Cognitive Ecology. Implications for Contemplative Science. Evan Thompson Upaya Institute and Zen Center Zen Brain 2016

Transcription

1 Cognitive Ecology Implications for Contemplative Science Evan Thompson Upaya Institute and Zen Center Zen Brain 2016

2 Outline Complexity and connectivity 4E cognition Cognitive ecology Implications for the scientific study of contemplative practices

3 John Muir ( ) When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. -- My First Summer in the Sierra, 1911.

4 Barry Commoner ( ) Everything is connected to everything else. The first law of ecology. -- The Closing Circle, 1971.

5 Connectivity Nevertheless, not all connectivity is equally dense. Connectivity is nonuniform. Non-uniform connectivity makes emergent complexity possible.

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7 Emergence Local connections give rise to large-scale patterns, which shape local interactions, which give rise to large scale patterns...

8 Dependent origination Dependence on conditions. Dependence of whole on parts and vice-versa. Conceptual dependence.

9 Emergent complex systems are typically non-decomposable.

10 Decomposable system Separable components with distinct functions. Limited interactions between components. The concept of mechanism has a clear application.

11 Non-decomposable system Influence on any one component potentially includes all the others. Nonlinear interactions. Sensitivity to initial conditions. Classical concept of mechanism doesn t apply.

12 Science How do we choose the right boundaries for a unit of analysis? How do we determine what counts as the relevant system given our explanatory purposes?

13 Gregory Bateson ( )

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15 Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972, 459. Suppose I am a blind man, and I use a stick. I go tap, tap, tap. Where do I start? Is my mental system bounded at the handle of the stick? Is it bounded by my skin? Does it start halfway up the stick? Does it start at the tip of the stick? But these are nonsense questions. The stick is a pathway along which transforms of difference are being transmitted. The way to delineate the system is to draw the limiting line in such a way that you do not cut any of these pathways in ways which leave things inexplicable. If what you are trying to explain is a given piece of behavior, such as the locomotion of the blind man, then, for this purpose, you will need the street, the stick, the man; the street, the stick, and so on, round and round.

16 Connections are pathways for the transmission of differences that make a difference. Connectivity

17 Science How do we choose the right boundaries for a unit of analysis? Draw the limiting line in such a way that you do not cut any of these pathways in ways that leave things inexplicable.

18 Science How do we determine what counts as the relevant system? Place the boundaries where there are fewer differences that make a difference -- where connectivity is low or relatively less dense (remembering the conceptual dependence of all this on the observer).

19 Connectivity is high between the path (world), cane (tool), arm (body), and brain. Brain-body-tool-world are dynamically coupled through continuous reciprocal causation.

20 In the exploration of objects, the length of the cane does not explicitly intervene nor act as a middle term: the blind man knows its length by the position of the objects, rather than the position of the objects through the cane s length Phenomenology

21 Phenomenology To habituate oneself to a cane is to take up residence in [it] Habit expresses the power we have of dilating our being in the world, or of altering our existence through incorporating new elements ,

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24 Behavior is a property of the entire coupled brainbody-environment system and cannot in general be properly attributed to any one subsystem in isolation from the others.

25 Outline Complexity and connectivity 4E cognition Cognitive ecology Implications for the scientific study of contemplative practices

26 4E Cognition Embodied Embedded Extended Enactive

27 Embodied perception Self-generated movement influences what you see: Perception of 3D structure differs according to whether your body actively moves in relation to the optic flow or is passively moved in relation to it (for the same stimulus).

28 Embodied perception Perception is not something that happens in us or to us. It is something we do.

29 Embodied language and thought

30 Instead of there being a central and amodal cognitive module, cognitive phenomena are grounded in and emerge from a variety of embodied (affective, perceptual, and motor) processes (Barsalou 2008). Grounded cognition

31 Embedded cognition The physical and social environment scaffolds cognitive activity. Through body-world coupling, you continually sample the environment instead of storing its detail in your head.

32 Extended cognition The human brain is adapted to the environment of symbolic culture and can t function properly unless it s embedded in that environment. Biological and cultural (symbolic) memory processes constitute an extended, hybrid cognitive system.

33 Extended cognition This cultural cognitive system generates an expansion of conscious capacity enabling voluntary mental attention and metaawareness.

34 Extended cognition Mental attention, metacogntion, and metaawareness are internalized forms of social cognition, dependent on being able to share intentions, imitate others, and share attention.

35 Shared attention

36 Embedded-extended cognition All higher mental processes appear twice: 1) Socially: a child participates with others in cultural practices and enacts a shared mental process. 2) Individually: with repeated experience, the child internalizes the shared mental process so that it becomes individual.

37 In being embodied, embedded, and extended, cognition enacts a lived world of meaning and relevance. Enactive cognition

38 The mind isn t in the head Under most conditions, locating cognitive processes at the level of neural networks gets the boundaries of the cognitive system wrong. A better unit of analysis is the coupled brainbody-world system.

39 Outline Complexity and connectivity 4E cognition Cognitive ecology Implications for the scientific study of contemplative practices

40 Cognitive ecology

41 Cognitive ecology Uses 4E cognitive science to study cognitive ecosystems. A cognitive ecosystem is a system of relationships among cognitive processes and structures in a community (Hutchins 2010).

42 Some cognitive ecosystems

43 When you ride in a boat, your body, mind, and environs together are the undivided activity of the boat. The entire earth and the entire sky are both the undivided activity of the boat. Dōgen Zenji

44 Some cognitive ecosystems

45 Some more cognitive ecosystems

46 Some more cognitive ecosystems

47 Some more cognitive ecosystems

48 Closer to home

49 Closer to home

50 And still closer

51 All high-level cognition is a product of a system that includes cultural practices, habits of attending, ways of using the body in interaction with one s material and social surrounds.

52 The perils of leaving out culture 1. Cultural practices orchestrate cognitive capacities and thereby enact cognitive performances. Navigation orchestrates attention and thereby enacts sea travel. Ritual orchestrates attention and thereby enacts contemplative practice.

53 The perils of leaving out culture 2. If two cognitive systems include different cultural practices, the two systems can have different cognitive properties, even when the neural network activations are the same.

54 The perils of leaving out culture 3. So it s a mistake to assume that neural network activations suffice to determine the cognitive properties of a system.

55 The perils of leaving out culture Scientific experimentation is a cultural practice. Every cognitive neuroscience experiment with humans deploys cultural practices in a richly structured cultural context. Hence attributing the observed cognitive outcomes directly to the brains of the participants is unwarranted.

56 Outline Introduction 4E cognition Cognitive ecology Implications for the scientific study of contemplative practices

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59 Mindfulness Meta-awareness Voluntary directed attention Dereification Are internalized forms of social cognition. Are constituted by the extended cultural cognitive system. Are orchestrated by cultural practices (including in the lab). Cannot be superimposed onto brain networks (without cutting the pathways in the wrong places).

60 Inves&ga&ng the Phenomenological Matrix of Mindfulness- Related Prac&ces From a Cogni&ve Ecology Perspec&ve

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63 Meditation styles Attentional family Constructive family Deconstructive family Attention regulation, metaawareness Reduces experiential fusion Reappraisal, perspectivetaking Facilitates adaptive selfschemata Self-inquiry, insight Reduce maladaptive cognitive patterns

64 Meditation styles Attention regulation Meta-awareness Reappraisal Perspective-taking Self-inquiry Cognitive insight Are internalized forms of social cognition. Are constituted by the extended cultural cognitive system. Are orchestrated by cultural practices (including in the lab). Are embodied skills (not mechanisms). Cannot be superimposed onto brain networks (without cutting the pathways in the wrong places).

65 Reconstruc&ng and deconstruc&ng the self: culturally orchestrated cogni&ve skills in medita&on prac&ce

66 Conclusion What I am NOT saying: We need to study the wider context of the primary mental processes that make up contemplative practices.

67 Conclusion What I am NOT saying: We need to study the wider context of the primary mental processes that make up contemplative practices. This draws the boundaries in the same old way while adding a bit of context.

68 Conclusion What I am saying: We re in danger of cutting the pathways of connectivity in the wrong places and we need to redraw the lines according to cognitive ecological principles.

69 Conclusion What I am saying: We re in danger of cutting the pathways of connectivity in the wrong places and we need to redraw the lines according to cognitive ecological principles. Context is constitutive the embodied sociocultural context isn t outside of the primary cognitive phenomena; it s part of them.

70 Reframe cognitive phenomena in terms of cognitive ecosystems. Concretely

71 Concretely Every basic science experiment on contemplative practice should have a cognitive anthropologist as part of the team.

72 Concretely Every basic science experiment on contemplative practice should have a lab life ethnographer as part of the team.

73 Concretely Every scientific paper should have a reflexive treatment of the experimental investigation as a cultural practice that contributes to constituting the phenomena being studied.

74 It takes two to know one. Gregory Bateson

75 寒山 (Hánshān) and 拾得 (Shídé) (ca. 9 th century)