The Use of a Distal-to-Tactile Sensory Substitution Interface Does Not Lead to Extension of Body Image

Marek McGann, Tom Froese, William Bigge, Adam Spiers and Anil K. Seth

A range of studies in the past decade and a half indicate significant impacts of tool use on body image. In cases of intentional action, contractions of near space or experienced extensions of limbs have been shown when using tools such as rakes. It remains unclear whether the changes in body image are effected by the tool enabling perception at a distance or action/manipulation of the environment at a distance. We studied this issue using a new research tool, the Enactive Torch, a sensory substitution device specifically designed for research into perception and bodily action. The Enactive Torch allows perception at a distance without the capacity for distal action. We report a first experiment indicating that its use on a navigation task has no effect on body image.

The conference paper can be downloaded here.

NON-HUMAN PRIMATES CANNOT DECONTEXTUALIZE AND OBJECTIFY THE ACTIONS OF THEIR CONSPECIFICS

Tom Froese, Takashi Ikegami, and Mike Beaton

We argue that all primates primarily perceive the actions of conspecifics as meaningful expressions of agency. Social understanding is a perceptual capacity that does not require human reason or imagination. Conversely, only humans have an additional, sophisticated ability to decontextualize and objectify actions into abstract movements. We thereby turn the traditional consensus on its head: what distinguishes humans from other primates is not the ability to perceive other agents. Humans are different because they can detach from the goal-oriented and meaning-laden presence of their natural and social world in order to bring abstract physical details into focus. This objectifying stance is necessary for genuine innovation and fine-grained imitation, especially of opaque instrumental and symbolic gestures, and therefore has implications for the origins of tool use and language.

You can download the full paper here.

From Second-order Cybernetics to Enactive Cognitive Science: Varela’s Turn From Epistemology to Phenomenology

Varela is well known in the systems sciences for his work on second-order cybernetics, biology of cognition and especially autopoietic theory. His concern during this period was to find an appropriate epistemological foundation for the self-reference inherent in life and mind. In his later years, Varela began to develop the so-called ‘enactive’ approach to cognitive science, which sets itself apart from other sciences by promoting a careful consideration of concrete experiential insights. His final efforts were thus dedicated to finding a pragmatic phenomenological foundation for life and mind. It is argued that Varela’s experiential turn—from epistemology to phenomenology—can be seen as a natural progression that builds on many ideas that were already implicit in second-order cybernetics and biology of cognition. It is also suggested that the rigorous study of conscious experience may enable us to refine our theories and systemic concepts of life, mind and sociality.

Note: This article can be seen as a continuation of my recent paper From Cybernetics to Second-order Cybernetics, which provides a more detailed analysis of the cybernetics movement. Also, for a more in-depth treatment of the early cybernetic influence on the biology of cognition, see the paper I wrote with John Stewart on Life after Ashby.

The enactive approach: Theoretical sketches from cell to society

Tom Froese and Ezequiel A. Di Paolo

There is a small but growing community of researchers spanning a spectrum of disciplines which are united in rejecting the still dominant computationalist paradigm in favor of the enactive approach. The framework of this approach is centered on a core set of ideas, such as autonomy, sense-making, emergence, embodiment, and experience. These concepts are finding novel applications in a diverse range of areas. One hot topic has been the establishment of an enactive approach to social interaction. The main purpose of this paper is to serve as an advanced entry point into these recent developments. It accomplishes this task in a twofold manner: (i) it provides a succinct synthesis of the most important core ideas and arguments in the theoretical framework of the enactive approach, and (ii) it uses this synthesis to refine the current enactive approach to social interaction. A new operational definition of social interaction is proposed which not only emphasizes the cognitive agency of the individuals and the irreducibility of the interaction process itself, but also the need for jointly co-regulated action. It is suggested that this revised conception of ‘socio-cognitive interaction’ may provide the necessary middle ground from which to understand the confluence of biological and cultural values in personal action.

Click here to download the paper.

A quantum theory of biological autonomy at the macro-level

Tom Froese and Takashi Ikegami

There is a peculiar irony at the core of biology that in order to fully understand an organism we have to kill it and dissect it. While the existence of an organism depends on self-determination and holistic integration, our knowledge of it depends on external control and decomposition. There is a deep tension between acquiring knowledge of another autonomous being and the persistence of that being’s very autonomy. But if complete knowledge of the living is in the end impossible, because the explanans ultimately requires the destruction of the explanandum, can there ever be an adequate science of life? We propose that a theory of biological autonomy that is modeled on the mathematical framework of quantum physics might be a workable alternative.

Want to know more? Click here to download the extended abstract.

Breathing new life into cognitive science

Tom Froese

In this article I take an unusual starting point from which to argue for a unified cognitive science, namely a position defined by what is sometimes called the ‘life-mind continuity thesis’. Accordingly, rather than taking a widely accepted starting point for granted and using it in order to propose answers to some well defined questions, I must first establish that the idea of life-mind continuity can amount to a proper starting point at all. To begin with, I therefore assess the conceptual tools which are available to construct a theory of mind on this basis. By drawing on insights from a variety of disciplines, especially from a combination of existential phenomenology and organism-centered biology, I argue that mind can indeed be conceived as rooted in life, but only if we accept at the same time that social interaction plays a constitutive role for our cognitive capacities.

You can download the article as part of the second issue of Avant.

Here is the list of contents of that section:

Wspólnie wydeptując ścieżkę / Laying down a path in common
Wprowadzenie……71
Introduction……75
Hume – cyber-Hume – Hume enaktywny. Wywiad z Tomem Froese…79
Hume – cyber-Hume – enactive Hume. Interview with Tom Froese…87
Tom Froese:
Tchnąć nowe życie w kognitywistykę……………………95
Breathing new life into cognitive science…………….113

Here is the PDF: Avant_02

Extended case study on the phenomenology of spatial form synaesthesia

Cassandra Gould, Tom Froese, Adam Barrett, and Anil K. Seth

Synesthesia has many sub-types and shows large inter-individual variation. At the level of phenomenology, our understanding of these subtypes remains rudimentary. We report an extended phenomenological investigation of spatial-form synaesthesia in a single case (BC). We used the ‘Explicitation Interview’ method, which facilitates the reliving of a particular experience by inducing an ‘evocation state’ within which the subject’s attention can be selectively guided by the interviewer (Vermesch, 1994; Petitmengin, 2006). In a first application to synesthesia, BC was guided to explore phenomenological details of his spatial-form synesthesia. Detailed analysis of the resulting 11 hours of interview transcripts provided a comprehensive description of BC’s synesthetic experience, including several novel observations. The basic phenomenology of BC’s spatial-form involves the appearance of numbers and letters in definite visuo-spatial configurations. Although the appearance of synesthetic concurrents is usually described as automatic, BC reports to engage in various cognitive acts in order for concurrents to be fully visible, suggesting an important role for attention and motor intention. BC’s concurrents also appear with within specific contexts of a ‘white page’, in a ‘corridor’ or in a ‘cave’; he also describes a ‘mental room’ in which his percepts are experienced and asserts an ability to voluntarily switch attention between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ rooms. These descriptions move beyond existing subtype categorisations based on individual phenomenology (e.g., projector versus associator synesthesia), providing new targets for neurobehavioral analysis. Strikingly, some aspects of BCs synesthesia were previously unknown even to him.

Life as a process of open-ended becoming: Analysis of a minimal model

Tom Froese, Nathaniel Virgo, and Takashi Ikegami

We argue that the phenomenon of life is best understood as a process of open-ended becoming and that this potentiality for continuous change is expressed over a variety of timescales, in particular in the form of metabolism, behavior, development, and evolution. We make use of a minimal synthetic approach that attempts to model this potentiality of life in terms of simpler dissipative structures, using reaction-diffusion systems to produce models that exhibit these characteristics. An analysis of the models shows that its structures exhibit some instances of relevant changes, but we do not consider them open-ended enough to be called alive. Still, the models shed light on current debates about the origins of life, especially by highlighting the potential role of motility in metabolism-first evolution.

You can download the full paper of Life as a process of open-ended becoming.

The Extended Body: On the inter-enaction of bodily resonance, embodied communication and body memory

Tom Froese and Thomas Fuchs

You can find the full abstract and a link to the poster in the previous blog post.