25 July 2009
Reviewing Reviewers--Supersizing the Mind Out of Our Heads
)Published on July 25th, 2009 @ 06:50:29 pm, using 819 words, 53 views
One of the areas most people would say that they know the most about, are most sure about, is themselves, the “I” who comes out of their heads. We’re so sure there’s someone in there distinct from the machinery that we dream up lives for that “someone” after our bodies cease to function. That’s why the creationists have fastened their sites on the wrong science for so long. They focus on evolution when the real threat to religion and to our traditional perceptions of the world are coming from cognitive science. The notion that the “I” in our heads is someone our brains have created and deal with the same way it represents and deals with the others and events around us, just with more direct connection to basic body parts is science fiction to most people, but it’s also reality. But it’s not just our “consciousness” of who we are that is 180 degrees reversed from that planet but also how the interaction between those brains and other brains, the entire world we find ourselves in, actually makes us what we are.
You may not be in a place to handle that right now, but do yourself a favor and read this review of two books that will do a much better job explaining it that I can. And probably have more credibility with you. Here’s a bit about the first, SUPERSIZING THE MIND: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension by Andy Clark:
Clark critiques what he calls the “brainbound” model, which depicts the mind “as essentially inner and, in our case, always and everywhere neurally realized.” He puts forth a contrasting model, which he refers to as EXTENDED, “according to which thinking and cognizing may (at times) depend directly and noninstrumentally upon the ongoing work of the body and/or the extraorganismic environment.” He further characterizes this model as follows:
According to EXTENDED, the actual local operations that realize certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward, and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body, and world. The local mechanisms of mind, if this is correct, are not all in the head. Cognition leaks out into body and world.
The first section of Supersizing the Mind surveys work in which considerations of embodiment and extended informational resources have transformed theories of perception, cognition and motor control. Consider the problem of walking—easy for us, but a challenge for robots, especially if their walking is highly engineered via exact mechanical control of every joint, precalculated in a central controller. Such highly motorized and micromanaged movement is inefficient both physically and computationally. Biological walking, in contrast, exploits the “passive dynamics” of the material body. We ride on springy, free-swinging limbs. Once set in motion, animal bodies like ours saunter on their way with minimal shoving and shaping from the brain.
Our bodies lighten the load for our brains in many other ways as well. Expressive gestures, including words, Clark observes, are not merely communicative output but may also “function as part of the actual process of thinking.” Gestural information can interact with language. As we talk (to others and to ourselves), we also listen, using our bodies and words as reminders and abbreviations. Outsourcing is truly powerful, however, when we exploit the myriad cognitive scaffolds of the world around us, particularly the world of artifacts. In general, when information is available in the environment, we will use it instead of framing a “brainbound” thought. For example, to play the video game Tetris, one must anticipate whether moving shapes will fit together. To test for a match, one can manipulate the shapes mentally or try out the rotations on screen. Skilled players use on-screen manipulation rather than tax their minds.
And here’s some from OUT OF OUR HEADS: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness by Alva Noë:
Alva Noë’s target is consciousness, and in broad terms his position is compatible with Clark’s. Noë writes that in Out of Our Heads his central claim is that
“to understand consciousness—the fact that we think and feel and that a world shows up for us—we need to look at a larger system of which the brain is only one element. Consciousness is not something the brain achieves on its own. Consciousness requires the joint operation of brain, body, and world. Indeed, consciousness is an achievement of the whole animal in its environmental context. I deny, in short, that you are your brain.”
Now, the reviewer doesn’t take either of these guys as final words. In fact, the review is a careful analysis and, in some cases, refutation of their arguments. But that’s the point. This is a field that is just now forming the revolution that will change human pictures of ourselves. You’re going to be in it. You might as well start learning about it.
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