Ecological-enactive scientific cognition: modeling and material engagement

Rolla, Giovanni; Novaes, Felipe Carvalho

doi:10.1007/s11097-020-09713-y

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…It emphasizes how humans use their skills to exploit a diversity of available and relevant affordances to reach an "optimal grip" in any given situation. This concurs with an enactive account of cognition and agency, in which different degrees of cognitive abilities emerge through interaction between an embodied organism and its environment (Gallagher, 2017;Rolla and Novaes, 2022).…”

Section: Affords-φ (Environmental Feature Ability Of An Organism)supporting

confidence: 79%

“…Bruineberg and Rietveld, 2014) but still reflects the process of building a relevant model of reality within a social domain like science embedded in a larger form of life. The overall challenge for an optimal grip is to be selectively open to the relevant affordances (Bruineberg and Rietveld, 2014), including those that may provide an improved understanding of a given phenomenon (Rolla and Novaes, 2022) and may lead to improved search strategies.…”

Section: Human Setimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It was pointed out that one problem with this approach is that it is unclear how much extraterrestrial and human science may overlap (Rescher, 1985). What we can say, however, is that scientific models used by humans and eventually employed as the basis of communication tend to be attuned to the human condition and their ability to engage with the material environment (Rolla and Novaes, 2022).…”

Section: Search For Extraterrestrial Forms Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

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Affordances in Outer Space: Forms of Life, Material Engagement, and Meaning within Space Exploration and SETI

Döbler¹,

Carbon²

2023

Preprint

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Exploration of outer space is a mesmerizing and thought-provoking endeavor. The fascination about what may be out there only matches by asking who might be out there. Exopsychology is concerned about how humans think about extraterrestrials, but also how extraterrestrials may think. It strives to find generalizable psychological theories to enrich the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Here, we apply the psychological theory of affordance (PTA) and specify the role of the relation between brain, body, environment, and material engagement in the context of SETI. Producing technosignatures requires that a species skillfully realizes the relevant possibilities for action, which the Umwelt offers in all its socio-material richness. These so-called are not fixed but relational to individual and collective available abilities and customs. A successful first contact requires a mutual attunement to species-typical diachronic backdrops, which constitute meaning. One possibility for a meaningful message form and content is the reference to the material environment and its respective engagement. Meaningfulness of affordances is conserved in a form of life and transmitted via social interaction. Considering the affordances within SETI fosters an understanding of how the thinking and behavior of life forms in the Universe emerge in relation to their material environment.

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Section: Affords-φ (Environmental Feature Ability Of An Organism)supporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Human Setimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Search For Extraterrestrial Forms Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

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Affordances in Outer Space: Forms of Life, Material Engagement, and Meaning within Space Exploration and SETI

Döbler¹,

Carbon²

2023

Preprint

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“…As the recent literature suggests, many of us are interested in and working on developing accounts that can be properly described as reflexive even in the absence of the term. Consider, for example, recent work on model-based research from a broadly enactive-embodied perspective (Rolla & Novaes, 2020), work on neuroscientific practice through the lens of Gibsonian ecological psychology ( van Dijk & Myin, 2019), and work on art and design practices as providing not only content but also the means for inquiry in the philosophy of embodied cognition (see Rietveld, 2019and responses by Ingold, 2020, Feiten et al, 2021. For authors like these, the label "strong program" I am proposing might seem to be merely "a new name for an old way of thinking," to paraphrase James (1907).…”

Section: Conclusion: a Strong Program Beyond The Analogymentioning

confidence: 99%

The strong program in embodied cognitive science

Oliveira

2022

Phenom Cogn Sci

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A popular trend in the sciences of the mind is to understand cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, ecological, and so on. While some of the work under the label of “embodied cognition” takes for granted key commitments of traditional cognitive science, other projects coincide in treating embodiment as the starting point for an entirely different way of investigating all of cognition. Focusing on the latter, this paper discusses how embodied cognitive science can be made more reflexive and more sensitive to the implications that our views of cognition have for how we understand scientific practice, including our own theorizing about cognition. Inspired by the “strong programme” in the sociology of scientific knowledge, I explore the prospect of an analogously “strong” program in embodied cognitive science. I first draw from Dewey’s transactional notion of “situation” to identify a broad sense in which embodied cognitive science takes cognition, as an embodied phenomenon, to be situated. I then sketch a perspective I call situated reflexivity, which extends the Deweyan analysis to understand scientific practice in the same terms, and thereby illustrates what research in line with a strong program in embodied cognitive science can look like. This move, I propose, has the potential of setting up a new inquiry situation that makes more salient the embodiment of scientific practice and that, through this, can help organize our own embodied cognitive activities as we try to make sense of scientific work, including our own.

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“…In Fulbright's (2020) proposed 'expertise level', consisting of a range of skills, AI is not assumed to be capable of, for example, understanding or teaching. Furthermore, AI systems are not embodied, and it is consequently worth noting that while, for example, the cognitive paradigm of ecological-enactivism is important for explaining humans' purposive engagement with their environment (Rolla & Novaes, 2020), it does not necessarily apply to AI systems, which could perhaps be more appropriately described by cognitive theories based on traditional models of information processing, control, storage, and retrieval (Carvalho & Rolla, 2020). However, I will show that the system of scaffolding functions based on Vygotsky's theory might still enable 'dumb' AI to function as a form of tutor.…”

Section: Key Concepts: Ai and Machine Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaffolding Human Champions: AI as a More Competent Other

Sætra

2022

Hu Arenas

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has surpassed humans in a number of specialised intellectual activities—chess and Go being two of many examples. Amongst the many potential consequences of such a development, I focus on how we can utilise cutting edge AI to promote human learning. The purpose of this article is to explore how a specialised AI can be utilised in a manner that promotes human growth by acting as a tutor to our champions. A framework for using AI as a tutor of human champions based on Vygotsky’s theory of human learning is here presented. It is based on a philosophical analysis of AI capabilities, key aspects of Vygotsky’s theory of human learning, and existing research on intelligent tutoring systems. The main method employed is the theoretical development of a generalised framework for AI powered expert learning systems, using chess and Go as examples. In addition to this, data from public interviews with top professionals in the games of chess and Go are used to examine the feasibility and realism of using AI in such a manner. Basing the analysis on Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory of development, I explain how AI operates in the zone of proximal development of our champions and how even non-educational AI systems can perform certain scaffolding functions. I then argue that AI combined with basic modules from intelligent tutoring systems could perform even more scaffolding functions, but that the most interesting constellation right now is scaffolding by a group consisting of AI in combination with human peers and instructors.

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Ecological-enactive scientific cognition: modeling and material engagement

Cited by 11 publications

References 65 publications

Affordances in Outer Space: Forms of Life, Material Engagement, and Meaning within Space Exploration and SETI

Affordances in Outer Space: Forms of Life, Material Engagement, and Meaning within Space Exploration and SETI

The strong program in embodied cognitive science

Scaffolding Human Champions: AI as a More Competent Other

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