Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T02:12:03.039Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The brain is not an isolated “black box,” nor is its goal to become one

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2013

Tom Froese
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación, Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, A.P. 20-726, 01000 México D.F., México. [email protected]://froese.wordpress.com Ikegami Laboratory, Department of General Systems Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan. [email protected]://sacral.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/
Takashi Ikegami
Affiliation:
Ikegami Laboratory, Department of General Systems Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan. [email protected]://sacral.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

Abstract

In important ways, Clark's “hierarchical prediction machine” (HPM) approach parallels the research agenda we have been pursuing. Nevertheless, we remain unconvinced that the HPM offers the best clue yet to the shape of a unified science of mind and action. The apparent convergence of research interests is offset by a profound divergence of theoretical starting points and ideal goals.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashby, W. R. (1940) Adaptiveness and equilibrium. The British Journal of Psychiatry 86:478–83.Google Scholar
Beer, R. D. (2000) Dynamical approaches to cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(3):9199.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Di Paolo, E. A. (2009) Extended life. Topoi 28(1):921.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Paolo, E. A., Rohde, M. & De Jaegher, H. (2010) Horizons for the enactive mind: Values, social interaction, and play. In: Enaction: Toward a new paradigm for cognitive science, ed. Stewart, J., Gapenne, O. & Di Paolo, E. A., pp. 3387. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friston, K. (2009) The free-energy principle: A rough guide to the brain? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13(7):293301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friston, K. J. (2010) The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11(2):127–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friston, K. & Stephan, K. (2007) Free energy and the brain. Synthese 159(3):417–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Froese, T. & Di Paolo, E. A. (2011) The enactive approach: Theoretical sketches from cell to society. Pragmatics and Cognition 19(1):136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Froese, T. & Stewart, J. (2010) Life after Ashby: Ultrastability and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality. Cybernetics and Human Knowing 17(4):83106.Google Scholar
Froese, T. & Ziemke, T. (2009) Enactive artificial intelligence: Investigating the systemic organization of life and mind. Artificial Intelligence 173(3–4):366500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gershman, S. J. & Daw, N. D. (2012) Perception, action and utility: The tangled skein. In: Principles of brain dynamics: Global state interactions, ed. Rabinovich, M. I., Friston, K. J. & Varona, P., pp. 293312. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ikegami, T. (2007) Simulating active perception and mental imagery with embodied chaotic itinerancy. Journal of Consciousness Studies 14(7):111–25.Google Scholar
Noë, A. (2004) Action in perception. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Noë, A. (2009) Out of our heads: Why you are not your brain, and other lessons from the biology of consciousness. Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Varela, F. J. (1999) The specious present: A neurophenomenology of time consciousness. In: Naturalizing phenomenology: Issues in contemporary phenomenology and cognitive science, ed. Petitot, J., Varela, F. J., Pachoud, B. & Roy, J.-M., pp. 266317. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Varela, F. J., Lachaux, J.-P., Rodriguez, E. & Martinerie, J. (2001) The brainweb: Phase synchronization and large-scale integration. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2:229–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed