BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }I
receive regular posts from AAAS, Science Journal. I originally sent
the abstract below to only Mike Bergman and Gary Richmond.
This abstract seemed, to me, to be empirically relevant to our
recent discussions on Peircean semiosis - on the nature of and
differences between physical action and mental action. I am aware
that Gary R suggested a moratorium on such discussion and I don't
want to intrude on that silence, but I feel that research on these
issues in other areas might be of interest to some members of the
list.
Note - the abstract is here:..and my comments to Mike and Gary R are
below Mike's comments.
Early processing in the brain tends to simply represent external
> information from the sensory organs. However, to behave
appropriately,
> organisms need to structure this input into meaningful categories
and
> concepts. Brincat et al. recorded from multiple regions along the
> processing hierarchy in monkey brains while the animals performed
> sophisticated categorization tasks. Lower-level areas conveyed
strong
> information about sensory stimuli within their preferred domains
but
> indicated hardly any abstraction beyond the raw sensory inputs. In
> contrast, the prefrontal cortex, despite containing relatively
weak
> information overall, showed strongly abstracted, task-relevant
coding.
> Intermediate areas exhibited mixed representations, with partial
> categorical coding occurring in some domains but not others.
> Representational transformation thus happens gradually, across
multiple
> cortical processing steps, rather than in a discrete,
all-or-nothing
> fashion."
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Bergman [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sat 18/08/18 11:59 AM
Subject: Fwd: Re: the actions of mind
Hi Edwina,
This is tremendously interesting and on point. I think the authors'
observations would not surprise Peirce in the slightest. I think
this
note is worth posting to the entire list, but I will let you decide
that.
BTW, the citation you provided is for the news summary in Science.
Here
is the actual PNAS reference:
Scott L. Brincat, Markus Siegel, Constantin von Nicolai, and Earl K.
Miller, 2018. "Gradual Progression from Sensory to Task-Related
Processing in Cerebral Cortex," Proceedings of the National Academy
of
Sciences, Vol 115, No. 30, pp. E7202-E7211, 2018-07-24, DOI
10.1073/pnas.1717075115.
For a short period, one can get the full paper in PDF without charge
from here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/30/E7202.full.pdf [1]
Best, Mike
On 8/18/2018 6:35 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
> Below is the abstract from a current article in the AAAS journal
> Science. 'From the Concrete to the Abstract', Peter Stern.
>
> My point is that to confine the meaning of 'action' in Peircean
analysis
> to only the physical, i.e., to kinetic dyadic actions between two
> discrete entities, ignores the vital role of Mind within Peircean
> semiosis. It ignores the fact that the biological organism MUST
enable
> constructive relations among and with other discrete organisms.
How does
> it achieve this? Can a biological organism function within only
one type
> of action - kinetic?
>
> Mind operates only within a triadic format; that is, it functions
> outside of the dyadic directly sensed external differentiations of
> discrete entities and as Mind, searches for and focuses on the
> commonalities of multiple entities. As such, it actually develops
and
> creates representations of these commonalities, enabling a
different
> type of interaction among organisms than basic kinetic dyadic
> interactions. Mind-actions, with their resultant symbolic or
indexical
> mental images, enable and produce cohesion, collaboration,
synthesis,
> while physical-actions acknowledge differentiation and produce
diversity.
>
> These two types of action; the physical and the mental - are very
> different in their natures - but both types are required in the
> biological world.
>
> Edwina
>
--
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Links:
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[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/30/E7202.full.pdf
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