The Importance of Continuous Reciprocal Interactions

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

There is an intermediate stance in which your whole body counts as what goes into cognition and the mind, but things outside the body don't. I think you'd better go one way or the other. There's something going on continuous reciprocal interaction that is probably allowing us to somehow offload aspects of work in memory into these gestures. We stick to what they're in the world, which is good news for people if there's a worry about hand waving.

What is the mind, and what does it try to do? An overly simplified materialist view might be that the mind emerges from physical processes in the brain. But you can be a materialist and still recognize that there is more to the mind than just the brain: the rest of our bodies play a role, and arguably we should count physical artifacts that contribute to our memory and cognition as part of "the mind." Or so argues today's guest, philosopher/cognitive scientist Andy Clark. As to what the mind does, it tries to predict what happens next. This simple idea provides a powerful lens through which to interpret all the different things our minds do, including the idea that "perception is controlled hallucination."

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Andy Clark received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Sussex. He is currently Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at Sussex. He was Director of the Philosophy/Neuroscience/Psychology Program at Washington University in St Louis, and Director of the Cogntive Science Program at Indiana University. His new book is The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.