Nature Cognition And System I

usually called the classical (scientific) attitude (according to which there is a dichotomy between nature and cognition) and suggestions for better understanding of their mutual encroach ment. The authors belong more or less to the non-standard systems science, the third order cybernetics, or find themselves already beyond the third stage in the history of artificial intelli 1 gence ). They take the inescapability of the mutual implication of the description of nature and that of cognition seriously. Fourth ly, closely linking up with the previous, it emphatically calls attention to the forgotten microscopic dimension of science. If I am not mistaken we have at this moment reached the historic stage where the tremendous renascence of the mechanistic-structural paradigm, remarkably enough, calls for its functional-dynamic counterparts. The volume strives to respond to this secret trend in various disciplines and to put into words that which is tacitly alive in the minds of the ever increasing number of people in this systemsage. The investigation on the intertwinement of nature and cognition finds itself in this very paradoxical niche structured by those two opposite developments.

Numerous scholars, in particular anthropologists, historians, economists, linguists, and biologists, have, over the last few years, studied forms of knowledge and use of nature, and of the ways nature can be protected and conserved. Some of the most prominent scholars have come together in this volume to reflect on what has been achieved so far, to compare the work carried out in the past, to discuss the problems that have emerged from different research projects, and to map out the way forward.

is both a player and a spectator, is explained here illuminatingly. With regard to logical ambiguities and paradoxes, which may show up in all these topics, he, like Locker, is of the opinion that, philosophically speaking all apory of a lower level have to be accepted an a higher level of thinking. After the above expositions of a more general purport we turn now to two contributions which are particularly focused on Bohr's concept of complementarity. First is the article of Hilgevoord who briefly and non-technically describes a short curriculum vitae of the concept beginning with Planck through Bohr to Heisenberg and Schrodinger. Included in this short story, of course, is the famous wave-particle duality and the paradox inherent in it many physicists are still saddled with. How this paradox was solved is explained here simply and clearly: first, generally by quantum mechanics where the disturbance theory of measurement was supposed to be of some relevance, and secondly, where this theory is further refmed leading to Bohr's conclusion of the essential unsolvability, and accordingly the completeness, of the statistical element of quantum mechanics. The reading of this short article may arouse questions and surmises whether complementarity has been ruminated by Bohr to tame the law of excluded middle dividing the well-defined content of position measurement from that of momentum measurement, just to mention one. Whatever it may be the idea of complementarity betrays the perplexity of the observing system in dealing with nature's complexity.

is both a player and a spectator, is explained here illuminatingly. With regard to logical ambiguities and paradoxes, which may show up in all these topics, he, like Locker, is of the opinion that, philosophically speaking all apory of a lower level have to be accepted an a higher level of thinking. After the above expositions of a more general purport we turn now to two contributions which are particularly focused on Bohr's concept of complementarity. First is the article of Hilgevoord who briefly and non-technically describes a short curriculum vitae of the concept beginning with Planck through Bohr to Heisenberg and Schrodinger. Included in this short story, of course, is the famous wave-particle duality and the paradox inherent in it many physicists are still saddled with. How this paradox was solved is explained here simply and clearly: first, generally by quantum mechanics where the disturbance theory of measurement was supposed to be of some relevance, and secondly, where this theory is further refmed leading to Bohr's conclusion of the essential unsolvability, and accordingly the completeness, of the statistical element of quantum mechanics. The reading of this short article may arouse questions and surmises whether complementarity has been ruminated by Bohr to tame the law of excluded middle dividing the well-defined content of position measurement from that of momentum measurement, just to mention one. Whatever it may be the idea of complementarity betrays the perplexity of the observing system in dealing with nature's complexity.

This book is the first to introduce the study of cognition in terms of the major conceptual themes that underlie virtually all the substantive topics.

Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild." Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system. Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations. A Bradford Book