E41: The offloaded brain, part 1: behavior

Oddly Influenced

Embodied or Ecological Cognition is an offshoot of cognitive science that rejects or minimizes one of its axioms: that the computer is a good analogy for the brain. That is, that the brain receives inputs from the senses; computes with that input as well as with goals, plans, and stored representations of the world; issues instructions to the body; and GOTO PERCEPTION. The offshoot gives a larger causal role to the environment and the body, and a lesser role to the brain. Why store instructions in the brain if the arrangement of body-in-environment can be used to make it automatic?

This episode contains explanations of fairly unintelligent behavior. Using them, I fancifully extract five design rules that a designer-of-animals might have used. In the next episode, I'll apply those rules to workplace and process design. In the final episode, I'll address what the offshoot has to say about more intelligent behavior.

Sources

• Louise Barrett, Beyond the Brain: How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds, 2011
• Anthony Chemero, Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, 2011
• Andy Clark, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, 1997

Mentioned or relevant

• Passive Walking Robot Propelled By Its Own Weight (Youtube video)
• Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, 1984
• Guy Steele, "How to Think About Parallel Programming – Not!", Strange Loop 2010. The first 26 minutes describe programs he wrote in the early 1970s.
• Ed Nather, "The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer", 1983. (I incorrectly called this "the story of Ed" in the episode.)
• Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, 2022
• Andrew D. Wilson, "Prospective Control I: The Outfielder Problem" (blog post), 2011

Credits

The picture of a diving gannet is from the Busy Brains at Sea blog, and is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Deed.