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Breaking explanatory boundaries: flexible borders and plastic minds

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Abstract

In this paper, we offer reasons to justify the explanatory credentials of dynamical modeling in the context of the metaplasticity thesis, located within a larger grouping of views known as 4E Cognition. Our focus is on showing that dynamicism is consistent with interventionism, and therefore with a difference-making account at the scale of system topologies that makes sui generis explanatory differences to the overall behavior of a cognitive system. In so doing, we provide a general overview of the interventionist approach. We then argue that recent mechanistic attempts at reducing dynamical modeling to a merely descriptive enterprise fail given that the explanatory standard in dynamical modeling can be shown to rest on interventionism. We conclude that dynamical modeling captures features of nested and developmentally plastic cognitive systems that cannot be explained by appeal to underlying mechanisms alone.

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Notes

  1. We note only to set it aside that the embedded view does not, strictly speaking, belong to this group of views given that the embedded view has been (in our view, at least) convincingly argued to be mutually exclusive to embodied, extended and enactive views (Rupert 2009). Since this is a minor issue and does not impact on the argument of this paper, we shall not comment on it any further.

  2. Note that if the metaplasticity thesis is correct, then the same holds for cognitive systems with a purely neural realisation base. For an excellent treatment of the continuous-time, complex and emergent nature of cognition – both from an extended and a neural perspective – see Malafouris (2010) and Spivey (2007).

  3. Woodward provides the following definitions of variables and values, respectively. He says: “variables are properties or magnitudes that, as the name implies, are capable of taking more than one value. Values (being red, having a mass of 1o kilograms) stand to variables (color, mass) in the relationship of determinates to determinables. Values of variables are always possessed by or instantiated in particular individuals or units, as when a particular table has a mass of 10 kg.” (2003, p. 39) One could also include to this list the particular values of a particle such as it spin ratio, momentum, polarization, and so on. Or, in systems neuroscience, for example, topological attributes of evolving graphs, time-varying aspects of global brain networks, etc.

  4. There are further conditions to be met such as the requirement that an intervention must be an ideal intervention.We leave such additional conditions aside in the rest of this paper.

  5. Clark (2017) makes this observation in the context of a different debate. We use it here because it highlights the point that we want to capture; namely, the manifold nature of systems and their boundaries.

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Acknowledgements

Kirchhoff’s work was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project “Minds in Skilled Performance” (DP170102987), a John Templeton Foundation grant “Probabilitizing Consciousness: Implications and New Directions”, and by a John Templeton Foundation Academic Cross-Training Fellowship (ID#60708). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. Thanks to Lambros Malafouris for inviting us to take part in this special issue and to two anonymous reviewers for insightful comments.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

    Michael D. Kirchhoff & Russell Meyer

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  1. Michael D. Kirchhoff
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Correspondence to Michael D. Kirchhoff.

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Kirchhoff, M.D., Meyer, R. Breaking explanatory boundaries: flexible borders and plastic minds. Phenom Cogn Sci 18, 185–204 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-017-9536-9

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