Department of Philosophy, Elizabethtown College, USA.
Top Cogn Sci. 2012 Jan;4(1):35-50. doi: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2011.01168.x. Epub 2011 Nov 10.
The complex systems approach to cognitive science invites a new understanding of extended cognitive systems. According to this understanding, extended cognitive systems are heterogenous, composed of brain, body, and niche, non-linearly coupled to one another. This view of cognitive systems, as non-linearly coupled brain-body-niche systems, promises conceptual and methodological advances. In this article we focus on two of these. First, the fundamental interdependence among brain, body, and niche makes it possible to explain extended cognition without invoking representations or computation. Second, cognition and conscious experience can be understood as a single phenomenon, eliminating fruitless philosophical discussion of qualia and the so-called hard problem of consciousness. What we call "extended phenomenological-cognitive systems" are relational and dynamical entities, with interactions among heterogeneous parts at multiple spatial and temporal scales.
复杂系统方法对认知科学的邀请了一个新的理解扩展认知系统。根据这一理解，扩展认知系统是异构的，由大脑、身体和小生境组成，彼此非线性地耦合。这种认知系统的观点，作为非线性耦合的大脑-身体-小生境系统，有望在概念和方法上取得进展。在本文中，我们关注其中的两个。首先，大脑、身体和小生境之间的基本相互依存关系使得在不引用表示或计算的情况下解释扩展认知成为可能。其次，认知和意识体验可以被理解为一个单一的现象，消除了关于质和所谓的意识的“硬问题”的毫无结果的哲学讨论。我们所谓的“扩展现象学-认知系统”是关系和动态实体，在多个时空尺度上具有异构部分之间的相互作用。
