The biogenic approach to cognition

Lyon, Pamela

doi:10.1007/s10339-005-0016-8

Cited by 186 publications

(183 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Moreover, they must perform the operations needed to construct themselves-incorporate matter into the organized structure with which they are identified. Maturana and Varela (1980) have referred to this as autopoiesis and viewed it as the foundation of cognition (see Lyon, 2006, for a systematic discussion). Crucial to autopoiesis, but not emphasized by Maturana and Varela, is that organisms must capture and employ free--energy from their environments in autopoiesis and repair.…”

Section: Endogenously Active Mechanisms In the Brainmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Endogenously Active Brain: The Need for an Alternative Cognitive Architecture

Bechtel¹

2013

philosophiascientiae

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Most proposals of cognitive architectures in cognitive science and accounts of brain processes in neuroscience construe the mind/brain as reactive: processing is initiated by a stimulus and terminates in a response to it. But there is growing evidence that brains are endogenously active: oscillations in electrochemical activity at multiple frequencies are ongoing in the brain even in the absence of stimuli and stimuli serve to modulate these oscillations rather than initiate activity. Moreover, evidence is growing that this endogenous activity is used in various information processing activities. I appeal to evidence from single--cell recording, EEG, and resting state fMRI to support the claim of ongoing oscillatory behavior in the brain and identify several ways it may contribute to cognition. If cognitive science is to understand how we perform cognitive tasks it needs to develop cognitive architectures that incorporate the sort of endogenous dynamic activity exhibited by the brain. The Search for Cognitive ArchitecturesThe cognitive tradition is distinguished from its behaviorist predecessor by focusing on information processing mechanisms that are thought to exist within the mind--brain and hypothesized to explain behavior. Cognitive researchers have often assumed, either implicitly or explicitly, that the brain takes in information through the senses, represents it, performs operations on the representations, and responds by either changing its internal state or planning and executing actions. In the early decades of cognitive science it was difficult to identify the neural processes that served as representations for high--level cognitive processes such as memory, reasoning, and problem solving and the neural operations through which they were processed. As a result, most cognitive theories of information processing had to rely on indirect measures such as reaction times and error patterns to guide and evaluate hypotheses as to the representations employed and the operations performed on them. For example, Sternberg (1966) used the time required for subjects to determine whether a test item was on a list of items they had memorized to determine that humans perform exhaustive serial search. One way cognitive scientists, especially those focused on computational modeling of cognition, further constrained their inquiry was to develop proposals as to the nature of the cognitive architecture. A cognitive architecture specifies the primitive operations the mind/brain is thought to perform. Proposed architectures such as Newell's SOAR (Laird, Newell, & Rosenbloom, 1987) and Anderson's ACT--R (Anderson, 1990(Anderson, , 2007 were defended on theoretical grounds that they possessed the appropriate primitive capacities

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Section: Endogenously Active Mechanisms In the Brainmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Endogenously Active Brain: The Need for an Alternative Cognitive Architecture

Bechtel¹

2013

philosophiascientiae

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“…As Favareau (2007) By tuming to biosemiosis, the paper seeks to link cognitive sdence to biology. In this fidd, the philosopher's view of tnind is slowly being replaced by what Lyon (2006) terms biogenic models. In contrast to anthropomorphic views, these begin with biology.…”

Section: Towards Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Flow: Opening the subject

Cowley¹

2009

Cognitive Semiotics

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Analysis of lioguistic foims does not danfy experitme of language. Pursuing this, the paper tums to dynamics and, using examples, introduces language flow. It is suggested that sensory peiception uses movement that can be independendy descnbed (from diffetent perspectives). Next, using Barbieri's model of protein synthesis, attention tums to how expeiience is possible. It is suggested tfaat, in ptindple, the Operations of orgatuc coding may have intetactional countetparts. By analogy, prosodic 'contextualization' becomes feit reaction that influences real-time response. Ulis parallek how antidpatory gaze is used to graerate reading aloud. Finally, using neurosdentific work on intersubjectivity, it is suggested that notms and rewards may reconfigure neural processes that use expedence of perception-action in sensing what is meant On this view, Lmguage identifies how we use collective practices to integrate verbal pattems, the events of flow, and lived experience. Thm is nothing that stands to language in the re/ation that language stands to eveiything ebe (Low 2007: 705). The problem with languageThere are many ways of applying language. With some trepidation, therefore, I begin with a view that may seem radical. To understand how people Interpret and make linguistic signs, it is argued, we need to scrutinise the events of language flow. These result from the Hme evolution of plysicalprocesses and are thus literally dynamic!^ In language, physical events link chronological structure with experience. Talking and reading (or writing) give us a sense of (kairos) time. For Applied to language, dynamus refers, in the first instance, to continuous ardcuktory and visible movements. We examine not 'pure' dynamics (physics) but real-time biomechanics (viz. how physics constrains biology) and, specifically, how this operates under (unctional constraints.

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“…artificial) cases. For a non-anthroponormative, biology-based view of cognition, see Lyon (2006). 4 An indirect way of raising one or another these objections is to reserve the label "mental" for human cases of the psychological capacities and quarantine the rest in a separate and unequal "cognitive" category.…”

Section: ) But Do Neurons Prefermentioning

confidence: 99%

On the proper domain of psychological predicates

Figdor

2014

Synthese

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One question of the bounds of cognition is that of which things have it. A scientifically relevant debate on this question must explain the persistent and selective use of psychological predicates to report findings throughout biology: for example, that neurons prefer, plants and fruit flies decide, and bacteria communicate linguistically. This paper argues that these claims should enjoy default literal interpretation, and that these reports of psychological properties in non-humans are as straightforward as they seem. An epistemic consequence is that these findings can contribute directly to understanding the nature of psychological capacities.

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The biogenic approach to cognition

Cited by 186 publications

References 59 publications

The Endogenously Active Brain: The Need for an Alternative Cognitive Architecture

The Endogenously Active Brain: The Need for an Alternative Cognitive Architecture

Language Flow: Opening the subject

On the proper domain of psychological predicates

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