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Make up your mind: octopus cognition and hybrid explanations

  • S.I.: Explanations in Cognitive Science: Unification vs Pluralism
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Abstract

In order to argue that cognitive science should be more accepting of explanatory plurality, this paper presents the control of fetching movements in the octopus as an exemplar of a cognitive process that comprises distinct and non-redundant representation-using and non-representational elements. Fetching is a type of movement that representational analyses can normally account for completely—but not in the case of the octopus. Instead, a comprehensive account of octopus fetching requires the non-overlapping use of both representational and non-representational explanatory frameworks. What this need for a pluralistic or hybrid explanation implies is that cognitive science should be more open to using both representational and non-representational accounts of cognition, depending on their respective appropriateness to the type of cognition in question.

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Notes

  1. With the exception of the third right arm in male octopuses, which is modified to enable the transfer of sperm to females. This modification, known as hectocotylization, consists of a groove running along the entire arm through which sperm passes, and a spoon-like arm tip (Hanlon and Messenger 1996).

  2. Often referred to interchangeably as computational motor control. The use of the term “representational” was chosen in order to avoid theoretical baggage accompanying the term “computational.”

  3. At this point, a caveat must be issued. Such borrowing is piecemeal, and should not be interpreted as an outright commitment to or endorsement of Grush-style emulation, or to the emulation theory of representation. It is simply that aspects of these views bear convenient similarities to somatomotor representations. For present purposes, they will be assumed to be correct, as detailed adjudication would require a lengthy detour from this paper’s line of argument.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the following people for their comments and feedback: Glenn Carruthers, Emily C. Parke, Iván Gonzalez-Cabrera, and the anonymous reviewers of this paper.

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  1. Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI), Martinstraße 12, Klosterneuburg, 3400, Austria

    Sidney Carls-Diamante

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  1. Sidney Carls-Diamante
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Correspondence to Sidney Carls-Diamante.

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Carls-Diamante, S. Make up your mind: octopus cognition and hybrid explanations. Synthese 199 (Suppl 1), 143–158 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02102-2

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