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These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"
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The Process Behind the
Structure Robert Cairnonce used an analogy: evolution
is to biology what development is to psychology, i.e. the process behind the
structure. The US psychologists Esther
Thelenand Linda Smithadvanced a theory of
development that was as opportunistic as evolution. Their emphasis is on
processes of change, on the ever-active self-organizing processes of living
systems that are analogous to the selection algorithms of evolution. For them development is the
outcome of the interplay between action and perception within a system that, by
its thermodynamic nature, seeks stability. Performance and cognition emerge
from this process of interaction between a system and its environment.
Cognition, in particular, is an emergent structure, situated and embodied, just
like any other skill of the organism. The development of the brain
seems to be orderly, incremental, and directional (towards nutritional
independence and reproductive maturity), but this is an illusion. In reality
development is not driven by a grand design: it is driven by opportunistic,
syncretic and exploratory processes. At a closer look, in fact, development is
modular and heterochronic (i.e., different organs develop at different rates
and different times), although the organism progresses as a whole. Global
regularities (and simplicity) somehow arise from local variabilities (and
complexities). Knowledge for thought and
action (i.e., categories) emerges from the dynamics of pattern formation in the
context of neural group selection. Perception,
action and cognition are rooted in the same pattern formation processes.
Categories arise (self-organize) spontaneously and reflect the experiences of
acting and perceiving, i.e. of interacting with the world. More precisely, categories are created
through the cross-relation of multimodal (hearing, seeing, feeling, etc)
experiences. Unity of perception and
action is reflected in the way categories are formed. Development can then be
viewed as the dynamic selection of categories. Categories are the foundation of
cognitive development. At the same time, categories
are but a specific case of pattern formation. Therefore, cognitive development
is a direct consequence of the properties of nonlinear dynamic systems, i.e. of
self-organizing complex systems. Being in the world
"selects" categories. Therefore meaning itself is emergent. These features are shared by
all organisms: every living system is a cognitive system. Back to the beginning of the chapter "Cognition: A General Property of Matter " | Back to the index of all chapters |
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