Varela – Chapter 9

Evolutionary Path Making and Natural Drift

The adaptationist stance

Adaptation (or Neo-Darwinism)

Adaptation is the centerpiece of evolutionary biology, just as representation is the centerpiece of most contemporary cognitive science

Neo-Darwinism:

• Evolution is a gradual modification of an organism by heredity in reproduction
• The heredity constantly diversifies (mutation, recombination)
• Natural selection is the mechanism that picks the optimal design

Modifications by small changes in heredity -> genes

Evolution = the totality of these small changes in interbreeding populations

Adaptation is the process linked to reproduction and survival = adapting

Evolution

The main task of evolution is to find sets of interrelated genes that can contribute to reproduction

If it improves reproduction, it improves its fitness

Fitness

Fitness as a measure of abundance (the effect of genes on the growth rate)

Problems:

• reproductive success depends on sexual encounters (in most animal groups)
• the effects of genes are intertwined, it is hard to pinpoint the effects of individual genes
• the milieu in which these genes act is varied and time dependent
• this milieu must be taken in the context of a life cycle and ecology of the animal

Fitness as a measure of persistence (probability of reproductive permanence over time)

The optimization is not the amount of offspring, but the probability of extinction

This approach is sensitive to long-term effects, but has the same measurement problems

Adaptationist stance

The process of natural selection is the main factor in organic evolution

Selective pressures act on the genetic variety of a population, producing changes over time according to an optimization of the fitness potential

Evolution as natural drift

“Evolution as natural drift is the biological counterpart of cognition as embodied action, and therefore also provides a more embracing theoretical context for the study of cognition as a biological phenomenon.” (p. 188)

Linkage and Pleiotropy

Presence of a gene does not result in an isolated trait (few exceptions, eye color)

Genic interdependence:

• the genome is not linear array of dependent genes
• it is comprised of a network of multiple reciprocal effects mediated through:
• repressors and depressors
• exons and introns
• jumping genes
• structural proteins

Punctuated equilibria:

• discontinuities in how species change over time
• transitions are global rearrangements involving cooperative effects and genetic exchanges
• intermediate forms in species cannot be imagined (no grey zone)

Pleiotropy provides difficulties for adaptatationism:

“Selection might push to decrease the frequency of a certain gene, but pleiotropy, on the other hand, might push to increase or maintain the gene. The net result is some compromise that cannot be described as simply the result of selective pressures” (p. 189)

Development

The development stage is as important as the final structure itself

Pattern formation and morphogenesis (shape/creation) are highly constrained cellular choreographies that delimit the possibilities for change

The larva model demonstrates that once again, emergent properties are important in a complex network

These emergent properties are referred to as intrinsic factors

It is important to not consider natural selection as being external and developmental constraints as internal, they are not opposed

Random Genetic Drift

It is widely recognized that there is a significant degree of random genetic drift

The source of this randomness is:

• Proximity of genes (the hitch-hiking effect)
• Sampling error (from generation to generation) read p. 191
• 40% of the genome is junk DNA (not expressed and repetitive)

Stasis

Groups survive with little change even though their environment changed drastically from our viewpoint

“Genotypic plasticity, which is at the base of evolutionary stasis, is also evident in the microbial world where constant genetic exchange occurs side by side with an astounding degree of stasis.” (p. 192)

Considering adaptation as a measure of abundance (because of this stasis) has nothing to do with long term survival

Makes more sense to approach adaptation as a measure of persistence

Units of Selection

The individual has been considered the only unit of evolution and selection

Theories including multiple levels or units working in parallel are plausible and explain phenomena that couldn’t be explained with single unit selection

Single unit:

• genes

Multiple units:

• DNA short sequences
• Genes
• Whole gene families
• Cells
• Species genome
• Individuals
• Groups of genes carried by different individuals
• Social group
• The interbreeding population
• The entire species
• The ecosystem of the interacting species
• The global biosphere

Beyond the Best in Evolution and Cognition

“To explain an observed biological regularity as an optimal fit or optimal correspondence with pregiven dimensions of the environment appears less and less tenable on both logical and empirical grounds.” (p. 193)

Evolutionary and cognitive issues coincide in 2 points:

• adaptive value of knowledge, explains the kind of cognition a species has today
• evolution is used as a source for theories and concepts in cognition

Representation in cognitive science is like adaptation in evolutionary theories, because optimality is the central point in both

The john buying a suit analogy brings up the point that a global situation needs to be considered

(p. 194)

Ecology and Development in Congruence

First step:

Switch from a prescriptive to a proscriptive logic

What is not allowed is forbidden to what is not forbidden is allowed

Natural selection in a proscriptive logic works in a modified way:

Selection discards what is not compatible with survival and reproduction

This opens the idea of a variety and diversity of evolution paths and biological structures

Second step:

Evolutionary process is satisficing instead of optimizing

Putting together parts in complicated arrays, not because it is the optimal design, but because it is a possible design

This again opens the idea of a variety of evolutionary paths

Evolution as Natural Drift (the authors point of view)

Four points (p. 196-197):

• The unit of evolution is a network capable of many different configurations
• Under structural coupling with a medium, these configurations generate selection, an ongoing process of satisficing that triggers change in the form of viable trajectories
• The specific trajectory is the interwoven result of multiple levels of subnetworks of selected self-organized repertoires
• Organism and medium are in a coimplicative relationship, they mutually specify each other

This view needs the applicability of these three conditions:

• Self-organizing capacities in biological networks
• Structural coupling
• Subnetworks of independent processes that interact with each other

The notion of the pregiven background is replaced by intrinsic factors

Richard Lewontin (p. 198)

The species brings forth and specifies its own domain of problems to be solved by satisficing

Living beings and their environment relate through mutual specification or codetermination

Environmental regularities are the result of a long history of codetermination

The organism is both the subject and the object of evolution.

Defining the enactive approach

Ontogeny: the development or developmental history of an individual organism

Phylogeny: the development or evolution of a particular group of organisms.

Structural Coupling: Structural coupling is the term for structure-determined (and structure- determining) engagement of a given unity with either its environment or another unity. The process of engagement which effects a "...history or recurrent interactions leading to the structural congruence between two (or more) systems" (Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 75). It is ‘...a historical process leading to the spatio-temporal coincidence between the changes of state..’ (Maturana, 1975, p. 321) in the participants. As such, structural coupling has connotations of both coordination and co-evolution. (http://www.imprint.co.uk/thesaurus/structural_coupling.htm)

Cognition is no longer seen as problem solving on the basis of representation; instead, cognition in its most encompassing sense consists in the enactment or bringing forth of a world by a viable History of Structural Coupling. (p.205)

Such histories of coupling are not optimal (best or most favorable), but rather viable (capable of surviving or living successfully under certain environmental conditions).

Any action undertaken by the system is permitted as long as it does not violate the constraint of having to maintain the integrity of the system and/or its lineage. (p.205)

• There is always a next step for the system in its perceptually guided action
• The actions of the system are always directed toward situations that have yet to become actual.

Intentionality:

• Intentionality includes how system construes the world to be
• Intentionality includes how the world satisfies or fails to satisfy this construal.

Implications of this Intentionality:

• We can focus on the structure of the system by describing it as composed of various subsystems.
• We can focus on the behavioral interactions of the system by describing it as a unity capable of various forms of coupling.

What is Cognition?

Enaction: A history of structural coupling that brings forth a world. Through a network consisting of multiple levels of interconnected sensorimotor subnetworks.

It would be considered adequate when it either becomes part of an ongoing existing world (as the young of every species do, or shapes a new one (as happens in evolutionary history).

Enactive Cognitive Science

Brook’s “Intelligence without representation”:

Representation is the wrong unit of abstraction in building the bulkiest parts of intelligence system. (p. 208)

The goal is not the usual decomposition of a system by functioning but rather by activity. (p.209)

Activity: Pattern of interaction with the world. Each activity can at least post facto be rationalized as pursuing some purpose. (p.211)

Layer: activity, producing subsystem.

There need be no distinction between a “perception subsystem,” a “central system” and an action system.”

There are no representations involved in the layers of Brooks’ Model.

Paul Smolensky’s Harmony theory:

• Exogenous (derived or developed from outside the body) features in the task domain corresponds to pregiven features of the world
• Endogenous (growing or developing from within) activity in the network acquires through experience an abstract meaning that optimally encodes environmental regularity.

The enactive program requires that we eschew any form of optimal fitness by taking this kind of cognitive system into a situation where endogenous and exogenous features are mutually definitory over a prolonged history that requires only a viable coupling. (p. 213)

ch.9 - adam and angela

Chapter 9 - Evolutionary Path Making and Natural Drift


Neo-Darwinism remains the dominant mode of thought in evolutionary biology, characterized by notions of natural selection shaping development of species through selection. The idea of fitness in the evolutionary sense is usually expressed in terms of abundance (the number of offspring, or rate of growth of a population), or persistence (probability of extinction). There are several points of contention with this model, namely: Pleiotropy (genes are interdependent, making it difficult to discuss adaptation of individual traits); punctuated equilibria (drastic discontinuity and global rearrangement in the development of species); the importance of development (morphogenesis) of individual organisms; the fact that many groups remain genetically static for long periods of time (despite changing environments); and the many candidates for what the unit of genetic selection should be.

"The central issue remains whether evolutionary processes can be understood by the representations idea that there is a correspondence between and environment provided by the optimizing constraints of survival and reproduction"(pg.193-194)

The idea of organisms adapting to a pregiven environment (which is parallel to a cognitive system representing a pregiven, external world) is called into question, and a switch from optimization (prescriptive) to satisficing (proscriptive) is suggested. Selection is not the central agent of change, forcing development into a specified optimal path, but a pruning method by which multiple paths are kept viable. In this model, environment and organism specify each other in an ongoing enfolded process. In parallel, the role of Enactive Cognitive Science research is to understand how the mechanisms of structural coupling unfold and how regularities in environment and cognizing systems arise.

"..living beings and their environments stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or codetermination"(pg. 199)

"nature versus nurture will actually to go away unless we learn to see organisms and environments as mutually unfolded and enfolded structures."(pg. 199)

"...intelligence shifts from being the capacity to solve a problem to the capacity to enter into a shared world of significance."(pg. 207)

An example is given in the research of Rodney Brooks – who states that representation is the wrong unit of abstraction for intelligent systems, that we must incrementally built up intelligent capacity, that each step should build a complete intelligent system with real sensing and real action, and that the proper mode of viewing perceptive and active subsystems is through orthogonal division - division by activity rather than function. That is, there is no distinction between peripheral and central systems.

Chapter 9 - Shih-En, Davide, Genevieve, Cho, and Amna

Chapter 9 discusses recent views on adaptation in evolutionary biology. Neo-Darwinism inherits from the three basic points: heredity, diversification, and natural selection (that describes the mechanism that picks the designs that best cope with its environment). This chapter proposes that the theories of evolution themselves evolve from Darwinism to neo-Darwinism and towards to the view of natural drift through the study of cognition as a biological phenomenon. It suggests that the complex traits involved in evolution that takes account of factors such as randomness and highly interwoven network of multiple reciprocal effects is not enough to explain evolution the way it is without taking cognition as a biological phenomenon in consideration. At the individual scale, the Drosophila fruit fly expresses the importance of emergent properties in a complex network of patterns. These factors are referred to as intrinsic factors in evolution. It is even suggested that evolution has occurred independent of selective pressure, due to the effect of sampling error in statistics.

Is evolution survival of the fittest or the result of natural drift?

chapter 5&7 (Sally & Sabreena)

CHAPTER 5:
In summary, chapter 5 discuses congnitive science and the examination of the human experience through the tradition of mindfulness/awareness meditation. It says that the brain is seen to operate on the basis of massive interconnections which are distributed in such a way that the actual connections resemble neurons, which change as a result of experience.
This theory has been a contributing factor in the renewed interests and the parallel rediscovery of self-organizational ideas in physics and nonlinear mathematics.
The brain is being looked at once again as the main source of metaphors and ideas. Thus connectivists say that theories and modes do not deal with symbolic descriptions anymore, but deal with an army of neuron like, simple global properties, which when connected well, produce interesting global properties. These properties then embody and express the cognitive capacities being sought.
The whole approach therefore basically depends on the introduction of an appropriate connection. The strategy in this model is to build cognitive systems not by starting with symbols and rules, but by starting with simple components that dynamically connect to each other in dense ways.
In this sense, confectionist models are much closer to biological systems, thus one cannot work with degree of integration between AI and neuroscience. This implies that the models re general enough to be applied with little modification, to various domains such as speech recognition and vision.
In the connectionist approach, symbolic computations are replaced by numerical operations. In the connectionist approach however, meaning is not located in particular symbols; it is a function of the global state of the system that is linked to the overall performance of some domain, such as recognition learning. Cognitivism therefore is founded on the hypothesis that taxonomy consists of symbols. This symbolic level constrains the kinds of behaviors that are possible for a cognitive system and so is thought to have an independent explanatory status. This implies that symbols are not taken at a face value, but they are seen as representations of macro level descriptions whose governing principles reside at a symbolic level.

CHAPTER 7:
When the very ideas of representation and information processing change, some form of realist assumptions will still remain. A dissatisfaction with the varieties of cognitive realism is due to a search of a deeper source, an alternative to symbolic processing. This notion thus obscures many essential dimentions of cognition, and not just human experiences, but perception and languages as well as the evolution of life. Is the mind therefore just "mirror of nature?" Not according to cognition, it is not. Cognition perceives perception as an active process of hypothesis formation, not and therefore not as the simple mirroring of a pregiven environment.
In cognition thus there is always a construction or representing of the world in a certain way, or an act on the basis of internal representations.
Through the assumption that the world is pregiven, thus our congnition is of this world - even if only to a partial extant, and the way in which we cognize this pregiven world world is to represent its features ten act on the basis of these representations.

A shift in cognitive science, led to the move from the idea of the world as independent and extrinsic, to the idea of a world as inseparable from the structure of these processes of self modification. This change reflected the necessity of understanding cognitive systems not on the basis of their input and relationships, but by their operational closure. A system that has operational closure is one in which the results of its processes are those processes themselves. Such systems do not operate by representation, but enact a world of domain of distinctions that is seperable from the structure embodied by the cognitive system.

Chapter 8 - Mazi and Olivier

Knowledge depends on our living experience in a world that is inseperable from our bodies and our social history. Our senses have been developping as an evolution of our needs as human beings. Therefore, many animals have very different ways of seeing or hearing, because of their evolution and their way of interacting and experiencing the world. This means that even our senses are influenced by the experienced and embodied world. "This beautiful study supports the enactive view that objects are not seen by the visual extraction of features but rather by the visual guidance of action". Lived experience is the center point of mind, knowledge, and evolution.

Chapter 7 Jonno - Myles - Daniel - Joe

The outer and the inner. Everything which is perceived by the mind comes from somewhere other than our mind. The mind processes the information internally and outputs a representation of that process. The environment imposes it self on us, on our capabilities of managing information and experience. The mind is a point situated in a background of relationships, events, moments that is then not copied onto the mind but subjectively constructed and constantly changing between states.

The representations one believes in being an absolute reflection of this "world" can be false. Since it seems as though the representations of that world which seems to be built upon one's experience and relationships are essentially reflections of one's self.

The Cartesian anxiety poses a search for a middle way between an objective ground and a subjective hypothesis. The varying states one oscillates through are fueled by our belief systems and our understanding of the outer world. The very introspection into the inner suggests a thread linking the subjective mind to the outer world.

cellular memory - every cell in our body has its own mind

Here is something I found that I thought was interesting and relevant to our discussions about where consiousness is seated.

angela.

From: MONTGOMERY COLLEGE STUDENT JOURNAL OF SCIENCE & MATHEMATICS
Volume 2 September 2003
Knowing By Heart:
Cellular Memory in Heart Transplants
by
Kate Ruth Linton
Under the supervision of: Tom Anderson

www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/StudentJournal/volume2/kate.pdf

"
On May 29, 1988, a woman named Claire Sylvia received the heart of an 18-year-old
male who had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Soon after the operation, Sylvia
noticed some distinct changes in her attitudes, habits, and tastes. She found herself acting
more masculine, strutting down the street (which, being a dancer, was not her usual
manner of walking). She began craving foods, such as green peppers and beer, which she
had always disliked before. Sylvia even began having recurring dreams about a mystery
man named Tim L., who she had a feeling was her donor.
As it turns out, he was. Upon meeting the “family of her heart,” as she put it, Sylvia
discovered that her donor’s name was, in fact, Tim L., and that all the changes she had
been experiencing in her attitudes, tastes, and habits closely mirrored that of Tim’s
(Sylvia179). Some members of the scientific community and of society, as a whole, may
brush this off as being merely a strange coincidence. However, some believe that
episodes such as this one offer evidence of a concept known as cellular memory, which
is beginning to gather more and more attention in the scientific community as the
technology of heart transplantation improves and affects more people throughout the
world (Bellecci 1).
Cellular memory is defined as the idea that the cells in our bodies contain information
about our personalities, tastes, and histories (Carroll 1). Evidence of this phenomenon
has been found most prevalently in heart transplant recipients. Though cellular memory
may seem too far- fetched for some, several scientists and physicians have looked further
into it as a valid concept and have come up with various theories to try and gain more
understanding of it."


Also check out:

A Change of Heart: A Memoir
by Claire Sylvia (Author), William Novak (Author)

http://www.amazon.com/Change-Heart-Memoir-Claire-Sylvia/dp/0446604690


And this (things start to get very strange indeed)
Cell Talk: Talking to your cell(f)
by John Upledger
http://www.amazon.com/Cell-Talk-John-Upledger/dp/1556434618

Chapter 8 - Davide, Genevieve, Cho, Shih-En, and Amna

The classic approach to cognition as problem solving fails to present adequate results when dealing with less constricted or well-defined tasks. Ergo, the proposed remedy for this problem, courtesy of the school of philosophical hermeneutics, is to make context-dependent know-how the very essence of cognitive recognition. This new train of thought makes the mind appear as an emergent and autonomous system.

The chapter goes on to explain this system extensively through color perception. First, it should be noted that there is a specific structure to viewing colors which depend on their visual description and variances; this structure is explained through the opponent-process theory. Furthermore, our perception of color is said to be possible due to complex processes of structural coupling, thus creating a cause-and-effect type of system.

This discussion leads back to the idea presented at the beginning of this chapter: namely, that cognition should be studied as embodied action. This is defined as a hybrid of depending on past experiences due to possessing sensorimotor capacities and sensory and motor processes being joined in lived cognition. New cognitive structures continue to surface because past experiences decide future actions. A few thinkers offer their own theories relating to this. Piaget believes that the laws of cognitive development simply take in what is already there and make it fit the current model of the world. Johnson, on the other hand, argues that humans have kinesthetic images schemas which is built up from sensorimotor activities and helps to build a wide variety of cognitive domains.

Good Site on Varela and Maturana

http://www.enolagaia.com/ECSTables.html

Chapter 5 & 7 - Adam & Angela

Chapter 5: Emergent properties and Connectionism

The connectionist model is an alternative to cognitivism that places the emphasis of cognitive function on the emergent activity of neurons. Connectionist models offer advantages over 'top-down' cognitivist models in that they are robust, parallel, distributed, and offer high potential for learning. They are also closer to biology.

There is a difficulty in trying to assign discrete symbolic states to a connectivist system, since its properties are dependent on the distributed state of the whole system. In connectionist models, symbolic computation is replaced by whole-system states described by numerical operations: patterns replace symbols, and we move from the symbolic to the sub-symbolic as the main level of interest in neurological activity.

There is nonetheless an exploration of how symbols and sub-symbolic models can be related. Approaches such as complementary 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' views are suggested, as is the use of symbols as a method to describe different states of the whole connected neuron system, or its sub-parts. Cognitivists argue that a symbolic model thus remains valid for describing higher-order operations, and complex abstract systems such as language. The counter argument to this is that we still define cognition in this case as logical reasoning, which is too limiting given the multiple cognitive processes at work in the formation of mind, as well as excluding other distributed systems that display cognitive properties (the example of immune systems is given).

Emergence is also used to address the question of sequentiality in the five aggregates of Buddhist thought. Rather than a sequential process of perception and reaction, we can see the aggregates as a description of the emergent state of the mind at a given moment, a view more closely aligned with our understanding of brain functions, as well as our lived experience.

Chapter 7: The Cartesian Anxiety

This chapter questions the notion of representation in cognitive science. We are accustomed to conceiving of the world as pre-given, with properties which can be 'recovered' and internally represented by a cognizing agent. The authors distinguish between a 'weak' form of representation, or 'construal', in which something is said to be 'about' something else without considering how that semantic meaning is attained. The more problematic form is 'strong' representation, or the generalizing of the weak form in order to develop theories of language or cognition. This form is problematic because it makes the above assumptions of a pregiven world with properties that can be represented.

Cognitive Realism seems to present a solution to the Western philosophical opposition between realism and idealism, but still retains the problem of the 'image of mind as a mirror of nature'. This is problematic in that it treats information as a property of the world to be processed by the mind: the view of mind as an information-processing device with input and output. But, as noted by Minsky "it makes no sense to speak of brains as thought they manufacture thoughts the way factories make cars. The difference is that brains use processes that change themselves - and this means we cannot separate such processes from the products they produce". In other words, the world as perceived by a cognizing agent must be considered to be produced or at least influenced by those cognizing processes.

We are now seemingly left not only without a solid inner platform from which to relate to the world (the unified self), but also without a solid outer ground to relate to. This is described as the Cartesian anxiety, since the problem only arises when we conceive of a solid outer world which we are barred from knowing, an inheritance of the Cartesian notions of clearly defined inner self and outer world. Once again, this features in Buddhist philosophy, as they describe a grasping of a solid world as well as the grasping for self. By letting go of the need for a solid ground to precede from, we are open to lived experience.

Chapter 5-7 - Olivier and Mazi

The response of neurons, being very context sensitive, demonstrate that emergent properties are fundamental to the operation of the brain. The study of these neural states has shown that neural characteristics localized far from each other have an impact on the global state. Therefore, you cannot simply seperate the functionning of the brain in local activity. These local behaviors play a large role on the golbal behavior. This also shows that the brain is very cooperative in its different regions. Region A connects with region B, and region B then connects to region A. Local patterns are coherent with global patterns of different sections of the brain. Therefore, a local pattern taken individually has no meaning until considered in the bigger scheme.

The mind and world have to be considered as being dependent of each other. The cartesian anxiety is the result of trying to find a pregiven world that is independent of the human mind and experience. This pregiven world cannot be found. A world independent of representations can be considered as being another of our representations. The brain works with self-modifying processes and we must consider the world as being dependent of these processes. This is a system with operational closure: the result of processes are these processes themselves.

Ch 5 & 7 - Carina, Laurence, Rebecca, Andrea

Emergence arose from cybernetics in the 1950s. It wasn't until 1970s when it came back into focus. This theory focuses on a system of simple units working together to give rise to a more complex global behavior. These units work almost simultaneously (connectionism) unlike cognitivism which focuses on a sequence of operations on symbols. Connectionism is much more favorable than cognitivism which seemed to deviate from the biological. Based on this knowledge, the chapter takes up this theory in favor of the cognitivist's point of view.

Chapter 7 deals with notions of representation in western philosophy; moreover the need to find an absolute ground or pre-given world, and the results are often that there is no absolute on which to base ourselves on. The solution the author proposes is to find a middle-ground through the Madhyamika school of Buddhism.

Chapter 5 & 7 - Davide

Chapter five states right off the bat that it deals with emergent properties and how they relate to cognitivism. Furthermore, the concept that the brain is an interconnected system, which is introduced at the beginning of this chapter, serves as the base to the future discussions. One of the theories presented based on this idea believe that the brain follows a set of rules and gradually makes the right connections to make the proper association. Although there is no unified formal theory of emergent properties, the name that was given to this line of research was, appropriately and ironically, connectionism. The theories that came from this study provided working models dealing with symbolic recognition and processing. However, the connectionist approach does not narrowly associate meaning with just a few symbols at the micro level; rather, it works on the much more general macro scale where it also adds recognition and learning to its concerns. This would mean that connectionism is in conflict with cognitivism, which has resisted looking at the greater scale.

Chapter seven opens with the distress and anxiety the notion of a representational system has caused researchers. However, there is hope in contemporary cognitive science. Thanks to priori and posteriori representations, cognitive science is able to safely discuss representation without having to deal with the shackles imposed by traditional ideas. This is further reinforced in this chapter with the claim that the role of the environment has receded whereas the role of the mind has taken center stage in the attempt to ultimately grasp. Even this change, though, can lead to frustration if it is taken to extreme lengths. Indeed, this chapter suggests combining the Buddhist middle route, the madhyamika as it is called, with mindfulness/awareness in an attempt to find a stable ego-self on the ultimate ground.

Chapter 5 and 7 - Genevieve, Shih-En, and Cho

Emergence is described in the text as self-organization ideas. The main quality of emergence is its flexibility or how it can adjusts to a change in the environment. Emergence is a quality that is found in a network of simple components that dynamically connects to each other depending on the situation. Emergence is different from classical cognition as it is not govern by symbols. However the author of this book remark that when emergence appear in an organisms it will form a pattern that will be the same if it is in the same situation witch can become a symbol.

One of the issues of western philosophy is how to represent the world in witch we live. It is believe that the world has pregiven features witch are unquestionable. The author of the book found that this perspective is a way to hide from the question as it implies that the only way to ground the world is that it either has an absolute foundation or is chaos. They instead propose a middle way solution base from the Buddhism perspective. They suggest that like the search of the self, the answer to the representation of the world lies in groundlessness.

How would emergence relate to the notion of groundlessness of the world?

Chapter 3 & 4 - Davide

Chapter three goes more into depth about the origins of cognitive science and how its definition evolved. In the beginning, there was the cybernetics movement, which was dedicated to bringing a science of the mind; this can be seen as a huge step forward for the definition of cognitive science. The ideas of people like McCulloch and Pitts helped bring about the invention of digital computers. Unfortunately, soon afterwards everyone involved with this movement eventually died off, thus forcing cybernetics to go with them. However, where cybernetics burnt away, neurology and psychoanalysis rose from the ashes of the old to form a new cognitive science. It was through people like Freud and Jackenoff that ideas such as a separate mind and consciousness or the disunity of the cognizing subject. Thus, cognitive science was reborn anew, and it is this past form of it which is now being considered a natural counterpart to present-day cognitive science.

Chapter four focuses on defining what it means to be human with the premise that most people are not convinced of their own identities as humans that are always in the moment. This chapter talks about mindfulness/awareness as a form of practice that eventually will lead people to be able to be present in every aspect of their life. This discussion eventually leads straight into the five aggregates of Buddhism: forms, feelings/sensations, perceptions (discernments)/impulses, dispositional formations, and consciousness. These five aggregates are what not only constitute the psychological complex of a person, but what constitute every moment a person experiences.

Chapter 3 & 4 - Olivier and Mazi

The cognitivist hypothesis relies mainly on symbols and the computation of them, and the very strong computational aspect to it. Is this perception of symbols due to a historical evolution or simply a biological evolutioin? In other words, if we were to restart the whole process of evolution, would we take the same path.

We are constantly projecting the view we have of ourself in another entity, something similar to the Lacan's big other. We believe that this representation of ourself causes a lot of confusion as to understand who we actually are. According to cognitivist theory there is a fragmented self, or a divided self. Cognition and consciousness are completly seperated and consciousness has no impact on the computational processes of the mind. This consciousness only receives projected information from cognition. The mental images are the sum of all the representational qualities of a symbol. Therefore, we are able to "visualize" that symbol in our mind.

In the notion of selflessness there is no experiencer to receive information. Experiences simply come and go. We tend to try and grasp onto that experiencer or that self and since it is non existent, it causes human suffering. Experiences are not continuous. They are very fragmented. The example of the two blinking lights that will be perceived differently simply on the basis of when you start blinking them was very interesting and demonstrated that the brain works in a very fragmented way indeed.

Chapter 3 and 4 - Genevieve, Shih-En, and Cho

Present-day cognitivism called cybernetics is related to past science, but yet it is also separated from the prevalent mistakes from the old roots of empirical knowledge. The main idea behind cognitivism is that intelligence in general, whether digital or biological, resembles computational representations of symbols. It even goes as far as Freud’s psychoanalytical theory of symbols loss in translation. In fact, cognitivism postulates that there exist symbols in our brains that we simply cannot bring to consciousness at all. This inability to solidify fundamental processes continues to challenge our self and our identity as a whole.

Related to the previous is a category of Buddhist teaching called Abhidarma and its five aggregates. The first of the five aggregates is based on the physical to emphasize that the self is related to our past, present, or future bodily cells. And according to the other aggregates, the self is composed of our feelings and our thoughts as DesCartes puts it. But as we believe that our self is not truly related to our experiences, we start to realize that it may be related instead purely to our brain and what is called momentariness, or a moment of consciousness, shadows of thoughts. However, the speed and spontaneity of this mindfulness is too erratic to be used as the definition of the self. In the end, cognitive science is presently not truly prominent in being the main source of enlightenment of the self since it lacks consideration of experiences.

If cognitive science does perfectly explain our self, how does that impact our values on artificial intelligence compared to our own human intelligence?