Mindware Ch. 7: "Dynamics"

Theme of the reading
Cognitive Science has traditionally attempted to understand cognitive processes by describing "underlying mechanisms" that produce the observed regularities in cognitive behavior. When we shift from a notion of cognition as a logical phenomenon to the idea that cognition is a biological phenomenon, however, we encounter systems in which explanations based on mechanisms may be too complex to formulate or understand. This is especially the case when we examine systems that are highly complex and rich in emergent phenomena. An alternative strategy is to try to describe the regularities in the dynamical behavior of the system without worrying about mechanisms. Dynamical systems theory provides a number of tools for providing such descriptions. In this chapter, Andy Clark explores the motivations for using dynamical systems theory descriptions of cognitive and especially motor processes. He shows how these tools may be useful for low-level systems, but he wonders about whether they can be scaled up to account for high-level cognition.

Getting ready to read
Definitions:

Reading
Orienting questions and issues to keep in mind:

What are the four key features of dynamical systems descriptions (pg 121)
What ideas does the "radical embodied cognition thesis" include?
What is the "Big Issue" that is attached to the idea of Cognitive Incrementalism?