Cognition Beyond the Body: Using ABM to Explore Cultural Ecosystems

Abstract

Cognitive science increasingly strives to avoid the gratuitous assumption that minds 'represent' a world. For Anthony Chemero, a radical and embodied approach hypothesises that agent-environment interactions ground all cognitive powers. Pursuing this bold view, the paper shows how Agent-Based-Modelling (ABM) can clarify how cultural resources (e.g. sound patterns) enable flexible adaptive behavior. They grant communities modes of action that arise as bodies sensitise to coordinated behavior (e.g. how /a/ is spoken). Using ABM, Stanford and Kenny (2013) examine pronunciation shifts. They show how future changes can be prefigured in simple child-agents: this pinpoints the premature theorization that all too often bedevils the human sciences. Given significant differences in how /a/ is pronounced, many mistakenly conclude that there must be an 'underlying' (neural) mechanism. They ignore the diachronic nature of human cognition-much depends on history. Those who immediately posit inner mechanisms stumble into the e bar (∌) fallacy: they assume that an intervening variable (or system) must explain any significant difference. ABM is thus a deflationary weapon to investigate cognition beyond the brain. Pursuing the positive agenda, I echo Robert Rosen in stressing that biological encoding is creative: models can show how social norms empower diachronic systems. While based in embrained bodies, humans depend on ascribing sense to events in cognitive cultural ecosystems. As living beings, persons use artifacts, institutions and the said-they exploit impersonal resources. A major advantage of ABM is that it can be used to model how such resources enrich body-based cognition.