Enactivism (nuts and bolts)
BackA short intro to Enactive cognition.
Channel: People & Blogs
Uploaded: May 2, 2007 at 2:16 am
Author: redliterocket4
Length: 00:09:57
Rating: 5.00
Views: 280
Tags: mind brain cognitivism emergence enactivism thinking science philosophy
Video Comments:
Ignare (September 16, 2007 at 8:16 pm)
We're back to Spinoza. A monist world of affect interacting.
normonics (May 7, 2007 at 2:58 pm)
I want to say that what you are characterzing as 'emergentism' is a specific stance that one might take towards cognition, but it is no way the only way the notion of emergence in dynamic systems can be applied to epxloring cognition. Varela and MAturna make much of use of the notion of dynamic non-linear systems and their 'unities' being "greater than the sum of its parts".
normonics (May 7, 2007 at 2:59 pm)
This is precisely the notion of emergence, and it is useful in dealing with a cartesian dualism precisely because you can get qualitatively new domains invoking only new kinds of 'organizations' and no new 'structure' (or 'stuff', Varela and Maturna use the terminology 'organization' and 'structure' to ariculate this distinction between the 'stuff' that makes something versus the relations that 'stuff' manifests)
cloudmonkeys (May 3, 2007 at 1:33 pm)
It seems to me that if people are coupled with each other and their environment then it would be necessary to have a more attentive caring attitude to things other than our (illusory) self. If our minds where an emergent and ultimately unreal property of our brains or where a property of the deep structure of...
cloudmonkeys (May 3, 2007 at 1:33 pm)
...language then it sets up a distinction between acting in the world and thinking or talking or describing which can lead to a kind of structural dishonesty or hypocrisy in enactivist terms, if our minds are our brains or our body's and our bodys are co-created with our environment then what we do and think must be correlated
redliterocket4 (May 3, 2007 at 1:41 pm)
Yes, knowing is acting and acting is knowing. Language becomes connotative instead of just denotative. Gesture becomes the only means of communicating, which means that to say something we must be honest. Lying always effects the smoothness of the body's responses and turns words into mere descriptions.
cloudmonkeys (May 4, 2007 at 2:24 am)
yeah, thats a much better way of putting it. Perhaps alienating is a better word than lying we're alienating 'ourselves' from the rest of nature when we take the emergantist or cognitivist view. Very interesting videos by the way.
redliterocket4 (May 4, 2007 at 2:49 am)
Varela coined a term for it: "Cartesian anxiety." and thanks, i love this stuff.
cloudmonkeys (May 2, 2007 at 3:20 pm)
what do you think the implications of enactivism are regarding our ways of life?
redliterocket4 (May 3, 2007 at 2:51 am)
There is no individual self, only an endless and chaotic becomingness held together and motivated by love. If there is any self, it is the One, God, Buddha, Brahman, etc., and at that level there is no separation between me and you or us and them. So if there is a life implication to enactivism, it must be that we have a duty to wake up and become who we are.