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Boundaries of the Mind: Complementarity in Action

Mirko Farina Criss-Crossing the farinamirko@gmail.com

Department of Cognitive Science Workshop on Emergence,in Cognitionand ARC Centre of Excellence Dynamics, and Cognition Wollongong, its Disorders Macquarie University, Sydney
April 12th-13th, 2012
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The Extended Mind Thesis (EMT)

EMT is a view about the physical mechanisms of mind and cognition that envisions the emergence of extended cognitive systems through the coupled combinations of externally located resources, bodily manipulations and in-thehead processing

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Cognition Aint (all) in the head!

EMT allows for distributed representations to expand outward from their cranial prison into the environment and to transcend the boundaries of the cognitive architecture of the cogniser through dynamical couplings, persistent interweavements and cognitive loops

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Two Waves in A Nutshell

Parity Based Consistently relies on Functionalism [Wheeler and Clark]

Complementarity Based Stresses the Complementary contribution of Inner and Outer [Sutton, Menary, Rowlands, Clark]
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Complementarity: What is It?

Complementarity defences of EMT stress the different contributions made by internal and externally located items and argue that it is precisely these differences that allow for the environment to play a transformative role in cognition

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Todays Talk
In this talk I defend a Complementarity version of EMT and develop an argument for it based on the enmeshing of organisms and their cognitive developmental niches

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Whats the Plan?

1. Present a series of cases involving neural and cognitive development in which this enmeshing is realised via brains plasticity 2. Move on to niche construction and show how we get something like Complementarity out of developmental / ontogenetic niches IDEA Connect 1. and 2. through Extended inheritance to be understood in an ontogenetic context
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GOAL 1 - Developmental argument for Complementarity from a phylogenetic standpoint

GOAL 2 - Look at how this argument (based on the idea of soft-constraints on development) can inform the notion of 4/9/12 Emergence

Pointing Out the Enemy

Enemies are those views that describe functional organisation as pre-specified and our nature as fixed and constrained 1) Protocortex View Rakic 2) The Integrated Model Cosmides/Tooby

Brain is a collection of highly modular, domain-specific processors

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NO! - Functional Specialisation is Experience-Dependent

Pascual-Leone and Hamilton (2001) Study on blindfolded subjects After a short period of sensory deprivation, visual cortex tends to take on new functions

Plasticity isnt confined to childhood but persists into adulthood!

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Cognitive Functions are ExperienceDependent too

Studies on language acquisition in children show that the capacity to distinguish sounds narrows with age It narrows because brain functions get specialised in accordance with sociocultural activities and specific environmental stimulation The on-board neural machinery comes to be dovetailed to fit with the particular socio-cultural environment in which our brains grow
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Cognitive Development via Brain Plasticity

The dovetailing of neural circuitry with the external environment moulds our cognitive functions Our brains learn to treat external structures as reliable resources, that shape the kinds of on board cognitive routines they support

External structures become complementary parts of our cognitive repertoire

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Niche Construction and Ecological Inheritance

The reliance on external structures leads us straight to Niche Construction CORE IDEA - organisms can alter their environments in ways that may sometimes change their fitness landscape Animals engineer the selective environments of the constructors but also alter the environs of the constructors descendants
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Niche Construction and EMT

Genetic VS Ecological/Cultural Inheritance Downstream Epistemic Engineering [Sterelny, 2003] Against EMT The Scaffolded Mind Sterelny, 2010 In support of EMT Wheeler and Clark, 2008
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Downstream in Wheeler and Clark (2008)

Wheeler and Clark attack Strong Instructionism and Modularity Neuroconstructivist Perspective and Emergent Modularity Model that accounts for brain neural specialisation without the involvement of excessive predetermination
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Downstream in Details
Downstream works alongside with genetic inheritance and contributes to reorganise human cognition in profound ways It is through downstream that organisms scaffold their physical structures in ways that can change their fitness landscape

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Culture and Biology

This emphases the power of what Wheeler and Clark call cognitive niche construction It emphases this power because it shifts the focus of our attention from mere genetic specification to scaffolded matrixes of co-determining factors

Analogy between Culture and Biology but their relationship is understood within an evolutionary framework

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.(With a Concern)!
Wheeler & Clark are right to criticise modularity they are right to emphasise the analogy between culture and biology too

However, there is perhaps a more powerful context in which one can understand this bond

I propose to resituate ecological inheritance in a developmental framework

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How the Mind Grows (DST)

Parity in the context of development Life Cycle is the unit of evolution Interactive Construction and Co-evolution Biological structure takes the form of soft constraints Evolution is understood as a change in the spectrum of developmental resources

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Ecological Inheritance in Development

(NOT!) Genetic + Ecological Inheritance (BUT) Extended Inheritance Extended or Exogenetic Inheritance of developmental resources

Necessary genetic resources are complemented by equally necessary and reliably reproduced epigenetic, bodily, social, ecological, epistemic and symbolic resources for development [Stotz (2010)]
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Integrative Power of the Interactants

Genetic inheritance isnt the flow of information and extra-genetic factors are not the provision for such a flow. Developmental theorists thus asks us to think about the ontogeny of information (Oyama, 1999)

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From DST to Ontogenetic Niche Construction

The developmental approach thus conceptualises the niche as part of the developmental system The developmental niche is the set of (complex) legacies inherited by offspring as necessary developmental resources BENEFICIAL MOVE for both biology and the cognitive sciences

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Reliable Info and Learning (Stotz, 2010)

Ontogenetic niche construction makes the transmission of crucial information more reliable via social learning and parental care It puts the individual into a context of adaptive plasticity in which learning processes are involved in development The ontogenetic niche thus works as an informational hub that decides which experiences are developmentally bioavailable and which are not
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Exo-genetic inheritance and offsprings gene expression (Meaney 2001,2007)

Recent studies have revealed that parental care and environmental cues have profound influences on the trajectory of prenatal development both in animals (rats) and humans Licking of puppies by rat mothers alter DNA structure and triggers new mechanisms of imprinting that influence the gene expression of the puppies in the long run These findings demonstrate that the structural modifications of the DNA can be established through environmental programming
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The Fetal Origins Hypothesis (Barker, 2001)

Environmental exposure during critical periods in early development impacts on the fetus development The exposure to specific hormonal factors in the intrauterine environment triggers a series of vascular and endocrine adaptations in the fetus that determines its weight at birth

This shows how epigenetic mechanisms can regulate gene potential

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Via exo-genetic inheritance, the ontogenetic niche instantiates successful links among different generations. [Stotz, 2010] This not only reveals a general interdependence between different generations, but rather highlights their proximate dependence via mechanisms that promote orderly transitions in speciestypical development for both adult and young [West et al. (1988),p. 47)]. The ontogenetic niche is not only a selective self-engineered niche but rather configures itself as a problem-solving mechanism that actively constructs individual development and learning processes
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The Power of the Ontogenetic Niche

The ontogenetic niche thus possesses an evolutionary significance that is realised not merely through the adoption of specific selection pressures partially constructed by organisms (as in cognitive niche construction) but via active deployment of developmental resources, which are capable of generating evolutionary novelty.

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Ontogenetic niche construction determines evolution by influencing development!

Formulated in this way, the ontogenetic niche becomes highly relevant for the cognitive sciences Ontogenetic niche grounds nature in development and development in mechanisms of exo-genetic inheritance Genetic and Exo-genetic factors interact to modify the life cycle of the organism Development can change the dynamics of the cognitive system in ways that open up new cognitive possibilities
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Ontogenetic Niche Reveals

Over cultural-evolutionary time, the properties of biological and nonbiological can intermingle and change each other to give rise to a very dynamical account of the relationships that span the brain, body and world boundaries An account where there arent hard constraints on development but only soft constraints

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Ontogenetic Niche and Complementarity

The understanding of cognitive science that is supported by the ontogenetic niche is one that rejects the solidification produced by nativists around fixed properties or hard constraints of the human mind and rather encourages us to think of strong organism-environment interactions as ways to forge, transform and re-orient the opportunities for action

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New Understanding of Human Nature

Our Nature is defined through Development! It is out of this multilayered process that the capacities of living beings emerge Biology and Culture are not separate much less antagonistic They are complementary and instrumental for organisms to achieve biological fitness in the long run Culture makes humans as much as the reverse! Development (proximate causation) impinges on evolution (ultimate causation) 4/9/12

Do Diachronic considerations establish Synchronic extensions?

Is development sufficient to establish synchronic extensions or does it merely deliver diachronic explanations? In other words, does development just give us the causal dependence of the internal cognitive processes on the cultural environs or does it rather establish metaphysical claims about constitution?

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The Cultural Niche (Boyd et al 2011)

Intelligence often requires embodied skills in cumulative cultural environment. Crucially, these skills can usually be developed only via interactive processes of learning As the authors point out, no individual, however intelligent or resourceful, can devise the repertoire of techniques routinely deployed in even the simplest foraging societies [Downey, forthcoming]
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Habitat-specific knowledge is necessary to survive in hostile environs

They mention the myriad ingenuous techniques that Inuit employ to survive in the Central Arctic And compare them to those of many European explorers who found themselves lost in the same Arctic environments Even though these explorers were supremely confident, better equipped and accomplished outdoorsmen, often succumbed unless they were able to ally with or learn from local peoples
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A Case Study: the Franklin Expedition trapped in the King William Island
Although this was perhaps the best provisioned voyage of exploration ever dispatched from Europe, all its members eventually died of starvation and scurvy Ironically, King William Island is the heart of Netsilik territory, an area so rich in hidden resources that the main harbor was called, Uqsuqtuuq, meaning lots of fat, by the indigenous people. (Boyd et al., 2011, p. 3).
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Ontogenetic Mechanisms of Social Learning are Essential for Human Adaptation!

Human intelligence (and so Cognition) is not simply determined by large brains (or genetically pre-specified cognitive modules), but rather driven by our collective ability to create: 1) a cultural ontogenetic niche full of information; 2) socially transmitted adaptive strategies; and 3) the necessary social scaffolding to acquire environmentally appropriate toolkits

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We are Wired for Culture

Our cultures and not our genes supply the solutions we use to survive and prosper in the society of our birth; they provide the instructions for what we eat, how we live, the gods we believe in, the tools we make and use, the language we speak, the people we cooperate with and marry, and whom we fight or even kill in a war Language has transformed the way in which we evolved turning us from 'monkey see monkey do' creatures into beings able to develop social learning, increasing our chances of survival Language is a piece of social technology
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Beyond Human Nature

Cultural influences are vastly more significant than biology in explaining how the mind works. The fact that culture can change how we think is the most distinctive and important fact about our species

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Incomplete Nature
Analyzing single brains in isolation cannot shed light on cognition, which is an emergent phenomenon only achievable via cumulative social learning (cooperation) and developmental plasticity

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A Long Journey back home

I have demonstrated the power of culture in sculpting, forging and molding our cognitive behaviors Maybe I havent yet provided a decisive case for Complementarity I think I have, at least, elaborated a set of preliminary developmental considerations that are necessary for it and a framework that can inform and guide our research in the cognitive sciences

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Dynamical Systems Theory (Thelen and Smith, 2003)

Development is seen as the emergent product of many decentralized and local interactions that occur in real time 1) Multicausality, 2) Self-organization, 3) Stability, 4) Soft constraints Thelen and Smith apply these notions to infants development. Development is not just the result of genetics but rather the fruit of the interweaving of events between internal and external structures at a given moment. These produce behavioural forms that allow infant to self-assemble new motor patterns in novel situations
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Emergence via Complementarity?

Emphasis on the constructed nature of the cognitive and social self, and on the importance of environmental, social and cultural factors in development Complementarity systems are thus developmental, sensitive and emergent wholes that are more than the mere sum of their parts Symbiotic systems in which the partnership between inner and outer yields the emergence, via development, learning and plasticity, of new cognitive behaviors
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I Say NO

NO! Bounded, Intracranial Accounts of Cognition

NO! - Integrated Model [Cosmides and Tooby 1992]

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A Neuro-anthropological revival of the SSS Model(?)

"The accepted view that mental functioning is essentially an intracerebral process, which can only be secondarily assisted or amplified by the various artificial devices which that process has enabled man to invent, appears to be quite wrong [T]he human brain is fully dependent upon cultural resources for its very operation; and those resources are, consequently, not adjuncts to, but constituents of, mental activity" [Clifford Geertz, The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind]
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Great thanks to...

Julian Kiverstein ILLC Amsterdam

John Sutton MACCS Sydney

Richard Menary MACCS Sydney Andy Clark Edinburgh Uni

Karola Stotz

Greg Downey

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