Abstract
Biological brains are increasingly cast as 'prediction machines': evolved organs whose core operating principle is to learn about the world by trying to predict their own patterns of sensory stimulation. This, some argue, should lead us to embrace a brain-bound 'neurocentric' vision of the mind. The mind, such views suggest, consists entirely in the skull-bound activity of the predictive brain. In this paper I reject the inference from predictive brains to skull-bound minds. Predictive brains, I hope to show, can be apt participants in larger cognitive circuits. The path is thus cleared for a new synthesis in which predictive brains act as entry-points for 'extended minds', and embodiment and action contribute constitutively to knowing contact with the world.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 727-753 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Nous |
Volume | 51 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |