Mike Beaton
University of the Basque Country, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Logic and Philosophy of Science, IAS Research Group
University of Sussex, School of Engineering and Informatics, Centre for Research in Cognitive Science, Visiting Research Fellow
I am currently a group member of the IAS Research Group in the Department of Logic and the Philosophy of Science, in the UPV/EHU (University of the Basque Country). I am also a Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Engineering and Informatics at the University of Sussex, affiliated to the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science.
I have just completed a paper (under review) arguing that the sensorimotor theory of perception and (a broadly McDowellian) direct realism are very well-matched. I am also currently wondering if there is anything new to say about the problems with the 'justified true belief' analysis of knowledge.
Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the European FP7 eSMCs project (comprising six labs in Germany, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). The aim of the project was to extend Noë and O'Regan's Sensori-Motor Contingency theory, both philosophically and practically (e.g. in terms of robot architecture and therapeutic applications).
Immediately after completing my thesis, I worked as a postdoc for Professor Igor Aleksander of Imperial College London on an externalist critique of Tononi's Information Integration Theory of Consciousness. This project enabled me to look in more detail both at Integrated Information theory, and at fundamental issues in the interpretation of probability theory.
In 2009 I was awarded my DPhil (PhD) in the Philosophy of Cognitive Science by the University of Sussex. My external examiner was the philosopher Alva Noë, and my internal examiner was the psychologist Zoltan Dienes.
My thesis itself defended the claim that qualia (phenomenal feels; ‘what it is like’) can be successfully naturalised as subjective, introspectible aspects of mind, with mind analysed in terms of embodied practical rationality.
My doctoral work had three major strands of influence.
The first was Alva Noë and J. Kevin O'Regan's sensorimotor analysis of the nature of perception. I was exposed to this work so early in my PhD research that it is present more as background than as foreground. In more recent work, I'm am trying to bring the connections more to the foreground. But I hope and think that everything I say, including my strong emphasis on rationality, and my endorsement of a version of direct realism, is compatible with the sensorimotor approach.
More overtly present in my thesis, because discovered later on, are McDowell’s conceptualism and direct realism, and Shoemaker’s seminal work on the nature of introspection (though I believe - and argue in my thesis - that Shoemaker’s current and prior accounts of qualia cannot be accepted, and indeed are not truly compatible with his own account of introspection).
I have just completed a paper (under review) arguing that the sensorimotor theory of perception and (a broadly McDowellian) direct realism are very well-matched. I am also currently wondering if there is anything new to say about the problems with the 'justified true belief' analysis of knowledge.
Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the European FP7 eSMCs project (comprising six labs in Germany, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). The aim of the project was to extend Noë and O'Regan's Sensori-Motor Contingency theory, both philosophically and practically (e.g. in terms of robot architecture and therapeutic applications).
Immediately after completing my thesis, I worked as a postdoc for Professor Igor Aleksander of Imperial College London on an externalist critique of Tononi's Information Integration Theory of Consciousness. This project enabled me to look in more detail both at Integrated Information theory, and at fundamental issues in the interpretation of probability theory.
In 2009 I was awarded my DPhil (PhD) in the Philosophy of Cognitive Science by the University of Sussex. My external examiner was the philosopher Alva Noë, and my internal examiner was the psychologist Zoltan Dienes.
My thesis itself defended the claim that qualia (phenomenal feels; ‘what it is like’) can be successfully naturalised as subjective, introspectible aspects of mind, with mind analysed in terms of embodied practical rationality.
My doctoral work had three major strands of influence.
The first was Alva Noë and J. Kevin O'Regan's sensorimotor analysis of the nature of perception. I was exposed to this work so early in my PhD research that it is present more as background than as foreground. In more recent work, I'm am trying to bring the connections more to the foreground. But I hope and think that everything I say, including my strong emphasis on rationality, and my endorsement of a version of direct realism, is compatible with the sensorimotor approach.
More overtly present in my thesis, because discovered later on, are McDowell’s conceptualism and direct realism, and Shoemaker’s seminal work on the nature of introspection (though I believe - and argue in my thesis - that Shoemaker’s current and prior accounts of qualia cannot be accepted, and indeed are not truly compatible with his own account of introspection).
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Papers by Mike Beaton
perception, how can we learn to perceive something new, something we do not yet
understand? According to the sensorimotor approach, perception involves mastery of
regular sensorimotor co-variations that depend on the agent and the environment, also
known as the “laws” of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs). In this sense, perception
involves enacting relevant sensorimotor skills in each situation. It is important for this
proposal that such skills can be learned and refined with experience and yet up to this
date, the sensorimotor approach has had no explicit theory of perceptual learning. The
situation is made more complex if we acknowledge the open-ended nature of human
learning. In this paper we propose Piaget’s theory of equilibration as a potential candidate
to fulfill this role. This theory highlights the importance of intrinsic sensorimotor norms,
in terms of the closure of sensorimotor schemes. It also explains how the equilibration of
a sensorimotor organization faced with novelty or breakdowns proceeds by re-shaping
pre-existing structures in coupling with dynamical regularities of the world. This way
learning to perceive is guided by the equilibration of emerging forms of skillful coping
with the world. We demonstrate the compatibility between Piaget’s theory and the
sensorimotor approach by providing a dynamical formalization of equilibration to give an
explicit micro-genetic account of sensorimotor learning and, by extension, of how we learn
to perceive. This allows us to draw important lessons in the form of general principles for
open-ended sensorimotor learning, including the need for an intrinsic normative evaluation
by the agent itself. We also explore implications of our micro-genetic account at the
personal level.
I aim to reject this internalism and defend an alternative analysis.
The paper presents a direct-realist, externalist, sensorimotor account of perceptual experience. It uses the concept of counterfactual meaningful action to defend this view against various objections.
This account of experience matches certain first-person features of experience better than an internalist account could. It is fully tractable as “normal science.”
The neuroscientific conception of brain function should change from that of internal representation or modelling to that of enabling meaningful, embodied action in ways that constitutively involve the world. Neurophenomenology should aim to match the structure of first-person experience with the structure of meaningful agent-world interactions, not with that of brain dynamics.
The sensorimotor approachshows us what external objects are, such that we may enact them, and what experience is, such that it may present us with those enacted objects.
It is time to take neurophenomenology seriously. It has proven its worth, and it is ripe with the potential for further immediate, successful applications.
Varela’s key aim was to develop a non-dualising approach to the science of consciousness. The papers in this special issue look at the philosophical and practical details of successfully putting such an approach
into practice.
perception, how can we learn to perceive something new, something we do not yet
understand? According to the sensorimotor approach, perception involves mastery of
regular sensorimotor co-variations that depend on the agent and the environment, also
known as the “laws” of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs). In this sense, perception
involves enacting relevant sensorimotor skills in each situation. It is important for this
proposal that such skills can be learned and refined with experience and yet up to this
date, the sensorimotor approach has had no explicit theory of perceptual learning. The
situation is made more complex if we acknowledge the open-ended nature of human
learning. In this paper we propose Piaget’s theory of equilibration as a potential candidate
to fulfill this role. This theory highlights the importance of intrinsic sensorimotor norms,
in terms of the closure of sensorimotor schemes. It also explains how the equilibration of
a sensorimotor organization faced with novelty or breakdowns proceeds by re-shaping
pre-existing structures in coupling with dynamical regularities of the world. This way
learning to perceive is guided by the equilibration of emerging forms of skillful coping
with the world. We demonstrate the compatibility between Piaget’s theory and the
sensorimotor approach by providing a dynamical formalization of equilibration to give an
explicit micro-genetic account of sensorimotor learning and, by extension, of how we learn
to perceive. This allows us to draw important lessons in the form of general principles for
open-ended sensorimotor learning, including the need for an intrinsic normative evaluation
by the agent itself. We also explore implications of our micro-genetic account at the
personal level.
I aim to reject this internalism and defend an alternative analysis.
The paper presents a direct-realist, externalist, sensorimotor account of perceptual experience. It uses the concept of counterfactual meaningful action to defend this view against various objections.
This account of experience matches certain first-person features of experience better than an internalist account could. It is fully tractable as “normal science.”
The neuroscientific conception of brain function should change from that of internal representation or modelling to that of enabling meaningful, embodied action in ways that constitutively involve the world. Neurophenomenology should aim to match the structure of first-person experience with the structure of meaningful agent-world interactions, not with that of brain dynamics.
The sensorimotor approachshows us what external objects are, such that we may enact them, and what experience is, such that it may present us with those enacted objects.
It is time to take neurophenomenology seriously. It has proven its worth, and it is ripe with the potential for further immediate, successful applications.
Varela’s key aim was to develop a non-dualising approach to the science of consciousness. The papers in this special issue look at the philosophical and practical details of successfully putting such an approach
into practice.