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Pushing the Boundaries of Consciousness and Cognition Pushing the Boundaries of Consciousness and Cognition Kenneth Pepper PhD University of York Philosophy September 2014 Abstract This thesis synthesises material from contemporary cognitive science, analytic philosophy of mind continental phenomenology to defend a view of the mind as embodied and extended. The first three chapters focus primarily on embodiment, while the last two chapters focus more on factors external to the body. In chapter I, I introduce Merleau-Ponty's concept of the body schema and argue that we should resist reducing the body schema to an internal representation of the body, and also that it does not always coincide with the boundaries of the biological body. In chapter II, I explicate and defend the sensorimotor approach to visual perception, further invoking Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to support the arguments therein and to address certain worries internal to the sensorimotor approach. Chapter III builds on the conclusions of chapters I and II to explore one way in which technological extensions of the body can lead to novel perceptual experiences, and tentatively suggests a limited sense in which these experience may still be said to be visual in character. In chapter IV, I move beyond the body to explicate and defend the extended mind thesis, according to which cognition can and often does take place partly outside of brain and body via the active use of external aids and props. Finally, in chapter V, I consider the question of whether, given the perceptual phenomenology described in chapter II and the case for cognitive extension presented in chapter IV, consciousness might also be said to be extended, and argue that if certain assumptions are granted, it can. 2 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 5 Author’s Declaration 6 Introduction 1. Summary of the project 7 2. Obligatory methodological preamble 8 I. Being-in-the-World and the Body Schema 1. Introduction 15 2. Making room for the body 15 3. The scheming body 23 4. Body schema vs. body image 29 5. ‘Representation’ and ‘representation’ 34 6. Plastic brains and rubber hands 43 7. Embodiment ain’t in the head 48 8. A note on phantom limbs 50 II. Embodying Perception: The Sensorimotor Approach to Vision 1. Introduction 55 2. Two versions of the sensorimotor approach 56 3. Against pictures in the head: the ‘snapshot’ conception of vision 57 4. The visual world is not a grand illusion 65 5. The phenomenology of sensorimotor understanding 71 6. Object horizons, affordances, and practical know-how 78 7. Scholastic interlude: why Merleau-Ponty? 80 8. Object horizon are not affordances 80 9. Motor signification, sedimentation and the body schema 89 10. ‘Sensorimotor chauvinism?’ 99 11. Conclusion 106 III. Extended Embodiment: Sensory Substitution and the Body Schema 1. Introduction 109 2. Tactile-visual sensory substitution: some key facts 109 3. Adaptation to TVSS via extension of the body schema 116 4. Aside: a quick note on Kiverstein and Farina on SSDs and extended consciousness 121 5. The unity of the senses, synaesthesia, and bodily synthesis 122 6. The Merleau-Pontian account vs. the alternatives 134 7. Conclusion 140 3 IV. Beyond the Body: Extending the Mind 1. Introduction 142 2. What it is like to have an extended mind 144 3. The parity principle 148 4. From epistemic action to extended cognition 151 5. Extended beliefs: the curious case of Otto and Inga 157 6. Defending the extended mind thesis 166 7. Notebooks don’t think! 167 8. Adams and Aizawa’s tripartite critique: a tripartite critique 168 9. The science argument 169 10. The coupling-constitution argument 175 11. The content argument and the ‘mark of the cognitive’ 180 12. The mark of the cognitive mk. II 188 13. Mars attacks! 200 14. Conclusion 204 V. Extended Consciousness? 1. Introduction 207 2. The extended mind thesis and the extended conscious mind thesis 208 3. The horizontal structure of perception and action-oriented predictive processing 215 4. Perceptual cognition and informational self-structuring 218 5. The coupling-constitution fallacy revisited 222 6. The stuff dreams are made of? 226 7. Conclusion: putting experience back into the world 234 Conclusions 237 References 240 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Tom Baldwin and Keith Allen for all their invaluable advice, support and encouragement over the last four years, Tom Stoneham and Nick Jones for taking a risk by awarding me a graduate teaching scholarship, Clare Carlisle for convincing me (for better or worse) that it was all worth pursuing, and James Tartaglia and Josie D'Oro for inspiring me in the first place. I would also like to thank Mike Wheeler and Louise Richardson for agreeing to examine (and pass!) this thesis. Special thanks are also due to Andy Clark for providing me with a copy of an unpublished paper of his, and to various anonymous journal referees for their highly instructive comments. Additionally, I have benefitted enormously from the insightful discussions I have had over the years with Dom Shaw, Ema Sullivan-Bissett, Helen Bradley, Brendan Harrington, Owen Hulatt, Will McNeil and, especially, Simon Høffding. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude towards the third year students who elected to take my and Dom's Merleau- Ponty module, particularly Seb Odell, Ewan Margrave, Steve Startup and Susan Albinson, whose analytical and scholarly skills frequently put my own to shame, and helped shaped my own thoughts on many of the central issues of the thesis. Completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the unwavering support of my partner Ally, my parents, my sister Sally, and my best friend Ian. I love you all for putting up with me for so long. 5 Author's Declaration I hereby declare that the work herein is my own and that the work of others has been acknowledged appropriately. Material from chapter II was published as 'The Phenomenology of Sensorimotor Understanding' in Mark Bishop and Andrew Martin eds. Contemporary Sensorimotor Theory, Dordrecht: Springer, 2014, pp.53-65. Material from chapter V was published as 'Do Sensorimotor Dynamics Extend the Conscious Mind?' in Adaptive Behaviour vol. 22 no. 2, 2014, pp.99-108. Draft material that would eventually form various parts of the thesis was presented at the British Postgraduate Philosophy Association's 15th annual conference at the University of Reading on the 24th of September 2011, the AISB Sensorimotor Theory workshop at Goldsmiths College London on the 26th of September 2012, the 11th meeting of the Nordic Society for Phenomenology at the University of Copenhagen on the 19th of April 2013, and the 1st Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies conference at Nicolas Copernicus University on the 7th of November 2013. 6 Introduction 1. Summary of the project This thesis defends the claim that minds are embodied and, often, extended. Though we can and do engage in private reflection, the lion's share of our mental lives do not take place in our heads, but in the world, and this is owed to the way in which we are embodied and situated. To do so, it synthesises elements of analytical philosophy of mind, empirical and theoretical work in the cognitive sciences, and insights from continental phenomenology. The claim that the mind is embodied and/or extended is not unique to this thesis. On the contrary, a good deal of it shall be occupied by the defence of arguments and claims already made by a variety of philosophers. Its intended original contribution is twofold. Firstly, each chapter contains counterarguments to objections to its central claims that, to the best of my knowledge, are not to be found in the extant literature. Secondly, it contributes to an emerging tradition that seeks to reconcile our lived experience with the findings of cognitive science, and illuminate the ways in which the two might be mutually informing and constraining (see e.g. Wheeler 2007, Gallagher 2005, Dreyfus 1992). The structure of the thesis is as follows. I begin at the boundaries of the body, and gradually move outwards. The first three chapters focus primarily on embodiment, while the last two chapters focus more on factors external to the body. In chapter I, taking Husserl's account of the 'lived body' as my starting point, I introduce Merleau- Ponty's concept of the body schema and situate it in relation to empirical case studies of bodily disorders and adaptations. I argue that we should resist assimilating the 7 body schema to an internal representation of the body, and also that it does not always coincide with the boundaries of the biological body. In chapter II, I explicate and defend the sensorimotor approach to visual perception, further invoking Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to support the arguments therein and to address certain worries internal to the sensorimotor approach. Chapter III builds on the conclusions of chapters I and II to explore one way in which technological extensions of the body can lead to novel perceptual experiences, and tentatively suggests a limited sense in which these experience may still be said to be visual in character. In chapter IV, I move beyond the body to explicate and defend the extended mind thesis, according to which cognition can and often does take place partly outside of brain and body via the active use of external aids and props. Finally, in chapter V, I consider the question of whether, given the perceptual phenomenology described in chapter II and the case for cognitive extension presented in chapter IV, consciousness might also be said to be extended. I argue that if certain assumptions are granted, it can. 2. Obligatory methodological preamble This thesis is, by nature of its subject matter, a work in the philosophy of mind.
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