Mind as emergent, selforganizing and enactive system

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Mind as emergent, self-organizing and enactive
system

• Lily Diaz, Mauri Kaipainen
• Media Laboratory,
• University of Art and Design Helsinki

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Three stages of cognitive science

• Three successive stages of cognitive science
  (Varela 1991, 6-7)
• ...cognitivism
• ...emergence
• ...enactive lt-

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Three stages of cognitive science
Varela 1991, 6-7)
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Relation to technology and media

• The viewpoint of cog sci is expanding to
  extensions and interactions of mind through
• Culture
• Media
• Technology

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1) Cognitivism

• cognitivism (about knowing a priori given
  clasees and distinctions)
• computer metaphor of mind
• functionalism, Cartesian dualism
• Criticism Chinese room

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2) Emergent mind

• Bio-physically founded mind adapts classes,
  categories and clusters from the environment
• emergence of mind-world distinctions (Cussins
  1990)
• Self-organization in nature
• Computational self-organization, artificial
  neural networks, (e.g. SOM, back-propagation
  etc.)
• Criticism Static view, feedback mechanisms on
  taken into account, lack of physical foundation

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3) Enactive mind

• cognition is not the representation of a pregiven
  world by a pregiven mind but rather the enactment
  of a world and a mind on the basis of a history
  of the variety of actions that a being in the
  world performs.
• the mind is a mirror of nature but goes further
  by addressing this issue from within the
  heartland of science.
• Varela et al. 1991
• Concept of mind anchored to dynamics

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Enactive mind Interaction to enactivity

• Interactivity (between parties)-gt
• Enactivity (within a holistic system)

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Enactive mind Autopoiesis

• systematic description of organisms as
  self-producing units in the physical space
  (Whitaker 1995)
• activity motivated by the organisms selfish
  needs
• structural coupling '...a history of recurrent
  interactions leading to the structural congruence
  between (two or more) systems (Maturana 1975,
  321)
• mutual co-adaptation

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Enactive mind Cognitive autopoiesis

• A cognitive system is a system whose organization
  defines a domain of interactions in which it can
  act with relevance to the maintenance of itself
• Whitaker 1995, 9 Maturana Varela 1980, 13

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Enactive mind Embodiment

• knowledge depends on being in a world that is
  inseparable from our bodies, and our social
  history
• opposed Gibsonian ecological psychology (in which
  the environment is seen as independent of the
  organism) (Valentine 1995)
• related to Neisserian psychology in which
  perception is coupled to environment by action

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Enactive mind Emergence via recurrence

• Cognitive structures emerge from recurrent
  sensori-motor patterns (Valentine 1995, 7-8)
• Language anchored to body and concretia through
  metaphors (Lakoff Johnson 1999 multiple books,
  see bibliography)

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Enactive mind Mind in material environment

• Technology as extension of mind (McLuhan 1968)
• Consistent with the enactive concept of mind
• Consistent with the

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Broader embedment of mind
Mind
Brain
Body
Environment
Culture
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Inner and outer loops of the minds autopoiesis
and enactivity
Mind
Brain
Body
Environment
Culture
Kaipainen 1995
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Entrainment perspective

• The mind/organism aims at optimizing regularities
  in brain/ body/ environment/ culture
• Regularities tend to emerge in complex systems,
  different components synchrony (esim. Kelso 1995)
• Regularities context-conditional, sequential,
  temporal

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Three entrainment relations Autism

• Inner loop of enactivity rules, environment
  ignored. Outside events strongly interpreted on
  the basis of anticipations (schemata). Extreme
  constructivism, dreams

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Three entrainment relations Gibsonism

• Patterns outside are there just to be picked up.

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Three entrainment relations Neisserism

• Inner and outer interact (enact!) and influence
  together, emergent joint patterns, entrainment,
  balanced constructivism
• Kaipainen 1994, 1996

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Enactive mind Epistemology

• Avoid
• realism - cognition as the recovery of a pregiven
  outer world, and the
• idealism - cognition as the projection of a
  pregiven inner world
• Valentine 1995, 7-8

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Enactive technology?

• Co-adaptation of human and technology
• Technology reactive -gt anticipatory

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Embodied technology?

• Technology implanted in us, our bodies, our minds
  (?)
• Computer interfaces implanted in the brain

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Autopoietic technology?!

• Reproducing technology (Viruses?)
• Self-motivating, autonomous
• Patterns or structures of interactions based on
  interdependence

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Bibliography

• See bibliography on course page