trying to come up with something like identities between computational entities and dynamic ones. Thus unlike other dynamicists, I am not doing what Clark calls "embracing a different vocabulary for (...) the understanding and analysis of brain events". I think we probably can keep much of the computational vocabulary, although the meanings of many of its terms will probably shift as much as the meaning of 'atom' has shifted since Dalton's time. The label of "dynamic computationalism" is perhaps as good a description of my position as any, but I think I would mean something slightly different by it than Clark would. (For the following, please insert the mantra "of course, this is an empirical question" (OCTEQ) every paragraph or so.). (shrink)

He describes his position as "neo-Carnapian", i.e. he is claiming that even if the question is meaningful, that doesn't mean it's worth looking into. He's probably right, in the sense that anyone can be right about a personal evaluative choice. And until I started questioning the belief that there is only one kind of physical process that could embody consciousness, I felt the same way myself. But the point about this thought experiment is that the current state of cognitive science (...) offers us two possible candidates for the embodiment of mind. And as Bickle points out, it seems like nothing we can imagine discovering in the future could settle this problem one way or the other. If this is true, this means that, strictly speaking, all this talk about being on the verge of a scientific understanding of consciousness is hype: No matter how close we get to solving the Chalmersian easy problems, we are getting nowhere nearer to solving the hard problem. If this is true, Cognitive Scientists ought to change their description of what they are doing, even if it cuts back on publicity and grant money. But I don't want to believe this, and I think the only way to avoid believing this is to discover the presuppositions that compel this belief, and see if we can change them. It's a dirty little job, but somebody has to do it, and philosophers seem less unqualified to attempt it than anyone else. Note, however, that I am not claiming we can use a thought experiment all by itself to find the answer, the way Searle claimed that the Chinese Room experiment supposedly proved that a computer couldn't be conscious. As RONALD LEMMEN points out, the fact that we can imagine something doesn't tell us anything about the world, only about our concepts of the world. Remember that the conclusion of my thought experiment was a question, not an answer. My only goal is to help clarify the question. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett has offered a helpful framework in which to consider the evolution of mind, calling it "the tower of generate and test". On the bottom of the tower there are "Darwinian creatures," whose patterns of behavior result from the effects of natural selection alone. Next come "Skinnerian creatures," whose behaviors continue to be modified during their individual lifetimes by trial, reward and punishment. Third are "Popperian creatures," capable of learning, as well, by trying things out in their heads. Last (...) are "Gregorian creatures," who learn through interaction with culture. I have spent some time trying to construct a similarly broad and rough framework in which to consider the evolution of mind, but focused on the development of inner representational systems. The idea was to explore possible forms of representation first within perception and then within thought as it becomes freed from perception. As I progressed, however, this fairly simply conceived project was soon out of hand. At times I thought I must be trying to reconstruct Kant 's. (shrink)

_This article articulates the presuppositions that psychology inherited from logical positivism, and how_ _those presuppositions effected the interpretation of data and research procedures. Despite the efforts of_ _Wundt, his most well known disciples, Titchener and Külpe, embraced an atomistic view of experience which_ _was at_ _least partly responsible for many of their failures. When the behaviorists rejected the_ _introspectionism of Titchener and Külpe, they kept their atomism, using the reflex_.

I have assumed that consciousness exists, and that to redefine the problem as that of explaining how certain cognitive and behavioral functions are performed is unacceptable. . . .Like many people , I find this premise obvious, although I can no more "prove" it than I can prove that I am conscious. . . .there is no denying that such arguments - on either side - ultimately come down to a bedrock of intuition at some point.

To some degree, Fodor's claim that Cognitive science divides the mind into modules tells us more about the minds doing the studying than the mind being studied. The knowledge game is played by analyzing an object of study into parts, and then figuring out how those parts are related to each other. This is the method regardless of whether the object being studied is a mind or a solar system. If a module is just another name for a part, then (...) to say that the mind consists of modules is simply to say that it is comprehensible. Fodor comes close to acknowledging this in the following passage. (shrink)

I am grateful to Markate Daly for forcing me to clarify my concept of the relationship between experience and know-how. She may be correct in saying that "None of the passive endurings and sufferings, loves, enjoyments and imaginings of Dewey's conception can be characterized as a part of 'knowing how' as it is currently understood." But I think that there is a similarity between passive experience and active coping that distinguishes them both from the allegedly "objective" sense data that Dewey (...) was rejecting. Experiences of love and suffering don't simply present themselves to us as independent entities. They are richly interwoven with each other and with the world, in much the same way as the connections between muscles and perceptual affordances. I tried to explain why I saw both emotions and knowing-how affordances to be governed by the same principles in the section of the paper dealing with Gibson, but of course there is still a great deal more to be said. (shrink)

After reading this paper, Richard Rorty sent the following comment: Doubtless in some sense I am doing "epistemology" and for all I know the name will survive as that of something which has little to do with Kant. But I am not convinced that philosophers are making themselves as useful to cognitive science as they claim, or that cognitive science is more than an awkward place-holder for neurology. My hunch is that when neurology comes into its own, notions like "cognition" (...) will dry up and blow away. (See Michael Williams UNNATURAL DOUBTS for a good argument that 'knowledge' or 'cogntion' is not profitably thought of as a natural kind.). (shrink)

I propose a semi-eliminative reduction of Fodors concept of module to the concept of attractor basin which is used in Cognitive Dynamic Systems Theory (DST). I show how attractor basins perform the same explanatory function as modules in several DST based research program. Attractor basins in some organic dynamic systems have even been able to perform cognitive functions which are equivalent to the If/Then/Else loop in the computer language LISP. I suggest directions for future research programs which could find similar (...) equivalencies between organic dynamic systems and other cognitive functions. This type of research could help us discover how (and/or if) it is possible to use Dynamic Systems Theory to more accurately model the cognitive functions that are now being modeled by subroutines in Symbolic AI computer models. If such a reduction of subroutines to basins of attraction is possible, it could free AI from the limitations that prompted Fodor to say that it was impossible to model certain higher level cognitive functions. (shrink)