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Systemic Cognition: Human Artifice in Life and Language

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Book cover Cognition Beyond the Brain

Abstract

Rather than rely on functionalist or enactivist principles, Cognition Beyond the Brain traces thinking to human artifice. In pursuing this approach, we gradually developed what can be deemed a third position in cognitive science. This is because, like talking, doing things with artefacts draws on both biological and cultural principles. On this systemic view, skills embody beliefs, roles and social practices. Since people rely on interactivity or sense-saturated coordination, action also re-enacts cultural history. Bidirectional dynamics connect embodiment to non-local regularities. Thinking thus emerges in a temporal trajectory of action that takes place within a space populated by people and objects. Utterances, thoughts and deeds all draw on physical, biological and cultural constraints. Even plans are shaped as first-order activity is shaped by second-order structures. Intentions and learning arise as dynamics in one time-scale are co-regulated by dynamics in other scales. For example, in ontogenesis, interactivity prompts a child to strategic use of second-order language. By linking cultural scales to inter-bodily dynamics, circumstances are coloured by resources that serve in using simulation to manage thought, feeling and action. The systemic nature of cognition connects now, the adjacent possible, implications for others and, potentially, social and environmental change.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In Douglas Adams’s (1979) ‘The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’ a super-computer calculated the answer to ‘What is the meaning of the life, the universe and everything?’ to be ‘42’. In making this link, we treat a digital product as separable from some kind of process.

  2. 2.

    We diverge from Järvilehto slightly in that his focus is on constituents of the living system. We, by contrast, are equally concerned with the role played by historical and nonliving parts.

  3. 3.

    Following Sharov (2010), functional information can be traced to “a set of signs that encode the functions of the organism” and, in addition, of “signs that control the functions” (1058). Functional information thus includes genome, epigenome, internal messengers (e.g., mRNA, miRNA, transcription factors, kinases, and phosphatases), external messengers (e.g., pheromones), and natural signs (e.g., temperature and salinity of water). Moreover, the notion of functional information also applies to artificial signs (and what agents treat as signs). This view is narrower than Pattee’s characterisation of living systems in relation to the self-organization of parameters or symbols that measure and control their dynamics. In evolution, symbols often lose their functions; however, signs are events that an agent uses/interprets in functional ways.

  4. 4.

    Stuart (2010) invokes enkinaesthesia or felt bidirectional coupling between organism and environment. Since it applies to most (perhaps all) living species, it leaves out non-local phenomena such as language and culture.

  5. 5.

    While this artificial kind of interactivity pertains to an individual’s thinking—not processes between people—it shows how a machine can sponsor human actions.

  6. 6.

    “Nevertheless, there remains a fundamental asymmetry in my view. I want to call a system cognitive because it produces cognitive outputs, but refuse to call it knowledgeable because it produces knowledge. For me, the latter makes as little sense as calling a system edible because it was designed to produce edibles” (Giere 2011: 397).

  7. 7.

    For example the authors differ on the status of brain-side representations: while one of us sees no reason to challenge these, the other thinks that appeal to neural representations is mistaken. However, on our view of cognition, this matters little. Even brain-side, it may be a matter of the level of description.

  8. 8.

    Cowley (2012) takes a more radical view: given mimesis, he argues that spoken language—like writing and computers—draws on the co-evolution of h. sapiens and the extended ecology (see also, Donald 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB, UK

    Stephen J. Cowley

  2. Department of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Sdr. Stationsvej 28, 4200, Slagelse, Denmark

    Stephen J. Cowley

  3. Department of Psychology, Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, KT1 2EE, UK

    Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau

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  1. Stephen J. Cowley
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  2. Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau
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Correspondence to Stephen J. Cowley .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, United Kingdom

    Stephen J. Cowley

  2. Department of Psychology, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, KT1 2EE, Surrey, United Kingdom

    Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau

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Cowley, S.J., Vallée-Tourangeau, F. (2013). Systemic Cognition: Human Artifice in Life and Language. In: Cowley, S., Vallée-Tourangeau, F. (eds) Cognition Beyond the Brain. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5125-8_14

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