Indeed, we can't exhaustively represent nature as a whole (not now and likely not ever), but our perceptions do yield understanding of characteristics of the phenomenal 'landscape', and multiplying and comparing those perceptions (our own and those experienced by others) we do arrive as a species at common knowledge of many characteristics of the world we exist in locally and more broadly concerning the physical universe in which our local existence occurs. In phenomenology we also understand, increasingly, the nature of our experience and that of other living creatures in terms of affectivity, awareness, and consciousness.
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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6
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Indeed, we can't exhaustively represent nature as a whole (not now and likely not ever), but our perceptions do yield understanding of characteristics of the phenomenal 'landscape', and multiplying and comparing those perceptions (our own and those experienced by others) we do arrive as a species at common knowledge of many characteristics of the world we exist in locally and more broadly concerning the physical universe in which our local existence occurs. In phenomenology we also understand, increasingly, the nature of our experience and that of other living creatures in terms of affectivity, awareness, and consciousness.
David Morris writes in “The Enigma of Reversibility and the Genesis of Sense in Merleau-Ponty”:
"The Phenomenology [MP's Phenomenology of Perception] shows us that if a perceiver learns to see something in a new way (as is the case with children learning to make new color discriminations, see PhP 39/30) then the perceiver must both actively add something new over and above given contents (so as to change the sense of perception over time) yet must be passive to things and the time it takes to learn to see them (otherwise we would not have to learn how to see, or learning to see would not be contingent on external factors). As Merleau-Ponty puts it, echoing the seeker’s paradox,“Empiricism cannot see that we need to know what we are looking for, otherwise we would not be looking for it, and intellectualism fails to see that we need to be ignorant of what we are looking for, or equally again we should not be searching. (36/28) 27
Perception cannot wholly constitute itself as an act, it must be open and passive to what is being seen, for example, to colors that we have not yet learned to discriminate, which are active in prompting our act of overturning givens, a “bouleversant les donées” (PhP 39/30). This complicity between the one who perceives and what is perceived, and between activity and passivity, deepens in Merleau-Ponty’s remark in the Phenomenology that “in the exchange between the subject of sensation and the sensible one cannot say that the one acts [agisse] while the other suffers the action [pâtisse], or that one gives sense [donne sens] to the other” (PhP 248/21). This is strikingly echoed in the passage from“Eye and Mind” above that in painting “one no longer knows who sees and who is seen, who paints and who is painted.” (OE 31-32/167) We could also think here of Merleau-Ponty’s point in the Phenomenology that one must “‘look’ in order to ‘see’” (232/268): active looking is inseparably counterpart yet incongruent with passive seeing—and vice versa." [pp. 9-10]
Seeing is, of course, only one of the senses that reveal our interconnections with, and common source in, the physical world, and Morris goes on from the extract above to discuss again in parallel the same insight with respect to touching and being touched in one's tactile experience and exploration of the world -- i.e., the environment in which we are embedded, in which we find ourselves existing, and with which we are radically integrated in the body. We are almost seamlessly coherent with the environments in which we are situated, except for the continuous distance revealed to us in and through our consciousness and our reflections on and thinking about the nature of our perceptions, which encompass both the visible and the invisible (that which grounds the whole of being, which we in part reveal in our perceptions and consciousness).
Things in the world and our ability to perceive and reflect upon them both well up out of the same being/be-ing/Being, and the nature of our own be-ing is part of the nature of being/Being as a whole. This condition -- our condition -- appears to be paradoxical. In terms of the whole of being thought as 'nature', our condition is a going beyond 'what-is' from a position within the basis and whole of what-is -- a development out of an integral wholeness that somehow bears our condition as consciousness into existence. Thus many thinkers now consider consciousness, as an expression of being, to be the universe or cosmos becoming aware of itself.
Thus MP can write: ““the absolute is already within the world, yet not in such a way that it can be ‘caught in immanence.’” Morris explains:
“All of this leads Merleau-Ponty to a crucial methodological problem: If sensation is not distant from us, but internal to us, and if sensation belongs to a certain field outside us, if the sense of sensation comes to us partly from the ‘outside’—then how can we reflect on sensation? How are we the active agents of phenomenology? Do not perception and thence reflection depend on something older than and outside, yet interior to, our being? Indeed they do. I coin the term “anexinterior” to designate this something, which is anterior and exterior to us, yet not really exterior to us (so it is ‘an-exterior,’ not exterior), because it is inherent and interior to our being, such that things are an “annex” of the body. . . .”
MP’s later philosophy expresses the embodied existential situation of consciousness in terms of the “flesh” of the world, continuous with our flesh. The ‘Chiasm’ characterized in his last writings on nature is the conjoined condition of mind and world discoverable in the analysis of consciousness.
Again, this presents the methodological problem that Akins articulates at the end of the paper concerning sensation and ‘aboutness’, which Pharoah called to our attention. Since I can’t copy it here, please compare that last paragraph with what Morris identifies as the mainstream of MP’s thinking.
"The Phenomenology [MP's Phenomenology of Perception] shows us that if a perceiver learns to see something in a new way (as is the case with children learning to make new color discriminations, see PhP 39/30) then the perceiver must both actively add something new over and above given contents (so as to change the sense of perception over time) yet must be passive to things and the time it takes to learn to see them (otherwise we would not have to learn how to see, or learning to see would not be contingent on external factors). As Merleau-Ponty puts it, echoing the seeker’s paradox,“Empiricism cannot see that we need to know what we are looking for, otherwise we would not be looking for it, and intellectualism fails to see that we need to be ignorant of what we are looking for, or equally again we should not be searching. (36/28) 27
Perception cannot wholly constitute itself as an act, it must be open and passive to what is being seen, for example, to colors that we have not yet learned to discriminate, which are active in prompting our act of overturning givens, a “bouleversant les donées” (PhP 39/30). This complicity between the one who perceives and what is perceived, and between activity and passivity, deepens in Merleau-Ponty’s remark in the Phenomenology that “in the exchange between the subject of sensation and the sensible one cannot say that the one acts [agisse] while the other suffers the action [pâtisse], or that one gives sense [donne sens] to the other” (PhP 248/21). This is strikingly echoed in the passage from“Eye and Mind” above that in painting “one no longer knows who sees and who is seen, who paints and who is painted.” (OE 31-32/167) We could also think here of Merleau-Ponty’s point in the Phenomenology that one must “‘look’ in order to ‘see’” (232/268): active looking is inseparably counterpart yet incongruent with passive seeing—and vice versa." [pp. 9-10]
Seeing is, of course, only one of the senses that reveal our interconnections with, and common source in, the physical world, and Morris goes on from the extract above to discuss again in parallel the same insight with respect to touching and being touched in one's tactile experience and exploration of the world -- i.e., the environment in which we are embedded, in which we find ourselves existing, and with which we are radically integrated in the body. We are almost seamlessly coherent with the environments in which we are situated, except for the continuous distance revealed to us in and through our consciousness and our reflections on and thinking about the nature of our perceptions, which encompass both the visible and the invisible (that which grounds the whole of being, which we in part reveal in our perceptions and consciousness).
Things in the world and our ability to perceive and reflect upon them both well up out of the same being/be-ing/Being, and the nature of our own be-ing is part of the nature of being/Being as a whole. This condition -- our condition -- appears to be paradoxical. In terms of the whole of being thought as 'nature', our condition is a going beyond 'what-is' from a position within the basis and whole of what-is -- a development out of an integral wholeness that somehow bears our condition as consciousness into existence. Thus many thinkers now consider consciousness, as an expression of being, to be the universe or cosmos becoming aware of itself.
Thus MP can write: ““the absolute is already within the world, yet not in such a way that it can be ‘caught in immanence.’” Morris explains:
“All of this leads Merleau-Ponty to a crucial methodological problem: If sensation is not distant from us, but internal to us, and if sensation belongs to a certain field outside us, if the sense of sensation comes to us partly from the ‘outside’—then how can we reflect on sensation? How are we the active agents of phenomenology? Do not perception and thence reflection depend on something older than and outside, yet interior to, our being? Indeed they do. I coin the term “anexinterior” to designate this something, which is anterior and exterior to us, yet not really exterior to us (so it is ‘an-exterior,’ not exterior), because it is inherent and interior to our being, such that things are an “annex” of the body. . . .”
MP’s later philosophy expresses the embodied existential situation of consciousness in terms of the “flesh” of the world, continuous with our flesh. The ‘Chiasm’ characterized in his last writings on nature is the conjoined condition of mind and world discoverable in the analysis of consciousness.
Again, this presents the methodological problem that Akins articulates at the end of the paper concerning sensation and ‘aboutness’, which Pharoah called to our attention. Since I can’t copy it here, please compare that last paragraph with what Morris identifies as the mainstream of MP’s thinking.
A happy example, for me, of what Heidegger meant by saying that, ontologically, we are appropriated to be "the shepherds of being" ~~~
Kayak fisherman making unlikely fishing pupil - an orphaned pelican
Kayak fisherman making unlikely fishing pupil - an orphaned pelican
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Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
@Constance I found this interesting in a way that might relate to some of the things discussed here—in the sense of being present (and connected) but unconscious. Not sure though. BBC Radio 4 - One to One, David Schneider talks to palliative care consultant Kathryn Mannix
get just as peed off when people misstate what Chalmers says is the HP. There are about 8 published reformulations casesam.co.uk of Jaxksons knowledge argument and that irritates me too. Regurgitation is www.casesam.co.uk seldom savoury. I said the wood and fire thing was silly.
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ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM
Whittingham
Like many folks have suggested electrical waves are all around us and if A.I was real that's the way to send information to each other. Maybe Stars do communicate with each other in electrical patterns as Planets with movement of rotation?
EMBODIED TEMPORALIZATION AND THE MIND-BODY
PROBLEM
James Mensch, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague
"One of the most remarkable passages in Victor Klemperer’s memoire of living as a Jew in Nazi Germany concerns a pencil and paper that a guard gives him half-way through his week of imprisonment. Sentenced for violating the blackout regulations, he is plunged into despair. He feels surrounded by nothingness: “the nothingness around me because I am cut off from everything, the nothingness inside me because I think nothing, I feel nothing but emptiness.”
Receiving the pencil and paper, he recounts, “At that moment my life was just as much transformed as when the prison door slammed shut. Everything was lighter again, indeed had become almost light.” As he also relates: “On my pencil I climb back to earth out of the hell of the last four days.” The action of writing saved him “from the obsessive search for thoughts.” Writing, he “felt this relief again and again.”
How are we to understand this remarkable effect of seeing his thoughts expressed in writing, i.e., having them present such that he can return to them,correct them and add to them? Anyone who has written an extended letter, a paper, or a book knows how essential it is to confront one’s thoughts on paper or a computer screen. The experience is one of the silent processes of thought becoming present in a form that can be repeatedly made conscious. Moreover, reading what one has written affects the unconscious process and stimulates it to come forward with new thoughts, which, as conscious, affect in turn the unconscious process, provoking further thoughts. This experience runs counter to the view held by most cognitive scientists, who take our conscious representations as epiphenomenal.
For Frank Jackson, for example, such representations have as much causal reality as a rainbow. “They do nothing, they explain nothing.” They are simply “a useless by-product” of our evolutionary development. His very experience of writing his famous article, “Epiphenomenal Qualia,” undermines this view. Such an experience involves a constant shifting back and forth from the anonymous brain processes that result in thought and the conscious presence of such thought. Without the latter, particularly in thought’s presence as written down, no extended process of thinking would be possible. In what follows, I am going to explore what this need for conscious presence tells us about the mind’s relation to the brain. My focus will be on the embodied temporalization that results in such presence.
Husserl’s Account of Temporal Consciousness
David Chalmers expresses the general consensus of cognitive scientists when he writes that “the really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of ‘experience.’” It is the problem of the “subjective aspect” of our perceptions, for example, “the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field.” This“felt quality” refers to contents in their qualitative presence, contents that cognitive scientists term “qualia.” As felt, qualia are not just contents, but contents that we are aware of perceiving. The distinction, here, is that, for example, between a camera’s registering of light and its perception by us. Unlike the camera, we are aware of receiving the light. Such self-awareness distinguishes the conscious apprehension, say, of redness and redness as an objective quality, i.e., as something independent of consciousness. We not only bring this color to consciousness, but are aware of our seeing it. As a result, the quality is not just present, but felt to be so. The question is: how is this possible? What are the processes involved in this? . . . . ."
Embodied Temporalization and the Mind-Body Problem | James Mensch - Academia.edu
PROBLEM
James Mensch, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague
"One of the most remarkable passages in Victor Klemperer’s memoire of living as a Jew in Nazi Germany concerns a pencil and paper that a guard gives him half-way through his week of imprisonment. Sentenced for violating the blackout regulations, he is plunged into despair. He feels surrounded by nothingness: “the nothingness around me because I am cut off from everything, the nothingness inside me because I think nothing, I feel nothing but emptiness.”
Receiving the pencil and paper, he recounts, “At that moment my life was just as much transformed as when the prison door slammed shut. Everything was lighter again, indeed had become almost light.” As he also relates: “On my pencil I climb back to earth out of the hell of the last four days.” The action of writing saved him “from the obsessive search for thoughts.” Writing, he “felt this relief again and again.”
How are we to understand this remarkable effect of seeing his thoughts expressed in writing, i.e., having them present such that he can return to them,correct them and add to them? Anyone who has written an extended letter, a paper, or a book knows how essential it is to confront one’s thoughts on paper or a computer screen. The experience is one of the silent processes of thought becoming present in a form that can be repeatedly made conscious. Moreover, reading what one has written affects the unconscious process and stimulates it to come forward with new thoughts, which, as conscious, affect in turn the unconscious process, provoking further thoughts. This experience runs counter to the view held by most cognitive scientists, who take our conscious representations as epiphenomenal.
For Frank Jackson, for example, such representations have as much causal reality as a rainbow. “They do nothing, they explain nothing.” They are simply “a useless by-product” of our evolutionary development. His very experience of writing his famous article, “Epiphenomenal Qualia,” undermines this view. Such an experience involves a constant shifting back and forth from the anonymous brain processes that result in thought and the conscious presence of such thought. Without the latter, particularly in thought’s presence as written down, no extended process of thinking would be possible. In what follows, I am going to explore what this need for conscious presence tells us about the mind’s relation to the brain. My focus will be on the embodied temporalization that results in such presence.
Husserl’s Account of Temporal Consciousness
David Chalmers expresses the general consensus of cognitive scientists when he writes that “the really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of ‘experience.’” It is the problem of the “subjective aspect” of our perceptions, for example, “the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field.” This“felt quality” refers to contents in their qualitative presence, contents that cognitive scientists term “qualia.” As felt, qualia are not just contents, but contents that we are aware of perceiving. The distinction, here, is that, for example, between a camera’s registering of light and its perception by us. Unlike the camera, we are aware of receiving the light. Such self-awareness distinguishes the conscious apprehension, say, of redness and redness as an objective quality, i.e., as something independent of consciousness. We not only bring this color to consciousness, but are aware of our seeing it. As a result, the quality is not just present, but felt to be so. The question is: how is this possible? What are the processes involved in this? . . . . ."
Embodied Temporalization and the Mind-Body Problem | James Mensch - Academia.edu
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Perhaps this link between thalmocortical loops and computational neuroscience might be worthy of note:
"Computational neuroscientists are particularly interested in thalamocortical loops because they represent a structure that is disproportionally larger and more complex in humans than other mammals (when body size is taken into account), which may contribute to humans' special cognitive abilities. Evidence from one study offers partial support to this claim by suggesting that thalamic GABAergic local circuit neurons in mammalian brains relate more to processing ability compared to sensorimotor ability, as they reflect an increasing complexity of local information processing in the thalamus." Source: Wikipedia
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
A couple links to pass along that may or may not be of interest. First, one for @Pharoah:
Human Amygdala Represents the Complete Spectrum of Subjective Valence. - PubMed - NCBI
"Although the amygdala is a major locus for hedonic processing, how it encodes valence information is poorly understood. Given the hedonic potency of odor stimuli and the amygdala's anatomical proximity to the peripheral olfactory system, we combined high-resolution fMRI with pattern-based multivariate techniques to examine how valence information is encoded in the amygdala. Ten human subjects underwent fMRI scanning while smelling 9 odorants that systematically varied in perceived valence. Representational similarity analyses showed that amygdala codes the entire dimension of valence, ranging from pleasantness to unpleasantness. This unidimensional representation significantly correlated with self-reported valence ratings but not with intensity ratings. Furthermore, within-trial valence representations evolved over time, prioritizing earlier differentiation of unpleasant stimuli. Together, these findings underscore the idea that both spatial and temporal features uniquely encode pleasant and unpleasant odor valence in the amygdala. The availability of a unidimensional valence code in the amygdala, distributed in both space and time, would create greater flexibility in determining the pleasantness or unpleasantness of stimuli, providing a mechanism by which expectation, context, attention, and learning could influence affective boundaries for guiding behavior."
A very interesting Philosophy Bites podcast episode on Buddhism, philosophy, metaphysics, and "the self."
philosophy bites: Graham Priest on Buddhism and Philosophy
In the episode the talk about the Buddhist conception of the self and compare it to The Ship of Theseus. Very fascinating.
In the Ship metaphor, all the planks of the ship can be changed over time, but the form of the ship remains. (This is reminiscent of the quote I took from Thompson in Mind and Life.) However, the Buddhists add to the metaphor in a way much in line with Thompson: the Buddhists would say that not only is the substance of the ship (self) constantly changing, but the form is as well!
So it is with Life and individual organisms as well (and one might say all things, what-is included).
And here as a thought-provoking and wild Expanding Mind podcast with Timothy Morton and the wonderful Erik Davis discussing OOO, telekinesis, and metaphysics:
Uncanny Objects – 11.05.15
And finally, here is a PDF outlining research indicating that the brain processes language semantics (subject, object, verb) in the same way that a computer does, apparently supporting Fodor's Language of Thought hypothesis:
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/37/11732.full.pdf
"Human brains flexibly combine the meanings of words to compose structured thoughts. For example, by combining the meanings of “bite,” “dog,” and “man,” we can think about a dog biting a man, or a man biting a dog. Here, in two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we identify a region of left mid-superior temporal cortex (lmSTC) that flexibly encodes “who did what to whom” in visually presented sentences. We find that lmSTC represents the current values of ab- stract semantic variables (“Who did it?” and “To whom was it done?”) in distinct subregions. Experiment 1 first identifies a broad region of lmSTC whose activity patterns (i) facilitate decoding of structure- dependent sentence meaning (“Who did what to whom?”) and (ii) predict affect-related amygdala responses that depend on this information (e.g., “the baby kicked the grandfather” vs. “the grand- father kicked the baby”). Experiment 2 then identifies distinct, but neighboring, subregions of lmSTC whose activity patterns carry in- formation about the identity of the current “agent” (“Who did it?”) and the current “patient” (“To whom was it done?”). These neigh- boring subregions lie along the upper bank of the superior temporal sulcus and the lateral bank of the superior temporal gyrus, respec- tively. At a high level, these regions may function like topographi- cally defined data registers, encoding the fluctuating values of abstract semantic variables. This functional architecture, which in key respects resembles that of a classical computer, may play a crit- ical role in enabling humans to flexibly generate complex thoughts."
Human Amygdala Represents the Complete Spectrum of Subjective Valence. - PubMed - NCBI
"Although the amygdala is a major locus for hedonic processing, how it encodes valence information is poorly understood. Given the hedonic potency of odor stimuli and the amygdala's anatomical proximity to the peripheral olfactory system, we combined high-resolution fMRI with pattern-based multivariate techniques to examine how valence information is encoded in the amygdala. Ten human subjects underwent fMRI scanning while smelling 9 odorants that systematically varied in perceived valence. Representational similarity analyses showed that amygdala codes the entire dimension of valence, ranging from pleasantness to unpleasantness. This unidimensional representation significantly correlated with self-reported valence ratings but not with intensity ratings. Furthermore, within-trial valence representations evolved over time, prioritizing earlier differentiation of unpleasant stimuli. Together, these findings underscore the idea that both spatial and temporal features uniquely encode pleasant and unpleasant odor valence in the amygdala. The availability of a unidimensional valence code in the amygdala, distributed in both space and time, would create greater flexibility in determining the pleasantness or unpleasantness of stimuli, providing a mechanism by which expectation, context, attention, and learning could influence affective boundaries for guiding behavior."
A very interesting Philosophy Bites podcast episode on Buddhism, philosophy, metaphysics, and "the self."
philosophy bites: Graham Priest on Buddhism and Philosophy
In the episode the talk about the Buddhist conception of the self and compare it to The Ship of Theseus. Very fascinating.
In the Ship metaphor, all the planks of the ship can be changed over time, but the form of the ship remains. (This is reminiscent of the quote I took from Thompson in Mind and Life.) However, the Buddhists add to the metaphor in a way much in line with Thompson: the Buddhists would say that not only is the substance of the ship (self) constantly changing, but the form is as well!
So it is with Life and individual organisms as well (and one might say all things, what-is included).
And here as a thought-provoking and wild Expanding Mind podcast with Timothy Morton and the wonderful Erik Davis discussing OOO, telekinesis, and metaphysics:
Uncanny Objects – 11.05.15
And finally, here is a PDF outlining research indicating that the brain processes language semantics (subject, object, verb) in the same way that a computer does, apparently supporting Fodor's Language of Thought hypothesis:
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/37/11732.full.pdf
"Human brains flexibly combine the meanings of words to compose structured thoughts. For example, by combining the meanings of “bite,” “dog,” and “man,” we can think about a dog biting a man, or a man biting a dog. Here, in two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we identify a region of left mid-superior temporal cortex (lmSTC) that flexibly encodes “who did what to whom” in visually presented sentences. We find that lmSTC represents the current values of ab- stract semantic variables (“Who did it?” and “To whom was it done?”) in distinct subregions. Experiment 1 first identifies a broad region of lmSTC whose activity patterns (i) facilitate decoding of structure- dependent sentence meaning (“Who did what to whom?”) and (ii) predict affect-related amygdala responses that depend on this information (e.g., “the baby kicked the grandfather” vs. “the grand- father kicked the baby”). Experiment 2 then identifies distinct, but neighboring, subregions of lmSTC whose activity patterns carry in- formation about the identity of the current “agent” (“Who did it?”) and the current “patient” (“To whom was it done?”). These neigh- boring subregions lie along the upper bank of the superior temporal sulcus and the lateral bank of the superior temporal gyrus, respec- tively. At a high level, these regions may function like topographi- cally defined data registers, encoding the fluctuating values of abstract semantic variables. This functional architecture, which in key respects resembles that of a classical computer, may play a crit- ical role in enabling humans to flexibly generate complex thoughts."
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Haha, well I'm going to pass on explaining how I think it's connected to HCT, but I'll just say I think it's relates to your concept of qualitative relevancy and phenomenal consciousness.
Re second abstract and LOTH. The authors feel that the work supports LOTH and this from wiki seems right:
"In philosophy of mind, the language of thought hypothesis (LOTH) put forward by American philosopher Jerry Fodor describes thoughts as represented in a "language" (sometimes known as mentalese) that allows complex thoughts to be built up by combining simpler thoughts in various ways. In its most basic form, the theory states that thought follows the same rules as language: thought has syntax."
Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
The first abstract does sound very interesting... will have to read the whole article I think... your explanation on how you think it connects to HCT would be interesting too; the interpretation of HCT extends beyond how I happen to think about it!The second abstract: I have no problem with the science (I have read half the paper so far)... but the language that the abstract couches it in is problematic, imo.
"we identify a region of left mid-superior temporal cortex (lmSTC) that flexibly encodes “who did what to whom” in visually presented sentences"
If you have a certain part of the brain light up (on presentation of the appropriate stimulus), and you infer that this equals an encoding of "who did what to whom", then... yes... that is LOTH. But nothing in the science actually does demonstrate that assumption, namely that the area is representing sentence meaning. Similarly, all those kinds of comments in the abstract are couched in LOTH terms... but the science does not support it, as far as I can see. I see an interpretative bias.
wiki: LOTH describes "thoughts as represented in a "language" (sometimes known as mentalese) that allows complex thoughts to be built up by combining simpler thoughts in various ways. In its most basic form, the theory states that thought follows the same rules as language: thought has syntax."
What I understand of mentalese as an idea is that it is the foundation of thought, and therefore, that thought is structured in that mentalese language.
But I consider this idea to put the cart before the horse:
When an animal experiences phenomenal consciousness—whereby all aspects of its sensations are qualitatively relevant and are related through associative understandings to the world as perceived—its phenomenal understandings represent the world as facts of qualitative experience which follow certain reliable rules (sorry, crap sentence!). Then, if that animal develops proto-concepts about the rules pertaining to those facts as experienced, those proto-concepts will follow a logic that is subject to those very same kind of rules. I say, that language (language being the need to express those conceptual realisations) comes from those foundations. And from coming from those foundations, they come define the structure of language in a way that is consistent with those rules laid down in proto-concepts emerging from phenomenal consciousness. So that is how my cart and horse are the opposite to LOTH.
Similarly, it is through the analysis of meaning that we identify a syntax. The flaw is to assume from this logic, therefore, that syntax (as identified) generates meaning.
Incidentally, LOTH is deeply problematic if you are a musician. A musician thinks in a musicese (lol) language during performance and projects emotions through that musicese thinking... No!! I don't think so.
I think the problem with the LOTH theory is that it seems unable to account for how meaning evolved for and among prelinguistic humans. Has Fodor been asked that question and, if so, how did he answer it? In general it seems to me that 'the linguistic turn' in philosophy has misled a generation or two of philosophers who accept its presuppositions without evidence.
Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
@Soupie "I think the problem with the LOTH theory is that it seems unable to account for how meaning evolved for and among prelinguistic humans. Has Fodor been asked that question and, if so, how did he answer it?"
Yes you are right.
I have read Fodor admitting to this (I forget where unfortunately)... but he countered (in what I read) that the LOTH was never meant as an account for all mental content. He admits to LOTH being a partial account or a partway explanation.
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Thanks for that information. I'm doing some reading now about Fodor's 'language of thought' concept and its critics. Here is an extract from a review of Susan Schneider, The Language of Thought: A New Philosophical Direction (2011), at
The Language of Thought: A New Philosophical Direction // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame
"... But the Frege cases do not invite a worry about whether CTM and Fodor's semantic atomism are in "conflict" or "even compatible." The CTM is a theory that claims that mental processes are computations over representations; atomism, that the content of the primitive representations in the system is determined by a specific kind of co-variation relation between those representations and phenomena in the world. This is a perfectly coherent view, even if it fails for certain Frege cases: inadequacy, after all, is not internal contradiction. Nor does it exclude concepts from psychology, as Schneider appears at one point (p. 159) to suggest. What atomism rejects is a psychological account of concepts. This doesn't for a moment imply a rejection of a conceptual account of psychology. Fodor would be the first to agree that "thought is woven from concepts" (p. 159) -- he just doesn't think concepts are woven from thought!
Formal Syntax
Problem (2), about how to define an LOT symbol, is an interesting one, which Schneider correctly notes has not been seriously addressed by any of the LOTH's proponents. But although the problem does need to be addressed someday, this is unlikely to be any day soon. The present disregard of it surely has to do with the still very abstract level on which the LOT has been proposed. The main arguments for it are that it's needed to account for, e.g., the productivity, systematicity, casual efficacy, (ir)rationality, and hyper-intensionality of thought (see Rey 1997, pp. 228-32, 253-5 for summary discussion). But this is an existential quantification, not a specification, which at this point would be wildly premature. No one yet has anything like an adequate idea of what all the expressive and processing demands on an LOT might be: What does it need to explicitly represent, and what is represented only "implicitly"? How does an LOT represent, e.g., plurals, causation, properties, counterfactuals, propositional attitudes? Are the representations all digital, or are some analog? What about "images" and "non-conceptual" perceptual representations? And how, in any case, is any sort of "information" actually encoded in a computationally accessible way in -- neurons? mitochondria? networks? glial cells? Trying to sort out the identity of an LOT symbol at this point would seem like trying to decide on ink and font before a book is barely conceived -- and before we know even which inks and fonts are available."
What I see, once again, in Fodor's LOTH is the deductive shallowness of computational theories of consciousness in their attempt to fit consciousness into a machine-like format/structure, rather than beginning with a comprehensive inductive exploration of various manifestations of consciousness and thought from which to draw an understanding of the capacities of consciousness to derive understanding and meaning from experience of more than language. It's like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole that is too small to receive the diameter of the peg. The concept of language in Fodor might be less reductive than it is among other computationalists/information theorists, but it is not much less reductive. That's partially captured in this sentence highlighted in the above extracts from the review: "Fodor would be the first to agree that 'thought is woven from concepts' (p. 159) -- he just doesn't think concepts are woven from thought!"
What all these reductive theories of consciousness, language, and thought lack, fail to recognize and investigate, is mind in general and as a whole, which doubtless includes subconscious and embodied mind -- the whole complex of what living beings sense in the world they exist in. What they lack is acquaintance with what has been revealed by phenomenology. It's likely that Fodor and the others have never read Merleau-Ponty's work on consciousness and language, beginning with his first book The Structure of Behavior and continuing in Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language, much less the whole of his integrated phenomenologoical philosophy..
Language is developed out of consciousness but it cannot explain/account for consciousness itself, which is borne out of the interactions of subjective experiential presence in and with the natural and cultural worlds in which individual subjectivity and selfhood develops. Experience continually overflows the capacity of language to express it.
MP's theory of the relationship of consciousness to language developed in subtlety and insight over his entire philosophical career. The Google Books link below to the Foreword to Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language and other portions of the book sampled there can serve as an introduction to that which is missing in the background knowledge of computationalists, information theorists, narrowly educated neuroscientists, and analytic philosophers who accept the presuppositions of the above approaches.
Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language
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Re my statement above that "experience continually overflows the capacity of language to express it," this is the reason why I've frequently inserted poems and passage of poems by Wallace Stevens in the two years we've carried on this thread's discussions. Stevens understood the limitations of systematic language as captured in synchronic moments (snapshots) of its evolution in historically evolving cultures, and he expressed in unique ways the overflow of experience beyond that which historically situated languages in any culture can express. In one line of a major poem, Stevens wrote that what we need to grasp is "not the symbol, but that for which the symbol stands," which is ever a temporally situated effort to understand the ontological source of 'meaning' in the existentially experienced world we live in..
Here is a very good explanation of what I'm trying to convey:
"[See Phenomenology of Perception, Pt I, 6; also Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language; and Signs.] Following from his rejection of dualism Merleau-Ponty argues that thought is inseparable from language. He denies that we can have concepts 'in the mind' before they are expressed or articulated linguistically. New concepts are worked out in or through new expressions which he calls collectively 'speaking word'; and he regards this process as the creative manifestation of the body-subject. Such expressions in due course add to the corpus of social and public language — the 'spoken word'. However, just as he allows for the conferring of meaning at a 'pre-conscious' level so he attributes to the body a pre-linguistic understanding, a 'praktognosia' of its world — though this is an aspect of and inseparable from the body's behaviour [PP, Pt. I, 3] [a]. Thought is to the body's subjectivity as language is to its 'objective' corporality, the two dimensions constituting one reality. He also recognises that his concept of the body-subject is difficult to articulate in so far as our language has built into it a bias towards dualism. We must therefore struggle to create a new language in order to express this central concept . He later [CAL] draws on the structuralist view that the meaning and usage of language has to be grasped synchronically by reference to the relationship between signs and not diachronically by reference to the history of linguistic development; and he sees in this evidence or support for his own claim that the body-subject is involved in a lived relation with the world, because language here and now is, as it were, the living present in speech. Merleau-Ponty's emphasis is thus on parole, that is the 'signified' — meaning which is 'enacted', as opposed to 'langue' which refers to the total structure of 'signs' [c] — the meanings and words which parole, as a set of individual speech-acts (be they English, Chinese, or any other language), instantiates.
It is through language and its intersubjectivity that the intentionality of the body-subject makes sense of the world. And he makes it clear that language is to be understood in a wide sense as including all 'signs', employed not only in literature but also in art, science, indeed in the cultural dimension as a whole. Indeed the significance of a created work lies in this intersubjectivity — in the reader's or viewer's 're-creation' of it as well as in the work itself as originally created by the writer or artist. Moreover, in an era when science is increasingly alienating man from the real, language and the arts in particular are particularly suited to be the means for this revelation. Through the lived experience in which language is articulated — in our actions, art, literature, and so on (that is, in 'beings' as signifiers) — it opens up to the Being of all things [see The Visible and the Invisible].Contemplated against the 'background of silence', language then comes to be seen as a 'witness to Being' [Signs]"
Philosophical Connections: Merleau-Ponty
.
"[See Phenomenology of Perception, Pt I, 6; also Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language; and Signs.] Following from his rejection of dualism Merleau-Ponty argues that thought is inseparable from language. He denies that we can have concepts 'in the mind' before they are expressed or articulated linguistically. New concepts are worked out in or through new expressions which he calls collectively 'speaking word'; and he regards this process as the creative manifestation of the body-subject. Such expressions in due course add to the corpus of social and public language — the 'spoken word'. However, just as he allows for the conferring of meaning at a 'pre-conscious' level so he attributes to the body a pre-linguistic understanding, a 'praktognosia' of its world — though this is an aspect of and inseparable from the body's behaviour [PP, Pt. I, 3] [a]. Thought is to the body's subjectivity as language is to its 'objective' corporality, the two dimensions constituting one reality. He also recognises that his concept of the body-subject is difficult to articulate in so far as our language has built into it a bias towards dualism. We must therefore struggle to create a new language in order to express this central concept . He later [CAL] draws on the structuralist view that the meaning and usage of language has to be grasped synchronically by reference to the relationship between signs and not diachronically by reference to the history of linguistic development; and he sees in this evidence or support for his own claim that the body-subject is involved in a lived relation with the world, because language here and now is, as it were, the living present in speech. Merleau-Ponty's emphasis is thus on parole, that is the 'signified' — meaning which is 'enacted', as opposed to 'langue' which refers to the total structure of 'signs' [c] — the meanings and words which parole, as a set of individual speech-acts (be they English, Chinese, or any other language), instantiates.
It is through language and its intersubjectivity that the intentionality of the body-subject makes sense of the world. And he makes it clear that language is to be understood in a wide sense as including all 'signs', employed not only in literature but also in art, science, indeed in the cultural dimension as a whole. Indeed the significance of a created work lies in this intersubjectivity — in the reader's or viewer's 're-creation' of it as well as in the work itself as originally created by the writer or artist. Moreover, in an era when science is increasingly alienating man from the real, language and the arts in particular are particularly suited to be the means for this revelation. Through the lived experience in which language is articulated — in our actions, art, literature, and so on (that is, in 'beings' as signifiers) — it opens up to the Being of all things [see The Visible and the Invisible].Contemplated against the 'background of silence', language then comes to be seen as a 'witness to Being' [Signs]"
Philosophical Connections: Merleau-Ponty
.
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Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Re LOTH
I believe it's a model for conceptual thinking, not phenomenal consciousness. I agree that the former builds off the latter.
Speaking of... Another interesting post from the Philosophy of Brains blog:
Phenomenal Expectations and the Developmental Origins of Knowledge of Objects | The Brains Blog
I believe it's a model for conceptual thinking, not phenomenal consciousness. I agree that the former builds off the latter.
Speaking of... Another interesting post from the Philosophy of Brains blog:
Phenomenal Expectations and the Developmental Origins of Knowledge of Objects | The Brains Blog
We looked briefly at constructivism in Part 5. Here is an overview of this approach, from the journal Constructivist Foundations.
"The Common Denominator of Constructivist Approaches
Any one-dimensional answer to the question “What is constructivism?” does not only contradict constructivist principles, it is above all counterproductive for scientific and philosophical endeavors. It would be difficult if not impossible to lump together the many independent disciplinary roots and proponents of constructivism. However, it is possible and desirable to distill their common denominator. From what has been said so far in this editorial but without going into further details (and thereby violating the idea of a denominator being wide enough to cover various paradigms) I present the “constructivist program.” It encompasses the following ten aspects.
1. Constructivist approaches question the Cartesian separation between objective world and subjective experience
As argued by Josef Mitterer (2001), such dualistic approaches, being the prevailing scientific orientation, are based on the distinction between description and object, and their argumentation is directed towards the object of thought. His thesis says: The dualistic method of searching for truth is but an argumentative technique that can turn any arbitrary opinion either true or false. Therefore the goal of dualistic philosophies, i.e., philosophies based on the subject–object dichotomy, is to convince a public audience (readers, listeners, discussion partners) of the truth. An example to surmount the separation is the concept of “co-enaction” (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 150) according to which “...knower and known, mind and world, stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or dependent coorigination.”
2. Constructivist approaches demand the inclusion of the observer in (scientific) explanations
This is a consequence of the previous point. Foerster (quoted from Glasersfeld 1995) summarizes the crucial point in a single statement, “Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.” Maturana (1978, p. 3) made it a dictum: “Everything said is said by an observer to another observer that could be him- or herself.”
3. Representationalism is rejected
Questioning Wittgenstein’s correspondence theory of representation (“in order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality”) induced Glasersfeld to formulate the radical constructivist paradigm. In the constructivist perspective knowledge is the result of an active construction process rather than of a more or less passive representational mapping from the environment of an objective world onto subjective cognitive structures. Therefore, knowledge is a system-related cognitive process rather than a representation (Peschl & Riegler 1999).
4. It is futile to claim that knowledge approaches reality. Instead, reality is brought forth by the subject
As Glasersfeld (1991, p.16) put it, “those who merely speak of the construction of knowledge, but do not explicitly give up the notion that our conceptual constructions can or should in some way represent an independent, ‘objective’ reality, are still caught up in the traditional theory of knowledge.”
5. Constructivist approaches entertain an agnostic relationship with reality
Reality is considered beyond our cognitive horizon. Any reference to it should be refrained from. This position is not necessarily limited to skeptical philosophies. Positivist Rudolf Carnap expressed the necessity of this aspect in his 1935 book saying that “we reject the thesis of the Reality of the physical world; but we do not reject it as false, but as having no sense, and its Idealistic anti-thesis is subject to exactly the same rejection. We neither assert nor deny these theses, we reject the whole question.”
6. The focus of research moves from the world that consists of matter to the world that consists of what matters
Since the cognitive apparatus brings forth the world out of experiences, our understanding of what we are used to refer to as “reality” does not root in the discovery of absolute mind-independent structures but rather in the operations by which we assemble our experiential world” (Glasersfeld 1984). Or in the words of Foerster, instead of being concerned with “observed systems” the focus of attention shifts to “observing systems.”
7. Constructivist approaches focus on self-referential and organizationally closed systems
Such systems strive for control over their inputs rather than their outputs. Cognitive system (mind) is operationally closed. It interacts necessarily only with its own states (Maturana & Varela 1979). The nervous system is “a closed network of interacting neurons such that any change in the state of relative activity of a collection of neurons leads to a change in the state of relative activity of other or the same collection of neurons” (Winograd & Flores 1986, p. 42). This is a consequence of the neurophysiological principle of undifferentiated encoding: “The response of a nerve cell does not encode the physical nature of the agents that caused its response.” (Foerster 1973/2003, p. 293). Humberto Maturana (1978) suggests that we can compare the situation of the mind with a pilot using instruments to fly the plane. All he does is “manipulate the instruments of the plane according to a certain path of change in their readings” (p. 42). In other words, the pilot doesn’t even need to look “outside.” The enactive cognitive science paradigm expresses clearly: “...autonomous systems stand in sharp contrast to systems whose coupling with the environment is specified through input/output relations. ...the meaning of this or that interaction for a living system is not prescribed from outside but is the result of the organization and history of the system itself.” (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 157).
8. Constructivist approaches favor a process-oriented approach rather than a substance-based perspective
For example, following Maturana living systems are defined by processes whereby they constitute and maintain their own organization. Their structure refers to the “actual relations which hold between the components which integrate a concrete machine in a given space” (Maturana & Varela 1979) while their organization defines the “dynamics of interactions and transformations” a system may undergo. Material aspects are therefore secondary.
9. Constructivist approaches emphasize the “individual as personal scientist” approach
as their starting point is the cognitive capacity of the experiencing subject. Sociality is defined as accommodating within the framework of social interaction. While social interaction is not considered a new quality in contrast to interacting with non-living entities, its complexity is acknowledged. However, society is not a priori given, not the “social precedes the personal” (Gergen 1997). Rather, “society” must be conceptually analyzed. Constructivism is also rather pragmatic about “common knowledge” such as texts. They “contain neither meaning nor knowledge – they are a scaffolding on which readers can build their interpretation” (Glasersfeld 1992, p. 175).
10. Constructivism asks for an open and more flexible approach to science
in order to generate the plasticity that is needed to cope with the scientific frontier. Also today’s knowledge-based society must be assessed through its ability and willingness to continuously revise knowledge. Krohn (1997) refers to it as “the society of self-experimentation.” Luhmann (1994) defines knowledge as schemata that are regarded as true but ready to be changed. Constructivism must be considered as a way to forgo the dogmatism that prevents science from becoming more fruitful and productive than today. This list is deliberately painted with a big brush. Rather than limit future developments right from the onset, the list wants to give the necessary latitude to future authors in Constructivist Foundations to further extend the constructivist program. This is the constructivist challenge, and the journal will be one of its main champions.
References
Carnap, R. (1935) Philosophy and logical syntax. Kegan Paul: London.
Foerster, H. von (1973/2003) On constructing a reality. In: F. E. Preiser (ed.) Environmental design research, Vol. 2. Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross: Stroudberg, pp. 35–46. Reprinted in: Foerster, H. von (2003) Understanding understanding. Springer-Verlag: New York, pp. 211–228.
Gergen, K. J. (1997) Social theory in context: Relational humanism. In: Greenwood, J. (ed.) The mark of the social. Rowman and Littlefield: New York.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1984) An introduction to radical constructivism. In: Watzlawick, P. (ed.) The invented reality: How do we know? W. W. Norton: New York, pp. 17–40.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1991) Knowing without metaphysics: Aspects of the radical constructivist position. In: Steier, F. (ed.) Research and reflexivity. Sage Publications: London, pp. 12–29.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1992) Questions and answers about radical constructivism. In: Pearsall, M. K. (ed.) Scope, sequence, and coordination of secondary school science, Vol. II: Relevant research. The National Science Teachers Association: Washington DC, pp. 169–182.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1995) Radical constructivism. A way of knowing and learning. The Falmer Press: London.
Krohn, W. (1997) Rekursive Lernprozesse: Experimentelle Praktiken in der Gesellschaft. Das Beispiel der Abfallwirtschaft. In: Werner Rammert, W. & Bechmann, G. (eds.) Technik und Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 9: Innovation – Prozesse, Produkte, Politik. Campus: Frankfurt, pp. S. 65–89.
Luhmann, N. (1994) Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft (2nd edition). [The science of society]. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt.
Maturana, H. R. (1978) Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In: Miller, G. A. & Lenneberg, E. (eds.) Psychology and biology of language and thought: Essays in honor of Eric Lenneberg. Academic Press: New York, pp. 27–63.
Maturana, H. & Varela, F. (1979) Autopoiesis and cognition. Reidel: Boston.
Mitterer, J. (2001) Die Flucht aus der Beliebigkeit. Fischer: Frankfurt.
Peschl, M. & Riegler, A. (1999) Does representation need reality? In: Riegler, A., Peschl, M. & Stein, A. v. (eds.) (1999) Understanding representation in the cognitive sciences. Plenum Press: New York, pp. 9–17.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E. & Rosch, E. (1991) The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Winograd, T. & Flores, F. (1986) Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design. Ablex: Norwood, NJ. Source Riegler, A. (2005) Editorial.
[The Constructivist Challenge. Constructivist. Foundations 1(1): 1–8.]
http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/guidelines/denominator.pdF
The journal Constructivist Foundations is available to read online at:
Constructivist Foundations
"The Common Denominator of Constructivist Approaches
Any one-dimensional answer to the question “What is constructivism?” does not only contradict constructivist principles, it is above all counterproductive for scientific and philosophical endeavors. It would be difficult if not impossible to lump together the many independent disciplinary roots and proponents of constructivism. However, it is possible and desirable to distill their common denominator. From what has been said so far in this editorial but without going into further details (and thereby violating the idea of a denominator being wide enough to cover various paradigms) I present the “constructivist program.” It encompasses the following ten aspects.
1. Constructivist approaches question the Cartesian separation between objective world and subjective experience
As argued by Josef Mitterer (2001), such dualistic approaches, being the prevailing scientific orientation, are based on the distinction between description and object, and their argumentation is directed towards the object of thought. His thesis says: The dualistic method of searching for truth is but an argumentative technique that can turn any arbitrary opinion either true or false. Therefore the goal of dualistic philosophies, i.e., philosophies based on the subject–object dichotomy, is to convince a public audience (readers, listeners, discussion partners) of the truth. An example to surmount the separation is the concept of “co-enaction” (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 150) according to which “...knower and known, mind and world, stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or dependent coorigination.”
2. Constructivist approaches demand the inclusion of the observer in (scientific) explanations
This is a consequence of the previous point. Foerster (quoted from Glasersfeld 1995) summarizes the crucial point in a single statement, “Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.” Maturana (1978, p. 3) made it a dictum: “Everything said is said by an observer to another observer that could be him- or herself.”
3. Representationalism is rejected
Questioning Wittgenstein’s correspondence theory of representation (“in order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality”) induced Glasersfeld to formulate the radical constructivist paradigm. In the constructivist perspective knowledge is the result of an active construction process rather than of a more or less passive representational mapping from the environment of an objective world onto subjective cognitive structures. Therefore, knowledge is a system-related cognitive process rather than a representation (Peschl & Riegler 1999).
4. It is futile to claim that knowledge approaches reality. Instead, reality is brought forth by the subject
As Glasersfeld (1991, p.16) put it, “those who merely speak of the construction of knowledge, but do not explicitly give up the notion that our conceptual constructions can or should in some way represent an independent, ‘objective’ reality, are still caught up in the traditional theory of knowledge.”
5. Constructivist approaches entertain an agnostic relationship with reality
Reality is considered beyond our cognitive horizon. Any reference to it should be refrained from. This position is not necessarily limited to skeptical philosophies. Positivist Rudolf Carnap expressed the necessity of this aspect in his 1935 book saying that “we reject the thesis of the Reality of the physical world; but we do not reject it as false, but as having no sense, and its Idealistic anti-thesis is subject to exactly the same rejection. We neither assert nor deny these theses, we reject the whole question.”
6. The focus of research moves from the world that consists of matter to the world that consists of what matters
Since the cognitive apparatus brings forth the world out of experiences, our understanding of what we are used to refer to as “reality” does not root in the discovery of absolute mind-independent structures but rather in the operations by which we assemble our experiential world” (Glasersfeld 1984). Or in the words of Foerster, instead of being concerned with “observed systems” the focus of attention shifts to “observing systems.”
7. Constructivist approaches focus on self-referential and organizationally closed systems
Such systems strive for control over their inputs rather than their outputs. Cognitive system (mind) is operationally closed. It interacts necessarily only with its own states (Maturana & Varela 1979). The nervous system is “a closed network of interacting neurons such that any change in the state of relative activity of a collection of neurons leads to a change in the state of relative activity of other or the same collection of neurons” (Winograd & Flores 1986, p. 42). This is a consequence of the neurophysiological principle of undifferentiated encoding: “The response of a nerve cell does not encode the physical nature of the agents that caused its response.” (Foerster 1973/2003, p. 293). Humberto Maturana (1978) suggests that we can compare the situation of the mind with a pilot using instruments to fly the plane. All he does is “manipulate the instruments of the plane according to a certain path of change in their readings” (p. 42). In other words, the pilot doesn’t even need to look “outside.” The enactive cognitive science paradigm expresses clearly: “...autonomous systems stand in sharp contrast to systems whose coupling with the environment is specified through input/output relations. ...the meaning of this or that interaction for a living system is not prescribed from outside but is the result of the organization and history of the system itself.” (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 157).
8. Constructivist approaches favor a process-oriented approach rather than a substance-based perspective
For example, following Maturana living systems are defined by processes whereby they constitute and maintain their own organization. Their structure refers to the “actual relations which hold between the components which integrate a concrete machine in a given space” (Maturana & Varela 1979) while their organization defines the “dynamics of interactions and transformations” a system may undergo. Material aspects are therefore secondary.
9. Constructivist approaches emphasize the “individual as personal scientist” approach
as their starting point is the cognitive capacity of the experiencing subject. Sociality is defined as accommodating within the framework of social interaction. While social interaction is not considered a new quality in contrast to interacting with non-living entities, its complexity is acknowledged. However, society is not a priori given, not the “social precedes the personal” (Gergen 1997). Rather, “society” must be conceptually analyzed. Constructivism is also rather pragmatic about “common knowledge” such as texts. They “contain neither meaning nor knowledge – they are a scaffolding on which readers can build their interpretation” (Glasersfeld 1992, p. 175).
10. Constructivism asks for an open and more flexible approach to science
in order to generate the plasticity that is needed to cope with the scientific frontier. Also today’s knowledge-based society must be assessed through its ability and willingness to continuously revise knowledge. Krohn (1997) refers to it as “the society of self-experimentation.” Luhmann (1994) defines knowledge as schemata that are regarded as true but ready to be changed. Constructivism must be considered as a way to forgo the dogmatism that prevents science from becoming more fruitful and productive than today. This list is deliberately painted with a big brush. Rather than limit future developments right from the onset, the list wants to give the necessary latitude to future authors in Constructivist Foundations to further extend the constructivist program. This is the constructivist challenge, and the journal will be one of its main champions.
References
Carnap, R. (1935) Philosophy and logical syntax. Kegan Paul: London.
Foerster, H. von (1973/2003) On constructing a reality. In: F. E. Preiser (ed.) Environmental design research, Vol. 2. Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross: Stroudberg, pp. 35–46. Reprinted in: Foerster, H. von (2003) Understanding understanding. Springer-Verlag: New York, pp. 211–228.
Gergen, K. J. (1997) Social theory in context: Relational humanism. In: Greenwood, J. (ed.) The mark of the social. Rowman and Littlefield: New York.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1984) An introduction to radical constructivism. In: Watzlawick, P. (ed.) The invented reality: How do we know? W. W. Norton: New York, pp. 17–40.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1991) Knowing without metaphysics: Aspects of the radical constructivist position. In: Steier, F. (ed.) Research and reflexivity. Sage Publications: London, pp. 12–29.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1992) Questions and answers about radical constructivism. In: Pearsall, M. K. (ed.) Scope, sequence, and coordination of secondary school science, Vol. II: Relevant research. The National Science Teachers Association: Washington DC, pp. 169–182.
Glasersfeld, E. von (1995) Radical constructivism. A way of knowing and learning. The Falmer Press: London.
Krohn, W. (1997) Rekursive Lernprozesse: Experimentelle Praktiken in der Gesellschaft. Das Beispiel der Abfallwirtschaft. In: Werner Rammert, W. & Bechmann, G. (eds.) Technik und Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 9: Innovation – Prozesse, Produkte, Politik. Campus: Frankfurt, pp. S. 65–89.
Luhmann, N. (1994) Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft (2nd edition). [The science of society]. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt.
Maturana, H. R. (1978) Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In: Miller, G. A. & Lenneberg, E. (eds.) Psychology and biology of language and thought: Essays in honor of Eric Lenneberg. Academic Press: New York, pp. 27–63.
Maturana, H. & Varela, F. (1979) Autopoiesis and cognition. Reidel: Boston.
Mitterer, J. (2001) Die Flucht aus der Beliebigkeit. Fischer: Frankfurt.
Peschl, M. & Riegler, A. (1999) Does representation need reality? In: Riegler, A., Peschl, M. & Stein, A. v. (eds.) (1999) Understanding representation in the cognitive sciences. Plenum Press: New York, pp. 9–17.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E. & Rosch, E. (1991) The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Winograd, T. & Flores, F. (1986) Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design. Ablex: Norwood, NJ. Source Riegler, A. (2005) Editorial.
[The Constructivist Challenge. Constructivist. Foundations 1(1): 1–8.]
http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/guidelines/denominator.pdF
The journal Constructivist Foundations is available to read online at:
Constructivist Foundations
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