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Abstract:
(Contributed Talk)
The dynamical hypothesis threatens computationalism and its
commitment to mental representations: the continuous,
reciprocally causative nature of cognition renders impossible
such an analysis. Andy Clark and Rick Grush have suggested a
hybrid approach that models cognitive systems using dynamical
systems theory but employs mental representation via emulation to
aid its explanations. I will call such a view dynamical
computationalism and in this paper, I evaluate its prospects. The
proposed 'architecture' of representation, which a cognitive
agent must possess in order to be distinguished from a merely
adaptive one, uses a notion of partial agent-environment coupling
to facilitate its use of representations. In the capacity for
emulating the environment for use as internal representation,
dynamical computationalism claims to have laid down a necessary
condition for cognition. I will show that this approach reveals a
misunderstanding of the force of the dynamical hypothesis. I
argue too, against the plausibility and the necessity of the
condition laid down: it is framed in terms of a capacity for
emulation, but its absence is compatible with cognitive behavior.
Dynamical computationalism would be better off without such an
implausible condition on cognition elevated to the status of a
necessity.
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