Extending our View of Cognition



Matjaž Potrč

The University of Ljubljana

Department of Philosophy

Aškerčeva 2

SLO-1000 Ljubljana; Slovenia



E-mail: matjaz.potrc@guest.arnes.si

Matjaz.potrc@uni-lj.si











Extending our View of Cognition



Matjaž Potrč

The University of Ljubljana

Department of Philosophy

Aškerčeva 2

SLO-1000 Ljubljana; Slovenia



E-mail: matjaz.potrc@guest.arnes.si

Matjaz.potrc@uni-lj.si

Matjaž Potrč



Abstract

A simplified compositional account of language is presented first. According to this account, it is sufficient for grasping of language to first provide semantic grasping of single elements and principles of syntactic rules governing their appropriate composition. Some examples of data typically available to human cognizers are presented then, such as metaphor and joke. It is argued that it is impossible to account for these data by the use of simplified account. Metaphor and joke obviously require some background cognitive information, additional to the compositional information, in order to be effective. Examples of garbled perceptual input and of partial and to be reconstructed perceptual data which cognizers master without difficulty show that the extended cognitive system under discussion is not limited to the linguistic, but presents a much wider phenomenon. Discussed cases turn out to be illustrations of morphological content, which was proposed in the generic model of dynamical cognition. Morphological content appears at the middle level of the dynamical system's description, and presents a generalization of the classical computational model's algorithmically conceived description. Morphological content forms context, at the middle mathematical level of description, of total cognitive states realized as points at the multi dimensional landscape of possible cognitive developments. Efficacy of morphological content, different to both occurrent and dispositional realization, is substantial in understanding the majority of data in a rich cognitive environment. Morphological content is a way of possessing intentional information which is accommodated in processing without being explicitly represented. In connectionist terms, this would be information in the weights, and not either the actual activation of occurrent patterns, or a network's dispositions to generate some kind of intentional tokens. Although this information is neither explicit nor occurrent, it can be accounted for as effective if exceptionless classical rules are substituted by cognitive dynamical forces, preserving the requirements of productivity and systematicity in a nonclassical setting.