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Hi Chuck, You seem to be not getting the core part of the argument. Perhaps I'm not being clear enough. Jihan understands it without problem. I'll try again. There are two main positions: 1. Cognitive theory that assumes the individual self (with all its agency, decision making, responsibility etc) is the sense of self that we subjectively feel as 'I' in our minds. It is the 'I' that appears to us to be the whole of ourself when we are thinking or self-consciously feeling our emotions. Most theories of cognition and psychology operate from this assumption. From this point of view, the language refers and focuses only on the person as seen from within that person. An example fo this (using your quote) is "When they look out at the world and think, 'What should I do now?' they see dozens of choices but lack immediate internal feelings of like and dislike. They must examine the pros and cons of every choice with their reasoning but in the absence of feeling they see little reason to pick one over the other.". This kind of focus is exemplified in any theory of human action that is interested in 'Intentional Thought'. The above 'thought-centred position on self is assumed in your explanation of the role of feelings on intentional thought. Neurological findings from cognitive-neuroscience was originally interpreted from this perspective. Increasingly the literature is moving towards the interpretation of evidence in 2. below. Damasio's work in the 1990s can be seen as part of that 'self as subjective experience and thought' tradition in which the new direction of the position in 2. 2. Human activity can also be viewed ethologically. We are animals. The neurological explanation of human activity appears to fit better with an explanation of human activity that centres on the detail of the internal processes of the human organism in which thought is a secondary phenomena along with the human subjective sense of self. From this perspective, humans respond to their situations and all of this is dictated almost completely by processes other than thought and the mind. More, this process also dictates the thoughts that are thunked, the feelings that are felt, and the decisions that are apparently made by the subjectively perceives self. From this point of view, the self-perception that we have an individual self as we perceive it in thoughts and feelings, and that we have decision making agency can best be viewed as an illusion. The decisions happen, the activities occur, the interactions with the world occur. It is the body activities independent of thought that undertake them and in addition run the mental film show that we call sense of self and feeling. These developments in theory are occurring over a broad spectrum starting with Lorenz' /Darwin's fixed action patterns and following to more recent developments in evolutionary biology and evolutionary epistemology. All of these are seen to align with the shift in reinterpreting the concept of 'executive function' to the point where it no longer exists in that sense, and instead is a 'response from the whole body to external events - independent of cognition. An example is Banich's Cascade of control theory (e.g. http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/Classes/Readings/BanichExecFun c09.pdf) . At this stage, Banich is simply hanging onto the term - it no longer means executive function but he hasn't got to the point of realising that what he is writing means there is no sense of agency of the self that the idea of executive function depends. From this second position on interpreting neuro-science, there is no homunculus in any form, including the executive function. There is no need. For example, do trees or roses need an executive function to interact with the world? Design theorists and researchers have struggled in this area because of an assumption that executive function is needed in some form. We have the power to mentally model and perceive, and accumulate perceptions. These provide input to human bodies responses to the world. To date, these behviours have been interpreted via a world view (position 1.) that has used 'subjective sense of self' as the starting point for explanation and theory. Shifting that starting point to the 'whole body responding to its environment' (position 2.) reveals different forms of explanation about those areas that designers and design theoriest s struggle (creativity, intuition, interaction with objects, usability etc etc). My observation is this second approach offers better explanations and better design theories. *** More, it (position 2.) offers a theoretically definitive causal path between design research and design theories for outcomes that does not appear to be available to position 1. (or rather, it appears no one has found one yet) Years ago doing some exploration of how many parallel trains of thought could be perceived (about 12), a question that became obvious was 'How were these parallel thoughts being devised and chosen?' Something was doing them and it wasn't happening 'in thought' . Another set of tests was around undecided movement e.g gibberish, spontaneous dance, improv, spontaneous jazz, martial arts responses etc. Another set was around whether action stops if thinking stops. One finding was that sense of self disappears if thinking stops. The conclusion of all these experiments align with theory outcomes from ethology , evolutionary cognition, evolutionary biology and evolutionary epistemology. An example of how this works is in an earlier exchange between Ken and myself. My body has a relatively automatic response to critically explore and remake theory models to fit evidence. It did so responding to Ken's statements about neuroscience and Project UMA. Ken's body's response was to be grumpy and criticise my ' self in thought'. Thinking, Ken knows I did some pretty full time exploration of the application of neuro-science to theories of design cognition for 10 years or so and he knows that I publish only a small amount of what I get involved in. An obvious response from Ken to me might have been to ask whether I felt what I was seeing would be a problem for Project UMA. Ken's body though triggered a personal and emotional critical attack. Which is running the show? The body or the mind? Best wishes, Terry == Dr Terence Love [log in to unmask] +61 (0)4 3497 5848 == -----Original Message----- From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Charles Burnette Sent: Thursday, 29 November 2012 1:00 AM To: Dr Terence Love Subject: Re: The Love-Friedman Conversation Well, I can't resist this one! On Nov 26, 2012, at 7:32 PM, Terence Love wrote: > One of the essential differences that new findings of neuroscience > bring is there is no need for an executive function in explaining > phenomena or human action, thought and feelings. > > The idea that an executive function is needed is a throwback to the > subjectivist view of phenomenology based on the reification of the > idea there is a 'me' that is doing the looking. Ditto the idea of > looking through the window to see if one is there. Terry, You need to cite the neuroscience you refer to, or, at least, argue your opinion more convincingly. An executive function (I call it Intentional Thought) exists in our understanding of mind as soon as we acknowledge that the brain/mind makes decisions as it processes neurally coded information (references, organizes, resolves, compresses, forgets, defers, etc.) The "self" is no homonucleus doing this decision making, it is the brain doing what it does. In my view "self" is a person focused accumulation of interpreted experience in that person's memory. "Self" knowledge is applied (through Reflective thought) to "subjectively" interpret experienced phenomena. It also informs that nasty old executive function, intentional thought, about preferences, habits of mind and any other cumulative expressions of self thought relevant to the focus and conduct of thought. Interpretation is subjective, phenomena are actually experienced (unless just talked about or recalled subjectively) Even "objective" measurements of phenomena are subjectively interpreted. That is why scientists and engineers try so hard to assure replication of outcomes. If you continue to believe that no such a thing as executive function is needed to explain" human action, thought and feelings" why not chew on this: Although rational thought remains possible after damage to the prefrontal cortex where feelings are processed, people who suffer such damage find themselves unable to set goals and make the decisions that characterize intentional thought. "When they look out at the world and think, 'What should I do now?' they see dozens of choices but lack immediate internal feelings of like and dislike. They must examine the pros and cons of every choice with their reasoning but in the absence of feeling they see little reason to pick one over the other." Haidt, Jonathan 2006: The Happiness Hypothesis, New York, Basic Books p12 Rational thought isn't the only executive function. Feelings about what to think or do are essential to Intentional thought, the executive mode that directs and manages purposeful thought regarding a focal situation. Or so I believe, Chuck Charles Burnette, PhD [log in to unmask] ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------