This paper examines the shared roots and crossed paths between Jean Piaget’s constructivism, what Seymour Paper refers to as “constructionism”, and socio-cultural theories as epitomized by Lev Vygotsky. We do so in the light of more situated, pragmatic, and ecological approaches to human cognition. All these views are developmental (stressing the genesis children’s interests and abilities over time), experiential (in the sense that knowledge is rooted in sensori-motor activity) and interactionist (people are seen as constructing their knowledge by transforming the world). Yet, the views also differ, each highlighting some aspects of how children grow and learn, while leaving other questions unanswered. Piaget’s main contribution was to flesh out what is common in children’s ways of thinking at different stages of their cognitive development and, more important, how consistent, robust, and generally “adapted” their views are. The theory stresses the progressive de-contextualization of knowledge (from here-and-now to then-and-there) and identifies some of the hidden mechanisms (internal reorganizations) that drive human cognitive development. Papert, in contrast, stresses how individuals learn in context and how they use their own – and other people’s – externalizations as objects to think with, especially as their convictions break down. His approach is more situated. Papert is particularly interested the role of new media in human learning. Both Papert and Vygotsky shed light on the articulations between direct and mediated experience (from action and tool-use to enactments, language, and symbol-use). Yet Vygotsky and the Russian school have paid much closer attention to the role of caring adults and peers in a child’s initiation to her culture. They remind us that it takes a whole village to raise a child. Integrating the views helps rethink how children come to make sense of their experiences, and how they find their own places – and voices – in the world. At once world-makers, world-readers, and dwellers in the world, human infants are granted from birth with the abilities to optimize exchanges with people and things by moving in and out of contexts, by shifting perspectives, and by switching roles or standpoint. They are extraordinary learners, and much can be learned from them. Lastly, while mostly inner-driven and curious, children need caring adults, secure grounds, and engaging peers and props to thrive and grow. Tools, media, and cultural artifacts are the tangible forms through which they explore their surrounds, express their thoughts, and share the fun with others – and the traces left by those who came before (cultural heritage) become a terrain for newcomers to create their paths.

Key words: constructivism, piaget, papert, vygotsky, situated learning, embodied cognition, ecology of mind

The first part of this paper examines the differences between Piaget’s constructivism, what Papert refers to as“constructionism,” and the socio-constructivist approach as portrayed by Vygotsky. All these views are developmental, and they share the notion that people actively contribute to the construction of their knowledge, by transforming their world. Yet the views also differ, each highlighting on some aspects of how children learn and grow, while leaving other questions unanswered. Attempts at integrating these views [learning through experience, through media, and through others] helps shed light on how people of different ages and venues come to make sense of their experience, and find their place – and voice – in the world. Tools, media, and cutural artifacts are the tangible forms, or mediational means, through which we make sense of our world and negociate meaning with others. In the second part of this paper, I speak to the articulations between make-believe activities and creative symbol-use as a guiding connection to rethink the aims of representations. Simulacrum and simulation, I show, play a key role besides language in helping children ground and mediate their experience in new ways. From computer-based microworlds for constructive learning (Papert’s turtle geometry, TERC’s body-syntonic graphing), to social virtual environments (MUDing). In each case, I discuss the roles of symbolic recreation, and imaginary projection (people’s abilities to build and dwell in their creations) as two powerful heuristic to keep in touch with situations, to bring what’s unknown to mind’s reach, and to explore risky ideas on safe grounds. I draw implications for education.

Taking a distributed view of language, this paper naturalizes symbol grounding. Learning to talk is traced to – not categorizing speech sounds – but events that shape the rise of human-style autonomy. On the extended symbol hypothesis, this happens as babies integrate micro-activity with slow and deliberate adult action. As they discover social norms, intrinsic motive formation enables them to reshape co-action. Because infants link affect to contingencies, dyads develop norm-referenced routines. Over time, infant doings become analysis amenable. The caregiver of a nine-month-old may, for example, prompt the baby to fetch objects. Once she concludes that the baby uses ‘words’ to understand what she says, the infant can use this belief in orienting to more abstract contingencies. New cognitive powers will develop as the baby learns to act in ways that are consistent with a caregiver’s false belief that her baby uses ‘words.’

Key words: agency, distributed cognition, distributed language, early child development, epigenetic robotics, intersubjectivity, language acquisition, symbol grounding

This paper reviews Pattee’s ideas about the symbolic domain as a phenomenon related to the self-simplifying processes of certain hierarchical systems, such as the living. We distinguish the concepts of constraint, record, and symbol to explain how the Semantic Closure Principle, that is to say, the view that symbols are self-interpreted by the cell, emerges. Related to this, the notion of complementarity is discussed both as an epistemological and as an ontological principle. In the final discussion we consider whether autonomous systems can exist in which constraints are not symbolically preserved, and if biological symbols can be considered to have a descriptive nature.

Key words: Constraint, record, semantic closure, symbol

Open peer commentary on the target article “How and Why the Brain Lays the Foundations for a Conscious Self” by Martin V. Butz. Excerpt: I feel that the use of terms such as “code,” “information,” and “symbol” for neural constellations that are not further described defeats the intention of the analysis presented because unless these terms are explicitly given specific neurobiological definitions they inevitably suggest the presence of a consciously reflecting agent.

E. Durkheim, one of the co-founders of sociology, emphasized that realities can be understood as constructs of individuals and social systems. This individual and at the same time social construction of knowledge is the topic of this article. At the analytic level of individuals, reality constructs emerge as the result of individual processes of perception and thought. But these individuals were necessarily social because of their shared evolutionary past. Therefore they construct broadly similar ideas of what they see as “the” physico-chemical reality. In addition, they show evolved cognitive mechanisms that are socially important as behavioral dispositions (the ability to develop language and symbol manipulation, the capacity to deal with complex relationships of reciprocity, the ability to imitate and thus to organize teaching / learning contexts, or linking emotionality and sociality, etc.). Social systems can be understood as more or less stable units of interacting participants. This requires a relatively large and structured set of reality constructs shared by the members of the systems. These constructs of reality include at the level of societies descriptions both of the respective social reality and of the natural environment. However, this fundamental distinction between “social” and “natural” is to be understood as a secondary differentiation. It was necessarily created under the influence of the same evolutionary processes in which the first societies were formed. With the formation of societies, what unavoidably implies the “establishment” of shared reality-constructs as a necessary prerequisite for communication and cooperative action, the “overall reality” distributed via the plurality of individual cognitive processes also had to be included in this context. This “total reality” attains an existence independent of the individual knowledge of the members of a given society. Thus a level is created that is specific to human societies, the level of culture (especially the transmission of cognitive and behavioral knowledge through observation, non-verbal and verbal communication up to writing and finally to electronic media). The level of culture should be separated analytically from other levels (individuals, components of social systems, system organization) in socio-cultural systems, since its importance is similar to biological inheritance. In the course of differently triggered and more or less self-organized processes of social differentiation functionally specialized social subsystems appear. At the same time, the socially conditioned individualization of the members of societies is driven forward. These processes of social change are therefore accompanied by changes in the production of reality: a plurality of social realities arises. At the same time, older constructs of reality are disappearing or are generalized, together with knowledge generated in specific areas of society. To cope with the socially generated need for coordination (communication!) and stabilization of achieved differentiations, second order systems appear such as e.g. the system of justice, the science system or, of course, the media system. Such second-order systems are not only necessary to assure the functioning of complex societies but they contribute to produce realities which are constructed and not given.

There exist theories of cognition that assume the importance of self-referentiality and/or self-modification. We argue for the necessity of such considerations. We discuss basic concepts of self-reference and self-amendment, as well as their relationship to each other. Self-modification will be suggested to involve non-algorithmic mechanisms, and it will be developed as a primary concept from which self-reference derives. A biologically motivated mechanism for achieving both phenomena is outlined. Problems of computability are briefly discussed in connection with the definability and describability of self-modifying systems. Finally, the relevance of these problems to applications in semantic problems of cognition is shown. We proceed in the following way. The paper starts with an outline of the evolutionary approach to cognition, as that context where the problems of circularity and recursiveness can be raised. Next, complete and incomplete forms of self-references are discussed. The “causal” theory of self-referentiality is reviewed, and a thought experiment is presented, which points out that no computable model for complete self-reference can exist. On the other hand, constructive definitions are shown to offer a framework where “selfdefining” and self-modifying systems, if such exist in reality, can be formulated. Studying the realization problem, a general abstract model is given, and a “biological computation” mechanism that corresponds to it is outlined. The underlying phenomenon, called “shifting reading frame,” is discussed in relation to how self-referentiality can be achieved through self-modification. The applicability of the approach to the autonomous definition of semantic relations in symbol systems, that may allow for a kind of autonomous “symbol grounding,” is discussed.

This essay explores the Mathematics of Charles Sanders Peirce. We concentrate on his notational approaches to basic logic and his general ideas about Sign, Symbol and diagrammatic thought.

Open peer commentary on the article “Eigenforms, Interfaces and Holographic Encoding: Toward an Evolutionary Account of Objects and Spacetime” by Chris Fields, Donald D. Hoffman, Chetan Prakash & Robert Prentner. Upshot: An eigenform is both a symbol for a process and the instantiation of a process itself. As such, eigenform provides a new entry to spacetime, as a unification of entity, place and process.

Excerpt: The intellectual world of Martin Heidegger is quite different from the intellectual world inhabited by contemporary cognitive scientists. Heidegger’s fundamental question in Being and Time is concerned with “being.” He, of course, knew nothing about computers or neuroscience, and his work displays only the most minimal acquaintance with work in the science of his day. Further, Heidegger’s terminology matches up badly with the terminology of modern cognitive science. Not only doesn’t he talk about symbol systems, programs, and Turing machines, he doesn’t even talk about anything which could pass for folk psychology. The words “belief,” “desire” and “representation” barely appear in Being and Time, where they are replaced with a vocabulary of “projects” and “understanding,” “for the sake of”s and “in order to”s. What possible significance could the work of Martin Heidegger have for the developing discipline of cognitive science?