Whilst the usefulness of the computational metaphor in many areas of psychology and neuroscience is clear, it has not gone unchallenged and in this article I will review a group of philosophical arguments that suggest either such unequivocal optimism in computationalism is misplaced – computation is neither necessary nor sufficient for cognition – or panpsychism (the belief that the physical universe is fundamentally composed of elements each of which is conscious) is true. I conclude by highlighting an alternative metaphor for cognitive processes based on communication and interaction. Relevance: This paper argues against computational accounts of mind and cognition, discussing Searle, Bishop and Penrose and suggesting a new metaphor for cognition based on interactions and communication. The new metaphor is sympathetic to modern post-symbolic, anti-representationalist, embodied, enactive accounts of cognition.

Excerpt: In several occasions I have pointed out that the lesson taught us by recent developments in physics regarding the necessity of a constant extension of the frame of concepts appropriate for the classification of new experiences leads us to a general epis-temological attitude which might help us to avoid apparent conceptual difficulties in other fields of science as well. Since, however, the opinion has been expressed from various sides that this attitude would appear to involve a mysticism incompatible with the true spirit of science, I am very glad to use the present opportunity of addressing this assembly of scientists working in quite different fields but united in their striving to find a common ground for our knowledge, to come back to this question, and above all to try to clear up the misunderstandings which have arisen.

I argue that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to become extinct before reaching a posthuman’ stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of its evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we shall one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. I discuss some consequences of this result.

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructing Constructivism” by Hugh Gash. Upshot: Gash’s retrospective analysis suggests a number of different roles for RC over the past thirty years. We outline three of these roles and then conduct a thought experiment to argue that while RC itself could be seen as a living theory that accommodates new ideas, its strongest contributions remain when it stays true to its roots and serves as a milestone along the path of educational paradigm shifts.

Excerpt: I want to show how important Uexküll’s Umwelt idea was for Konrad Lorenz ethology, how Maturana and Varela’s autopoietic concept of cognitive domain is an attempt to give a modern second order cybernetic and functionalistic development of important aspects of Uexküll’s idea with its biological theory of the observer in a general system’s evolutionary framework. Interestingly, Luhmann extended this theory into the social and linguistic domain, making it the foundation of a general theory of communication and cognition. But even this cybernetics theory of the living system’s cognition and communication do not have a true phenomenological theory of signification/semantics, which was immanent in Uexküll’s concept. Hence I work to unite second order cybernetics with Peirce’s pragmaticist semiotics within the area of biosemiotics, combining them with Wittgenstein’s language game theory and Lakoff s cognitive semantics in order to make a new transdisciplinary framework for information, cognitive, and communication sciences. I call this new framework Cybersemiotics.

Excerpt: Surely since the Enlightenment, if not before, the study of mind has centered principally on how man achieves a “true” knowledge of the world. Emphasis in this pursuit has varied, of course: empiricists have concentrated on the mind’s interplay with an external world of nature, hoping to find the key in the association of sensations and ideas, while rationalists have looked inward to the powers of mind itself for the principles of right reason. The objective, in either case, has been to discover how we achieve “reality,” that is to say, how we get a reliable fix on the world, a world that is, as it were, assumed to be immutable and, as it were, “there to be observed.”

The ‘Mind-Upload’ hypothesis (MU), a radical version of the Brainin-a-Vat thought experiment, asserts that a whole mind can safely be transferred from a brain to a digital device, after being exactly encoded into substrate independent informational patterns. Prima facie, MU seems the philosophical archenemy of the Embodied Mind theory (EM), which understands embodiment as a necessary and constitutive condition for the existence of a mind and its functions. In truth, whether and why MU and EM are ultimately incompatible is unobvious. This paper, which aims to answer both questions, will not simply confirm that MU and EM actually are incompatible. It will also show the true reason of their incompatibility: while EM implies that a mind’s individual identity is contingent upon the details of its physical constituents, MU presupposes that minds can be relocated from one material vessel to another. A systematic comparison between these conflicting assumptions reveals that the real shortcoming of MU is not the one usually discussed by the philosophical literature: it has nothing to do with MU’s functionalist or computationalist prerequisites, and is only secondarily related to the artificial implementability of consciousness; the real problem is that MU presupposes that minds could still be individuated and numerically identified while being reduced to immaterial formal patterns. EM seems committed to refute this assumption, but does it have sufficient resources to succeed?

Key words: mind upload, embodied cognition, embodied mind theory, enactivism, extended mind theory, brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, multiple realizability principle, singularity, functionalism, computational theory of mind, consciousness, identity, individuality, autopoi

Constructivism rejects the metaphysical position that “truth,” and thus knowledge in science, can represent an “objective” reality, independent of the knower. It modifies the role of knowledge from “true” representation to functional viability. In this interview, Ernst von Glasersfeld, the leading proponent of Radical Constructivism underlines the inaccessibility of reality, and proposes his view that the function of cognition is adaptive, in the biological sense: the adaptation is the result of the elimination of all that is not adapted. There is no rational way of knowing anything outside the domain of our experience and we construct our world of experiences. In addition to these philosophical claims, the interviewee provides some personal insights; he also gives some suggestions about better teaching and problem solving. These are the aspects of constructivism that have had a major impact on instruction and have modified the manner many of us teach. The process of teaching as linguistic communication, he says, needs to change in a way to involve actively the students in the construction of their knowledge. Because knowledge is not a transferable commodity, learning is mainly identified with the activity of the construction of personal meaning. This interview also provides glimpses on von Glasersfeld’s life.

Key words: radical constructivism, education

The enactive turn in cognitive science fundamentally changes how questions about experience and behaviour are addressed. We propose that there exists a suite of core concepts within enaction that are suited to the characterisation of many kinds of intentional subjects, including and especially animals, plants, collectivities and artefacts. We summarise some basic concerns of enactive theory and show how the common illustration of the single cell ascending a chemotactic gradient serves as a focus point for discussion of important topics such as identity, perspective, value, agency and life-mind continuity. We also highlight two important deficits of this example: the cell is ahistorical and asocial. Historicity and sociality are defining characteristics of living beings and are addressed within enactive theory by the concepts of structural coupling and participatory sense-making, respectively. This strongly biological framework is to be distinguished from scientific psychology which is, we argue, necessarily anthropomorphic. We propose a constrained bio-enactive framework that remains true to its biological foundations and that would allow us to negotiate consensus-based understanding in contested domains, where incompatible value systems enacted by competing systems are in conflict. A consensual ‘we’ is, we contend, a matter of negotiation, not of fixed essence. A bio-enactive framework may serve as a jumping off point for consensus-based discussion within contested domains.

The conception of the non-dualizing model of interpretation formulated by Josef Mitterer, is representative for his philosophy of the non-dualizing way of speaking. Founded on the anti-essentialistic and anti-ontologizing assumptions, non-dualizing model of interpretation – in opposition to the dualizing model – assumes that the interpretation starts from the text which functions as the interpretation so far changed in the interpretation from now. The aim of the interpretation – understood as a process – is the change, not the truth. As the consequence, plurality of interpretation is preferred in the opposition to the notion of the only one, true or adequate interpretation. In the situation of conflicts in which there are at least two concurrent interpretation, the non-dualizing logic prefers the formulation of new descriptions to which there could be reached a kind of compromise. We do not activate the other side of the discourse as the authority which is able to solve the conflict. This model of interpretation provokes some critical remarks, for example: the problem of the (potential) differences between description and interpretation, the notion of change as the aim of the interpretational process, the way in which new descriptions are established and stabilized. However, the non-dualizing model of interpretation seems to be an interesting option for dualizing discourses of the contemporary humanistic.

Key words: interpretation “so far” / interpretation “from now on”, non-dualizing model of interpretation.