I’ve never heard of 4E before, but I checked the wikipedia page and it sounds cool and like it relates to my ontology I’ve been trying to develop called “outcome influencing systems” (OISs), particularly in my observation that OISs are composed of one another and overlap with one another.
What would you suggest for someone who wants to engage more with 4E?
This paper is a solid and readable introduction to the concepts. The abstract does it more justice than I would:
The emerging viewpoint of embodied cognition holds that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body’s interactions with the world. This position actually houses a number of distinct claims, some of which are more controversial than others. This paper distinguishes and evaluates the following six claims: (1) cognition is situated; (2) cognition is time-pressured; (3) we off-load cognitive work onto the environment; (4) the environment is part of the cognitive system; (5) cognition is for action; (6) offline cognition is body based. Of these, the first three and the fifth appear to be at least partially true, and their usefulness is best evaluated in terms of the range of their applicability. The fourth claim, I argue, is deeply problematic. The sixth claim has received the least attention in the literature on embodied cognition, but it may in fact be the best documented and most powerful of the six claims.
For something more in depth, Andy Clark’s (of Surfing Uncertainty) Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension should be legible and appealing to a LW reader.
Here’s a quick TLDR:
The 4E approach views cognition as Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, and Extended, meaning that cognition is realized through a living system’s body, environment, and ongoing activity within that environment. The 4E view treats these as constitutive, not derivative qualities of cognition. The classical definitions are as follows:
• Embodied: Cognition is shaped by the physical body and sensorimotor experience.
• Embedded: Cognitive processes are inseparable from environmental interactions.
• Enacted: Cognition emerges through a history of structural coupling with the environment.
• Extended: Cognitive processes can extend beyond biological boundaries into tools and the environment.
If you’re curious, here’s a draft of my connection to alignment/subjecthood. If you come from an ML angle, it might be easier to interpret; there is indeed an epistemic move to make to understand the 4E thread.
I’ve never heard of 4E before, but I checked the wikipedia page and it sounds cool and like it relates to my ontology I’ve been trying to develop called “outcome influencing systems” (OISs), particularly in my observation that OISs are composed of one another and overlap with one another.
What would you suggest for someone who wants to engage more with 4E?
This paper is a solid and readable introduction to the concepts. The abstract does it more justice than I would:
For something more in depth, Andy Clark’s (of Surfing Uncertainty) Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension should be legible and appealing to a LW reader.
Here’s a quick TLDR:
If you’re curious, here’s a draft of my connection to alignment/subjecthood. If you come from an ML angle, it might be easier to interpret; there is indeed an epistemic move to make to understand the 4E thread.