Enactive Cognition

Old paradigm assumed the physical world was "out there" and that the brain represented it in some internal neural language.

New paradigm sees that the nervous system is autopoietic (self-making) and therefore organizationally closed. What we know about the world has to do with how our own internal structures organize themselves (ie, the brain is self-organizing!), not with how a pre-existing world is represented.

http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/articles/1.1.mcgee.pdf

"...the enactive approach consists of two points:
(1) perception consists in perceptually guided
action and (2) cognitive structures emerge from
the recurrent sensorimotor patterns that enable
action to be perceptually guided. The overall con-
cern ...is not to determine how some perceiver-
independent world is to be recovered; it is, rather,
to determine the common principles or lawful
linkages between sensory and motor systems
that explain how action can be perceptually
guided in a perceiver-dependent world."
-- Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 173

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• enactivism
• cognitive
• science
• consciousness

[rawadhmd]

Can I have your email, we have a lot to talk about in cognitive science.

cheers

[0ThouArtThat0]

Redliterocket4@gmail.

I think I over-emphasize the autonomy of the organism in this video and neglect to mention the degree to which our consciousness and cognition is inseparably bound up with our extra-bodily environment via structural coupling. So my experience isn't just the state of my nervous system, but of that system as it is embedded in the world.

[studio7manga]

Garbage theory, funny how all of us subjective beings see the same picture of you and those trees. Seems pretty objective to me.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Similar nervous systems enact similar worlds. And then there is our common language which adds even more similarity.

[ameroffsky]

Fascinating argument. It would, I suppose, support the cause of skepticism and relativism.

One question though: Given that emotions are basically neurological or chemical reactions, what causes these reactions?

Don't know if I'm making sense.

[TheReasonWhyGuy]

We assume their is an objective world out there just like we assume that x=x, these assumptions however separate they seem, independently verify each other.

These are called basic assumptions, without these, we wouldn't even be able to the that thought is able to deduce anything since "reality is an illusion" and thought!=though.

These are called necessary assumptions and its useless to discard them due to the fact that doing so accomplishes nothing.

[rawadhmd]

Brilliant, this is a good explanation

[jephnotjeff]

observation is required to even say that anything even exists. not cognitive observation, necessarily, but an exchange of information between two objects with mass. existence is observation. the mass only exists if it has something to exist RELATIVE TO. therefore, space and time are only subjective, but necessary side-effects of the act of observation necessary for existence. dig?

[AdvanceTechnologies]

Interesting perspective. By studying advanced sensors over the years, each sensor has a variance or tolerance. Just like the living brain and its nervous systems connecting sensors -- everyone (normalized, meaning most of the population) will see the world with the most common elements (i.e. color) but with a variance depending on mental states. We are already in the age of building Artificial Brains, or Cybernetic ones. Soon humans will be obsolete as a workforce or even maybe leadership?

[eboyinc]

given that the external physical world created by the brain, doesn't that suggest that there isn't one world, but an infinite number of worlds? that our brain's ability to perceive in different ways (ie, we're driving down a road and we perceive in the distance an animal lying ahead on the road---then we get closer and realize it's just a fallen tree branch. we pass it by and continue driving...which was it then, a branch, a dead animal, both? something else? does time exist? just a perception?

[Canteatpancakes]

Your not telling anyone anything they don't already know...

Who exactly are you attempting to inform?

[patternsinchaos]

"We don't experience anything except the state of our own nervous system. " This is why consciousness exploration is so important for understanding. By changing those neurological states it is possible to get an idea of how perception relates to reality and what is constant, if anything.