Ecología cognitiva del significado matemático: aproximación desde las ciencias cognitivas.

El presente estudio tiene como finalidad describir las tendencias contemporáneas de las ciencias cognitivas para abordar el fenómeno del significado matemático. A partir de esto, comienza una critica a los paradigmas innatistas, neurocentristas y constructivistas de la cognición matemática. El marco de la crítica a las ideas contenidistas del significado en las teorías innatas y constructivistas se fundamenta den la idea del significado como un bucle dinámico que emerge de las interdependencias cerebro-mente-entorno irreductible a un nivel sobre otros. Aquí el cuerpo, las metáforas conceptuales y los entornos educativos ecológicos como STEAM proporcionan instancias para un significado corpóreo, situado, anti-representacionalista y enmarcado en el ciclo de percepción-acción

El aula como sistema complejo: hacia una formalización de la organización de la vida del aula

Moving towards a concept of education that connotes and defines the educational from the dynamics exhibited by the organization of learning in the classroom requires the use of the sciences of complexity. Assuming the theory of non-linear dynamical systems to understand the phenomena of learning interactions as a history of molecular, sensory and relational coherence is the great challenge of the cognitive sciences. The present study makes a theoretical-empirical review of studies in dynamic systems based on describing the organization of living beings, human life and classroom life. It is proposed that the classroom is a complex system of learning interactions where the semiotic mediation acts as linguistic homeostasis determining the future of the system. In particular, fuzzy set theory is proposed as a mathematical tool of non-linear dynamics to formalize the organization of learning in the classroom.Avanzar hacia un concepto de educación que connote y defina lo educativo a partir de la dinámica que exhibe la organización del aprendizaje en el aula requiere del uso las ciencias de la complejidad. Asumir la teoría de sistemas dinámicos no-lineales para comprender los fenómenos de interacciones de aprendizaje como una historia de coherencias moleculares, sensoriales y relacionales es el gran desafío de las ciencias cognitivas. El presente estudio realiza una revisión teórica-empírica respecto a estudios en sistemas dinámicos basados en describir la organización de los seres vivos, la vida humana y la vida en el aula. Se propone que el aula es un sistema complejo de interacciones de aprendizaje donde la mediación semiótica actúa como homeostasis lingüística determinando el devenir del sistema. Particularmente se propone a la teoría fuzzy set como herramienta matemática de dinámica no-lineal para formalizar la organización del aprendizaje en el aula.

Cognition Without Neural Representation: Dynamics of a Complex System

This paper proposes an account of neurocognitive activity without leveraging the notion of neural representation. Neural representation is a concept that results from assuming that the properties of the models used in computational cognitive neuroscience (e.g., information, representation, etc.) must literally exist the system being modelled (e.g., the brain). Computational models are important tools to test a theory about how the collected data (e.g., behavioural or neuroimaging) has been generated. While the usefulness of computational models is unquestionable, it does not follow that neurocognitive activity should literally entail the properties construed in the model (e.g., information, representation). While this is an assumption present in computationalist accounts, it is not held across the board in neuroscience. In the last section, the paper offers a dynamical account of neurocognitive activity with Dynamical Causal Modelling (DCM) that combines dynamical systems theory (DST) mathematical formalisms with the theoretical contextualisation provided by Embodied and Enactive Cognitive Science (EECS).Peer Reviewe

The primacy of Knowing-how : cognition, know-how and an enactive action first epistemology

The Enactive Approach (EA) is a project of naturalization of the mind. EA should be able to offer a naturalization of knowledge, such underlying naturalization is what is found in this dissertation. The result is an epistemology where the most basal aspect of knowledge is not to accurately represent. For an enactive epistemology, the primary relation is how knowers relate, contact or engage with what is known. I argue in the final chapter that knowing is a perspectival, affectively entangled, historically situated relation between knower and known. Knower, known and knowing are characterized in broad naturalistic terms. EA is first presented in the context of a larger trend of studying cognition in an ecological way. The understanding of mind in the context of the living leads me to argue that living systems and precarious autonomous systems in general are intrinsically teleological systems whose defining activity consists in being responsive to the viability boundaries or conditions of their own existence. Cognitive systems skillfully change in adaptive manners to not disintegrate, even if their changes are not optimal. The account provides a relational account of adaptive behavior as the basis for an account of know-how. The more general notion of know-how can be articulated from the notion of perception as mastery of sensorimotor contingencies. Know how in general is understood as the organization and reorganization of bodily processes and structures that enables reliable successful action. Know-how as the bodily sensitivities and capabilities relative to the cognitive domain that reliably result in the success of action is a feature of all forms of cognitive engagement. The cognition or knowing-how of languaging consists in acquiring, producing, interpreting and modifying the know-how shared within linguistic communities. Crucially, the influence of the interactive context in a participant’s sense-making varies in a continuum of participation. In one end of the spectrum one finds sense-making that remains largely (but not absolutely) individual and in the other end where what characterizes the activity is a joint process of sense-making. Knowing-how to language is knowing-how to be in dialogue with plural and idiosyncratic identities while being both yourself. A shared community of practices emerges as the basis of objectivity; knowing-how is a communal affair. If cognition is the skillful and not necessarily optimal adaptation of a precarious systemic identity to an always changing environment, all cognition rests on know how. Cognition rests on know-how in the sense that all cognition is understood in terms of skillful transition between states of a system struggling with possible disintegration. Intelligent behavior is not based on symbolic structures and context-free knowledge, it is based on richly detailed, context-specific know-how. The knowledgeable interaction with the world is the responsiveness to the now that incorporates the history leading up to it.A Abordagem Enativa (AE) é um projeto de naturalização da mente. AE deveria ser capaz de oferecer uma naturalização do conhecimento, tal naturalização subjacente é o que apresento ao leitor nesta tese. O resultado é uma epistemologia na qual o aspecto mais básico do conhecimento não é representar acuradamente. Para uma epistemologia enativa, a relação privilegiada é como conhecedores se relacionam, entram em contato ou engajam com o que é conhecido. Argumento no capítulo final que o conhecimento é uma relação perspectival, afectivamente emaranhada, historicamente situada entre conhecedor e conhecido. Conhecedor, conhecido e conhecer são caracterizados em termos liberalmente naturalistas. AE é primeiro apresentada no contexto de uma ampla tendência de estudar-se ecologicamente a cognição. O entendimento da vida no contexto do vivo me leva a argumentar que sistemas vivos e sistemas autônomos precários em geral são teleológicos e sua atividade definidora consiste em ser responsivo às fronteiras de viabilidade de sua própria existência. Sistemas cognitivos habilidosamente mudam de modos adaptativos evitando a desintegração, mesmo que as mudanças não sejam optimais. A abordagem provê uma visão relacional do comportamento adaptativo como base para o conhecimento prático [know-how]. A noção mais geral de conhecimento prático pode ser elaborada a partir da noção de percepção como maestria de contingências sensório-motoras. Conhecimento prático em geral é compreendido como a organização e reorganização de processos e estruturas corporais que possibilita de modo confiável a ação bem-sucedida. Conhecimento prático como as sensibilidades e capacidades corporais para o confiável sucesso da ação é uma característica de todas as formas de engajamento cognitivo. A cognição ou o sabendo-fazer do lingueajear consiste em adquirir, produzir, interpretar e modificar o conhecimento prático compartilhado entre comunidades linguísticas. Crucialmente, a influência do contexto interativo na produção de sentido de um participante de uma comunidade varia em um contínuo de participação. Num extremo encontra-se produção de sentido que permanece majoritariamente (mas não absolutamente individual, e no outro encontra-se atividades caracterizadas como processos conjuntos de produção de sentido. Sabendo-fazer linguagem é saber como estar em diálogo com identidades plurais e idiossincráticas enquanto se é uma você mesmo. Uma comunidade de práticas compartilhadas emerge como a base da objetividade, saber-como é um assunto comunal. Se a cognição é a adaptação habilidosa e não necessariamente optimal de uma identidade sistêmica precária em um ambiente constantemente mudando, toda cognição apoia se em conhecimento prático. Cognição apoia-se em conhecimento prático na medida que toda cognição é entendida em termos da transição habilidosa entre estados de um sistema sob a possibilidade de desintegração Comportamento inteligente não é baseado em estruturas simbólicas e conhecimento geral, baseia-se em conhecimento prático ricamente detalhado e relevante ao contexto específico. A interação com o mundo dotada de conhecimento é a responsividade para o agora que incorpora a história que nos levou até aqui

Towards a CogScenography: Cognitive science, scenographic reception and processes

This thesis argues that post-cognitivist frameworks that understand cognition as co-originating between brain, body, and world can contribute to both the production and the knowledge of scenography in a post-representational performance landscape. By imbricating radically embodied and enactive cognitive frameworks, and neuroscience metaphors of consciousness and perception within original participatory scenographic practice (Work Space I, II, and III) I develop further my ‘arts praxis’ (Nelson 2006), what I call the ‘scenographic contraption’. This practical, conceptual, and analytical framework generates participatory encounters between materials, space, and audiences, and is further used as a way of conceptualising scenography and participation within these shifting encounters. I assume three phases of the creative researcher’s condition in relation to the audience–participants, and the cognitive theories I am using for my research design: the ‘ignorant’, the ‘Janus-faced’ and the ‘predictive’ scenographer. I iterate between doing and thinking with contemporary cognitive frameworks towards the development of a theory of CogScenography, which helps us understand and experience scenography as a synergic way of doing-thinking-co-experiencing

Biological roots of cognition and the social origins of mind : autopoietic theory, strict naturalism and cybernetics

This thesis is about the ontology of living beings as natural systems, their behavior, and the way in which said behavior, under special conditions of social coupling, may give rise to mental phenomena. The guiding questions of the thesis are: 1) What kinds of systems are living beings such that they behave the way they do? 2) How, through what kinds of mechanisms and processes, do living beings generate their behavior? 3) How do mental phenomena appear in the life of certain living beings? 4) What are the natural conditions under which certain living beings exhibit mental phenomena? To answer these questions the thesis first assumes, then justifies and defends, a Strict Naturalistic (SN) stance with respect to living beings. SN is a metaphysical and epistemological framework that, recognizing the organizational, dynamic and structural complexity and peculiarity of living beings, views and treats them as metaphysically ordinary natural systems; that is, as systems that, from the metaphysical point of view, are not different in kind from rivers or stars. SN holds that if in natural sciences rivers and stars are not conceived as semantic, intentional, teleological, agential or normative systems, then living beings should not be so conceived either. Having assumed SN, and building mainly on the second-order cybernetic theories of Ross Ashby and Humberto Maturana, the thesis answers question 1) by saying that living beings are (i) adaptive dynamic systems, (ii) deterministic machines of closed transitions, (iii) multistable dissipative systems, and (iv) organizationally closed systems with respect to their sensorimotor and autopoietic dynamics. Based on this ontological characterization, the thesis answers question 2) by showing that living beings’ behavior corresponds to the combined product of (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv). Points (i) and (ii) support the idea that living beings are strictly deterministic systems, and that, consequently, notions such as information, control, agency or teleology—usually invoked to explain living beings’ behavior—do not have operational reality but are rather descriptive projections introduced by the observer. Point (iii) helps to understand why, despite their deterministic nature, living beings behave in ways that, to the observer, appear to be teleological, agential or “intelligent”. Point (iv) suggests that living beings’ sensorimotor dynamics are closed circuits without inputs or outputs, where the distinction between external and internal medium is, again, an ascription of the observer rather than a functional property of the system itself. Having addressed the basic principles of living beings’ behavior, the thesis explores the possible origin of (truly) mental phenomena in the particular domain of social behavior. Complementing Maturana’s recursive theory of language with Vygotsky’s dialectic approach the thesis advances, though in a still quite exploratory way, a sociolinguistic hypothesis of mind. This hypothesis answers questions 3) and 4) by claiming that the essential properties of mental phenomena (intentionality, representational content) appear with language, and that mind, as a private experiential domain, emerges as a dialectic transformation of language