Traditional cognitive science has been largely organized around the idea of the brain as a computing device and cognitive systems as functionally organized systems of data-processing. There is an emerging alternative to this paradigm that is described as "4E Cognition," where the four "E's" refer to cognition that is embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended. For example, …
The insights of biography
I have always found biographies a particularly interesting source of learning and stimulation. A recent example is a biography and celebration of Muthuvel Kalaignar Karunanidhi published in a recent issue of the Indian semi-weekly Frontline. Karunanidhi was an enormously important social and political leader in India for over sixty years in the Dravidian movement in …
Consensus and mutual understanding
Groups make decisions through processes of discussion aimed at framing a given problem, outlining the group's objectives, and arriving at a plan for how to achieve the objectives in an intelligent way. This is true at multiple levels, from neighborhood block associations to corporate executive teams to the President's cabinet meetings. However, collective decision-making through …
More on cephalopod minds
When I first posted on cephalopod intelligence a year or so ago, I assumed it would be a one-off diversion into the deep blue sea (link). But now I've read the fascinating recent book by Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, and it is interesting enough to …
Wendt’s strong claims about quantum consciousness
Alex Wendt takes a provocative step in Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology by proposing that quantum mechanics plays a role in all levels of the human and social world (as well as all life). And he doesn't mean in the trivial sense that all of nature is constituted by quantum-mechanical micro-realities …
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Quantum biology?
I have discussed several times an emerging literature on "quantum consciousness", focusing on Alex Wendt's provocative book Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology. Is it possible in theory for cognitive processes, or neuroanatomical functioning, to be affected by events at the quantum level? Are there known quantum effects within biological systems? …
Quantum cognition?
Alexander Wendt proposes a radical idea in his Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology: that we should reconsider fundamentals of the social sciences to reflect emerging research on "quantum consciousness" and cognition. He describes his aim in these terms: In this book I explore the possibility that this [classical physics] foundational …
Von Neumann on the brain
image: representation of a mammalian brain neural network After World War II John von Neumann became interested in the central nervous system as a computing organ. Ironically, more was probably known about neuroanatomy than about advanced digital computing in the 1940s; that situation has reversed, of course. Now we know a great deal about calculating, …
Social relations across class lines
youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTNH--oGi4 People relate to each other on the basis of a set of moral and cognitive frameworks -- ideas about the social world and how others are expected to behave -- and on the basis of fairly specific scripts that prescribe their own behavior in given stylized circumstances. It is evident that there are …
Improving skilled performance
What can ordinary experience tell us about how skilled practitioners can be brought to a high level of competence and performance? Let's say we are interested in teaching a child to play the violin at an advanced level, beginning at the novice level. The outcome we want to influence is the child's ability to play …
Understanding Society 