ORCID Profile
0000-0002-7345-2337
Current Organisation
University of Adelaide
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Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-04-2018
Publisher: Project MUSE
Date: 2017
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 30-09-2023
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2020
Publisher: Philosophy Documentation Center
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.5840/TPM201675128
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-06-2018
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 18-12-2020
Abstract: This special issue highlights the growing interdisciplinary interest in minimal cognition, bringing together a number of philosophers and scientists interested in investigating where, how, and why cognition arises. In what follows, we introduce the topic of minimal cognition by giving a brief look at debates and discussions about the lower bounds of cognition, minimally cognitive behaviors, and the possibility of life-mind continuity. Afterwards, we offer a short summary of each of the contributions to this issue. In the spirit of the Minimal Cognition conferences at the University of Wollongong at which the contributors participated, we hope this special issue will enrich the current state of minimal cognition research by putting a number of different disciplines and approaches into conversation.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-06-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S11229-023-04192-5
Abstract: The study of active matter systems demonstrates how interactions might co-constitute agential dynamics. Active matter systems are comprised of self-propelled independent entities which, en masse, take part in complex and interesting collective group behaviors at a far-from-equilibrium state (Menon, 2010 Takatori & Brady, 2015). These systems are modelled using very simple rules (Vicsek at al. 1995), which reveal the interactive nature of the collective behaviors seen from humble to highly complex entities. Here I show how the study of active matter systems supports two related proposals regarding interaction and agency. First, I argue that the study of interactive dynamics in these systems evidences the utility of treating interaction as an ontological category (Longino, 2021) and challenges methodological in idualism as the received explanatory primitive in the study of agency. Second, the methods used to research active matter systems demonstrate how a minimal approach to agency can scale up in studying interactive agential dynamics in more complex systems. The ex les of coordination dynamics (Kelso, 2001) and participatory sense-making (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007) are provided to show how understanding agency requires us to look beyond the in iduals to the interactive agential dynamics that can guide, scaffold, or constrain their activity.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 29-08-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S13194-023-00547-4
Abstract: Active materials are self-propelled non-living entities which, in some circumstances, exhibit a number of cognitively interesting behaviors such as gradient-following, avoiding obstacles, signaling and group coordination. This has led to scientific and philosophical discussion of whether this may make them useful as minimal models of cognition (Hanczyc, 2014 McGivern, 2019). Batterman and Rice (2014) have argued that what makes a minimal model explanatory is that the model is ultimately in the same universality class as the target system, which underpins why it exhibits the same macrobehavior. We appeal to recent research in basal cognition (Lyon et al., 2021) to establish appropriate target systems and essential features of cognition as a target of modeling. Looking at self-propelled oil droplets, a type of active material, we do not find that organization alone indicates that these systems exhibit the essential features of cognition. We then examine the specific behaviors of oil droplets but also fail to find that these demonstrate the essential features of cognition. Without a universality class, Batterman & Rice’s account of the explanatory power of minimal models simply does not apply to cognition. However, we also want to stress that it is not intended to cognition is not the same type of behavioral phenomena as those found in physics. We then look to the minimal cognition methodology of Beer (1996, 2020a, b) to show how active materials can be explanatorily valuable regardless of their cognitive status because they engage in specific behaviors that have traditionally been expected to involve internal representational dynamics, revealing misconceptions about the cognitive underpinnings of certain, specific behaviors in target systems where such behaviors are cognitive. Further, Beer’s models can also be genuinely explanatory by providing dynamical explanations.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 21-10-2022
DOI: 10.3389/FPSYG.2022.948733
Abstract: Enactivists frequently argue their account heralds a revolution in cognitive science: enactivism will unseat cognitivism as the dominant paradigm. We examine the lines of reasoning enactivists employ in stirring revolt, but show that none of these prove compelling reasons for cognitivism to be replaced by enactivism. First, we examine the hard sell of enactivism: enactivism reveals a critical explanatory gap at the heart of cognitivism. We show that enactivism does not meet the requirements to incite a paradigm shift in the Kuhnian sense—there is no internal crisis in cognitivism. Nor does it provide inherently better explanations of cognition as some have claimed. Second, we consider the soft sell of enactivism: enactivism provides a more attractive, parsimonious, or clear-eyed lens on cognition. This move proves to boil down to a misunderstanding of how theories are selected in science. Instead we lend support to a broader and more desirable way to conceive of enactivism, the recent proposal that enactivism is a philosophy of nature . We explain how a philosophy of nature does more than support a single research paradigm by integrating scientific questions into a cohesive picture.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 30-07-2020
Location: United States of America
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