Surrealism, Chance and the Extended Mind

2020 ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Kerry Watson
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Objective Chance ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Exquisite Corpse ◽  
Automatic Drawing ◽  
Unconscious Mind ◽  
Artistic Skill ◽  
Unconscious State

This chapter discusses how the Surrealists engaged with techniques like automatic drawing, the exquisite corpse, collage, frottage and decalcomania, and how this might be interpreted in the context of theories of distributed cognition, enactivism, embodiment, and the extended mind. The Surrealists’ use of ‘objective chance’ was driven by a belief in the existence of an unconscious state of mind which could only be accessed obliquely, by using techniques which bypassed both artistic skill and conscious thought. ‘Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin?’. This question is posed by Clark and Chalmers (1998) as an introduction to the concept of the extended mind, but it could just as well be the very question the Surrealists were trying to address in their search for a universal truth, the key to which they believed to be the unconscious mind as defined by Freud.

Directionality and Duration in Distributed Consciousness: Modernist Perspectives on Photographic Objectivity

2020 ◽  
pp. 134-151
Author(s):  
Adam Lively
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Photographic Image ◽  
Continuous Evolution ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Unstable Dynamics

This essay begins by exploring how the “immersive objectivity” of the photographic image highlighted by the Surrealists tends to collapse distinctions between what is internal and external to consciousness. It goes on to show how, in the photography-incorporating fictions of Georges Rodenbach and W.G. Sebald, perceptual immersion in the photograph engenders a “dysfunctional” state of melancholic stasis in the viewer, problematizing assumptions about agency common in many contemporary accounts of distributed cognition. It concludes by arguing that the internalization of the photographic image by consciousness, as exemplified in these modernist responses to photography, with their topologically unstable dynamics as between that which is “inside” and “outside” consciousness, strikingly demonstrate the relevance to contemporary debates over the “extended mind” of Bergson’s argument that the mind should be conceived not in spatial but in durational terms, as a continuous evolution of heterogeneous states.

Distributed Cognition and Women Writers’ Representation of Theatre in Eighteenth-Century England: ‘Thoroughly to unfold the labyrinths of the human mind’

2019 ◽  
pp. 170-186
Author(s):  
Ros Ballaster
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Sarah Fielding ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cognitive Experience ◽  
The Mind

Readers in the mid-eighteenth century were increasingly invited to translate their knowledge about the social extension of mind learned in the experience of theatre to ‘new’ prose forms of the periodical and the novel. Women writers in these forms found opportunity to present women as cognitive agents rather than affective vehicles. Four works by women serve to illustrate this case: Eliza Haywood’s The Dramatic Historiographer (1735), Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier’s The Cry: a new dramatic fable (1754), Charlotte Lennox’s Shakespeare Illustrated (1753-4), and Frances Brooke’s The Old Maid (1755-6). These printed prose works invoke memories of performance – the co-presence of the real bodies of audience and actors. But they often do so to claim the superior cognitive experience of the reader’s engagement through print with a fictional persona in the ‘mind’. The prose work is imagined as a repository of socially extended mind for its audience, an opportunity not only to recreate the experience of communal consumption of the artwork which theatre affords, but also to provide a more sophisticated form of narrative scaffolding. Distance and reflection are enabled by the absence of the performer’s body and the judicious authority of a framing narrator.

Hearing Voices: The Extended Mind in Evelyn Waugh's The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-224
Author(s):  
Yuexi Liu
Keyword(s):  
Extended Mind ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Hearing Voices ◽  
Comic Novel ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
The Mind ◽  
External Signals ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

Waugh's last comic novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957) takes ‘exterior modernism’ to a new height, no longer avoiding interiority – as in his interwar fiction – but exteriorising the interior through dissociation. ‘The Box’, to which the writer-protagonist attributes the source of the tormenting voices, may well be his own mind, an extended – albeit unhealthy – mind that works as a radio: he transmits his thoughts and then receives them as external signals in order to communicate with them. Pinfold's auditory hallucinations are caused by the breakdown of communication. Interestingly, writing is also a dissociative activity. Concerned with the writer's block, the novel reflects on the creative process and illuminates the relationship between madness and creativity. If dissociation, or the splitting of the mind, is a defence against trauma, the traumatic experience Pinfold attempts to suppress is the Second World War. The unusual state of mind accentuates the contingency of Waugh's radio writing; his preferred medium is cinema.

scholarly journals Agency, Responsibility, Selves, and the Mechanical Mind

Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Fiorella Battaglia
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Human Machine Interaction ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
Area Of Concern ◽  
Third Person Perspective ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Brain

Moral issues arise not only when neural technology directly influences and affects people’s lives, but also when the impact of its interventions indirectly conceptualizes the mind in new, and unexpected ways. It is the case that theories of consciousness, theories of subjectivity, and third person perspective on the brain provide rival perspectives addressing the mind. Through a review of these three main approaches to the mind, and particularly as applied to an “extended mind”, the paper identifies a major area of transformation in philosophy of action, which is understood in terms of additional epistemic devices—including a legal perspective of regulating the human–machine interaction and a personality theory of the symbiotic connection between human and machine. I argue this is a new area of concern within philosophy, which will be characterized in terms of self-objectification, which becomes “alienation” following Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology. The paper argues that intervening in the brain can affect how we conceptualize the mind and modify its predicaments.

scholarly journals Penggunaan Terapi Senam Otak Pada Anak Dengan Masalah Penurunan Konsentrasi Belajar Di Desa Rawajitu Selatan

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-250
Author(s):  
Lidya Ariyanti ◽  
Redia Indira Putrianti ◽  
Setiawati Setiawati
Keyword(s):  
Exercise Therapy ◽  
The Body ◽  
Brain Gym ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

ABSTRAK Kosentrasi merupakan keadaan pikiran atau asosiasi terkondisi yang diaktifkan oleh sensasi di dalam tubuh. Cara mengaktifkan sensasi di dalam tubuh adalah dengan membuat tubuh berada dalam keadaan yang rileks dan suasana yang menyenangkan, karena dalam keadaan yang tegang seseorang tidak akan dapat menggunakan otaknya dengan maksimal oleh karena pikiran menjadi kosong. Fenomena yang terjadi di lapangan diketahui bahwa penurunan konsentrasi belajar pada anak belum mendapatkan penanganan yang maksimal. Selama ini teknik yang digunakan memiliki kelemahan tersendiri yang tentunya tujuan dari peningkatan konsentrasi belajar belum dapat dirasakan oleh semua siswa, seharusnya teknik peningkatan konsentrasi belajar di buat lebih mudah dan efektif. Salah satunya adalah teknik Brain Gym. Tujuan setelah diberikan terapi senam otak diharapkan dapat meningkatkan konsentrasi belajar pada anak. Adapun kegiatan yang dilakukan berupa penyuluhan dan demonstrasi terapi senam otak. Terdapat peningkatan konsentrasi belajar pada anak setelah diberikan terapi senam otak di Desa Rawajitu Selatan. Dengan demikian, pemberian terapi senam otak efektif dalam meningkatkan konsentrasi belajar. Kata Kunci: Konsentrasi, Senam Otak, Peningkatan Konsentrasi Belajar  ABSTRACT Concentration is a state of mind or conditioned association that is activated by sensations in the body. How to activate sensations in the body is to make the body in a relaxed state and pleasant atmosphere, because in a tense situation a person will not be able to use his brain to the maximum because the mind becomes empty. The phenomenon that occurs in the field is known that the reduction in the concentration of learning in children has not gotten the maximum treatment. During this time the technique used has its own weaknesses which of course the purpose of increasing concentration of learning can not be felt by all students, the technique of increasing the concentration of learning should be made easier and more effective. One of them is the Brain Gym technique. The goal after being given brain exercise therapy is expected to increase the concentration of learning in children. The activities carried out in the form of counseling and demonstration of brain exercise therapy. There is an increase in the concentration of learning in children after being given brain exercise therapy at Rawajitu Selatan Village. Thus, the administration of brain exercise therapy is effective in increasing concentration of learning. Keywords: Concentration, Brain Exercise, Increased Learning Concentration

scholarly journals An Architectural Dialogue with the Eleatic Stranger

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Christian Jacob Squire
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Architectural Form ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Eleatic Stranger ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Theory Of Forms

<p>Reports throughout New Zealand have highlighted a chronic and growing problem in our urban centres – the effects of alcohol abuse and binge drinking leave our youth vulnerable and unprotected. The results can sometimes be catastrophic. Makeshift paramedic tents have recently been erected in Wellington to provide aid and retreat, but these are temporary structures and only available two nights per week. The vulnerability of New Zealand’s youth occurs not only on nights with too much alcohol, but also in response to the daily stresses brought on by contemporary urban life. New Zealand youth suicide rates are the highest out of 30 OECD nations and more than twice the OECD average (Chapman). Likewise the secularization of contemporary urban society has resulted in the loss of spiritual retreats previously found within churches and religious centres. This thesis examines the need for a permanent urban retreat for all those who are temporarily vulnerable. The thesis investigates how architectural form can provide a new approach to urban retreat by critically engaging analogous theories found in the writings of Plato and Louis Kahn. Both Plato’s theory of Forms (discussed in Plato’s “Dialogues”) and Louis Kahn’s 1961 essay “Form and Design” are centred on the idea of achieving an enlightened state of mind, freeing the mind from the physical realm. Plato’s theory of Forms posits that the universe is separated into two realms: an intelligible realm and a sensible realm. All objects that exist in the sensible realm – perceivable to us by our senses – are merely imperfect shadows of their essences or Forms. By understanding this, we can free our minds from the distractions of life which so often lead to stress and despair. Plato’s theory of Forms has many parallels with the architectural theory of Louis Kahn, as evidenced in Kahn’s “Form and Design”. Kahn describes the ‘measurable’ and ‘immeasurable’ realms, which are analogous to Plato’s sensible and intelligible realms. This thesis critically engages these analogous theories of Plato and Kahn – achieving an enlightened state of mind, freeing the mind from the physical realm – to establish how architectural form can provide urban retreat for those who are temporarily vulnerable. The site for the design research investigation is the nameless alleyway in the Courtenay Place precinct which separates Wellington’s historic St James Theatre from The Mermaid bar and brothel – a site which symbolizes the conflicting stimuli to which our urban residents are now continually exposed.</p>

The Medieval (Music) Book: A Multimodal Cognitive Artefact

2019 ◽  
pp. 190-204
Author(s):  
Kate Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Book History ◽  
The Body ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
Creative Cognition ◽  
Medieval Music ◽  
Single Opening ◽  
The Mind

This chapter considers the medieval book as an example of embedded creative cognition. Through a detailed case-study analysis of a single opening from the interpolated Livre de Fauvel, the chapter shows how the modern-day reader takes an active part in the cognitive ecology that produced the book. The argument draws on theories of distributed cognition, multimodality, book history, and the writings of Augustine of Hippo to demonstrate the close connections between the mind, the body, and the book that are both still in action and under transformation today.

Mind Tracker as a mediating technology of organization

2019 ◽  
pp. 264-274
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Przegalinska
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Organizational Context ◽  
Sleep Pattern ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Wearable Technologies ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Physical Capacities ◽  
The Brain

This chapter dwells on the mind tracker as a particular technology of organization. After introducing the concept of self-tracking and the historical development of wearable technologies, it discusses the rise of self-tracking communities focused on using wearable technologies to ‘enhance’ the mental and physical capacities of their members. Subsequently, the concept of the mind tracker is analysed. Mind trackers have worked along a bodily trajectory, looking to combine awareness of the inner workings of the brain with outward features such as facial expression in order to then recognize certain affective states. Mind trackers claim to provide information on one’s state of mind, sleep pattern, emotional spectrum, and the strength of emotions. In doing so, their producers declare that the devices can assist in improving focus, reduce stress, and increase attentiveness. They can, however, bear serious consequences in the context of privacy, transparency, and coercion, particularly in the organizational context.

scholarly journals How Far we Can Go Without Looking Under the Skin: The Bounds of Cognitive Science

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-109
Author(s):  
Łukasz Afeltowicz ◽  
Witold Wachowski
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Cognitive System ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
External Representations

Abstract The aim of this paper is to discuss the concept of distributed cognition (DCog) in the context of classic questions posed by mainstream cognitive science. We support our remarks by appealing to empirical evidence from the fields of cognitive science and ethnography. Particular attention is paid to the structure and functioning of a cognitive system, as well as its external representations. We analyze the problem of how far we can push the study of human cognition without taking into account what is underneath an individual’s skin. In light of our discussion, a distinction between DCog and the extended mind becomes important.

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