Cartographies of the mind: Generalization and relevance in cognitive landscapes

Authors

  • Sergio Rodríguez Gómez Departamento de Humanidades, Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Carrera 4 # 22–61, Bogotá, Colombia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12697/SSS.2019.47.3-4.02

Keywords:

relevance, categorization, generalization, cognitive landscape, semiotic scaffolding, neurodynamics, index

Abstract

The problem of relevance, at individual agent scale – or how we decide what is adequate for our interpretation of the signs we encounter in the world – is a question that keeps reappearing in semiotics and other disciplines concerned with meaning. In this article I propose an approximation on relevance that conceives meaning as a trajectory across a cognitive landscape. Unlike conventional accounts on relevance, which presuppose mental processes built on feature-based representations, my proposal suggests conceiving cognition as a fluid and emergent field of attractors basins that become specified and modified when experiences appear, and conceiving meaning as a trajectory across the cognitive field. Consequently, I suggest that when cognitive landscapes better fit world experience, agents’ categorizations will be more relevant. My proposal is mainly supported by two approaches: the enactivist notion of structural coupling and the theories of dynamic neural populations of Walter Freeman III.

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Author Biography

Sergio Rodríguez Gómez, Departamento de Humanidades, Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Carrera 4 # 22–61, Bogotá, Colombia

 

 

 

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Published

2019-12-31

How to Cite

Rodríguez Gómez, S. (2019). Cartographies of the mind: Generalization and relevance in cognitive landscapes. Sign Systems Studies, 47(3/4), 382–399. https://doi.org/10.12697/SSS.2019.47.3-4.02

Issue

Section

Articles