Mechanisms and Models of Mechanisms (#MechanismWeek 1)

In this first #MechanismWeek post, I will define a mechanism and briefly describe the kind of models of mechanisms you can build. I begin with various kinds of functional models (Cummins, 1975, 2001; Weiskopf, 2011). These either break capacities of systems into more coherent, easily studied sub-capacities (think of breaking memory into long term memory and short term memory as a simple example) or model them with components that may or may not be really implemented in the organism (e.g. geons, exemplars).

I will then introduce the idea of a dynamic causal mechanistic model (Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 2010) which attempt to map model components directly onto the real parts and processes of the mechanism at hand. The argument is that while functional models provide useful descriptions of mechanisms, they do not provide an explanation of that mechanism, and that only mechanistic models can explain.

Dynamic Mechanistic Explanations in Radical Embodied Cognitive Science

I'm on my way back from an enactivist/embodiment conference in Warsaw. I gave a talk (slides) in which I argued that in order to make theories of distributed/embodied cognition work, you have to have something like a theory of ecological information as the glue to hold it all together. All the talks I saw that discussed any kind of plan for distributing cognition were missing this piece and desperately needed it, so I'm hoping the talk will make people realise this tool exists and can help. Drop me a line if you would like any help!

I argued specifically that information lets us propose mechanistic explanations for distributed cognitive systems. We recently came across the philosophical literature on what mechanisms are and how to make them, and it seemed immediately clear that we should be doing this (and that we already are; see below). 

It turns out, though, that some of the radical camp (specifically Chemero and Silberstein) don't think we can have distributed cognition mechanisms, but that this is ok because we still get explanations out of our dynamical models. 

This post will briefly review what dynamic mechanistic explanation is and why they are so useful (Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 2010). I'll briefly summarise the radical opposition to mechanisms, point out their answer doesn't work, then talk an example that shows we can have radical dynamic mechanistic explanatory models without giving anything up. The trick, as ever, will be to rely heavily on information as the component part that allows cognitive mechanisms to extend out over body and environment.