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Harnad, S. (2003b) Categorical Perception . Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science . Nature Publishing Group. Macmillan. http://www.youtube.com...
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(10a. Comment Overflow) (50+)
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Psychology PSYC 538, Winter 2018: Categorization, Communication and Consciousness Time : Tuesdays 2:35-5:25 Place : STBIO S3/3 ...
Perhaps for someone who has not had access to the same amount of information that we have over the entirety of this course, Clark and Chalmers' argument could be somewhat convincing. But as soon as you approach their argument -- that cognition is explained by both what is going on in the mind AND in terms of the environmental inputs, manipulations, and interactions -- with the framework that we have had access to, it inevitably breaks down. If mental states are felt states, surely there is no way to conclude that the notebook in which Otto uses to write down useful information is part of his cognitive state, since his notebook is not feeling. This logic can be transferred to any of the examples that Clark and Chalmers use to illustrate how we use external tools in our everyday lives while we are thinking and doing. For example:
ReplyDelete"It happens that most reliable coupling takes place within the brain, but there can easily be reliable coupling with the environment as well. If the resources of my calculator or my Filofax are always there when I need them, then they are coupled with me as reliably as we need. In effect, they are part of the basic package of cognitive resources that I bring to bear on the everyday world."
I may use a calculator to help me with my math problems, and sure, sometime in the future this calculator may be attached to me instead of in my backpack, but this does not change the fact that my calculator is not feeling. Inanimate objects cannot feel. Clark and Chalmers attempt to argue that even another person can actually be part of one's extended 'mind' (insert: 'feeling'), or that one's own mental states could be somewhat made up of the mental states of others. However, we can never know what another person is thinking, or feeling, which is part of the other minds problem. Given this, it doesn't make logical sense that the feelings of another -- completely distinct being -- would constitute as my feelings. Only I know what it feels like for me to feel X or Y. For example, even though another person may say they feel sad, I can never know what their sad feels like in relation to my sad. Overall, Clark and Chalmers make an interesting, yet unconvincing argument.
“But not every cognitive process, at least on standard usage, is a conscious process. It is widely accepted that all sorts of processes beyond the borders of consciousness play a crucial role in cognitive processing: in the retrieval of memories, linguistic processes, and skill acquisition, for example. So the mere fact that external processes are external where consciousness is internal is not reason to deny that those processes are cognitive.”
ReplyDeleteAs Harnad stated in his article for week 10, “consciousness is feeling, one is conscious because he/she feels something.” If the cognitive processes that Clark and Chalmers mentioned in this passage can occur without the organisms being aware of/being conscious about, these processes are not felt, thus are not helpful for solving the hard problem. In addition, it makes sense to say that many of our mental processes interacting with the world, and the output of our mental state can be observed through our behaviors and verbal abilities. However, similar to the issues with first-person vs. third-person data in week 10, being able to observe and understand the“doing” does not give us any insights on the “feeling.”
This reading to me made a lot of sense to me when we think about how the mind is not only an internal thing but an external thing in order to help us. The perfect example that I have seen over and over in cognition is mentally rotating an object to fit a slot. When we think of the function of the coupled system (using internal and external cognition) there is a big advantage in using this type of cognition. We reduce steps needed to get from point A to point B. In the reading, the example of Otto can be thought as well as using his notebook to minimize the miss steps towards his destination. Alzheimer’s aside, if you have a vague memory of where something is, by using a notebook that acts as a external memory, you minimize the steps needed to get to you destination. Therefore this is why a coupled system of cognition is good and I could see why we can apply our mind to the external world.
ReplyDelete1. “Now consider Otto. Otto suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and like many Alzheimer's patients, he relies on information in the environment to help structure his life. Otto carries a notebook around with him everywhere he goes. When he learns new information, he writes it down. When he needs some old information, he looks it up. For Otto, his notebook plays the role usually played by a biological memory”
ReplyDeleteThis example made me think a lot, and although I enjoy this comparison I don’t feel that this is a fair statement. Because by this standard we also need to extend the biological memory to include notebooks in the case of Inga as well, since she could just as easily have written the same thing down in her notebook and referred to it later. I agree that for Otto the notebook works as an extension of his memory, but I don’t feel it’s fair to compare Otto’s notebook to Inga’s memory, since they are qualitatively different.
“The fish swims by building these externally occurring processes into the very heart of its locomotion routines. The fish and surrounding vortices together constitute a unified and remarkably efficient swimming machine…Words and external symbols are thus paramount among the cognitive vortices which help constitute human thought.”
ReplyDeleteWhat is discussed here in undeniably true and is worth noting because it is an important part of our cognition. With this in mind, it makes sense that modern science considers the brain to consist of the entire central nervous system including our sensory organs and transducers. I consider active externalism as the capacity humans have in manipulating and utilizing our environment. We use language as an extension of our working memory, in the case of the writer it is used to jot down what comes to mind before it fades. For the mathematician it serves as a means of transcribing so as not to repeat operations. We re-arrange scrabble pieces because they can act as external cues triggering previously inaccessible memories for desirable words. We have always been coupled with our environment therefore it is logical that our cognitive processes are coupled with it too as all cognitive input emanates from it and all output becomes it. Every cognitive task we have ever undertaken has been in relation to the known world – our environment. Our interaction with the discrete parts of the environment create an understanding of these parts through categorization and the synthesis of each of these parts into the greater “whole” create our understanding of our environment. In this sense the environment becomes part of the way we cognize.