Abductive cognition : the epistemological and eco-cognitive dimensions of hypothetical reasoning

1 Theoretical and Manipulative Abduction Conjectures and Manipulations: The Extra-Theoretical Dimension of Scientific Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Computational Modeling as a Pragmatic Rule for Clarity . . . 2 1.2 Computational Modeling and the Problem of Scientific Discovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.1 Abduction and Retroduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3 What Is Abduction? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3.1 The Syllogistic Framework and the ST-Model . . . . . . . 9 1.3.2 Abduction as Hypothesis Generation, Abduction as Hypothesis Generation and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1.4 Sentential Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 1.4.1 Abduction and Induction in Logic Programming . . . . 29 1.5 Model-Based Creative Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.5.1 Conceptual Change and Creative Reasoning in Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.5.2 Model-Based Abduction and Its External Dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 1.6 Manipulative Abduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 1.6.1 Unexpressed Knowledge, Knowledge Creation, and External Mediators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 1.6.2 External Representations and Epistemic Mediators . . 45 1.6.3 Segregated Knowledge and the “World of Paper” . . . . 54 1.7 Mirroring Hidden Properties through Optical Diagrams . . . . 57 2 Non-explanatory and Instrumental Abduction Plausibility, Implausibility, Ignorance Preservation. . . . . . . 63 2.1 Is Abduction an Ignorance-Preserving Cognition? . . . . . . . . . . 65 2.1.1 The Ignorance Preserving Character of Abduction . . . 65 2.1.2 Truth Preserving and Ignorance Preserving Inferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 2.1.3 AKM and GW Schemas of Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 2.2 Non-explanatory Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 2.2.1 G¨odel and Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 2.3 Instrumental Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 2.3.1 On Propositional and Strategic Plausibility and Abduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 2.4 Governing Inconsistencies in Science through Explanatory, Non-explanatory, and Instrumental Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 2.4.1 Empirical Anomalies and Explanatory Abduction . . . 85 2.4.2 Conceptual Anomalies, Explanatory, and Non-explanatory Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 2.4.3 Generating Inconsistencies by Radical Innovation . . . . 90 2.4.4 Maintaining Inconsistencies: Static and Dynamic Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 2.4.5 Contradicting, Conflicting, Failing, and Instrumental Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 2.5 A Note on Preinventive Forms, Disconfirming Evidence, Unexpected Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 2.6 Withdrawing Unfalsifiable Hypotheses Found through Explanatory and Instrumental Abduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 2.6.1 Negation as Failure in Query Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . 98 2.6.2 Withdrawing Conventions and Instrumental Abduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 2.6.3 Withdrawing Constructions and Explanatory and Instrumental Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 2.7 Automatic Abductive Scientists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 2.8 Geometrical Construction Is a Kind of Manipulative Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 2.9 Mirror Diagrams: Externalizing Mental Models to Represent Imaginary Entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 2.9.1 Internal and External Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 2.10 Mirror Diagrams and the Infinite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 2.10.1 Abducing First Principles through Bodily Contact . . . 125 2.10.2 Expansion of Scope Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 2.10.3 Infinite/Finite Interplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 2.10.4 Non-euclidean Parallelism: Coordination and Inconsistency Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 2.11 Unveiling Diagrams in Lobachevsky’s Discovery as Gateways to Imaginary Entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 2.11.1 Euclidean/Non-euclidean Model Matching Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 2.11.2 Consistency-Searching Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 2.11.3 Loosing Intuition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 2.12 Mechanizing Manipulative Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 2.12.1 Automatic Geometrical Constructions as Extra-Theoretical Epistemic Mediators . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 2.12.2 Automatic “Thinking through Doing” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 3 Semiotic Brains and Artificial Minds How Brains Make Up Material Cognitive Systems . . . . . . . 145 3.1 Turing Unorganized Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 3.1.1 Logical, Practical, Unorganized, and Paper Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 3.1.2 Continuous, Discrete, and Active Machines . . . . . . . . . 149 3.1.3 Mimicking Human Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 3.2 Brains as Unorganized Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 3.2.1 The Infant Cortex as an Unorganized Machine . . . . . . 151 3.3 From the Prehistoric Brains to the Universal Machines . . . . . 153 3.3.1 Private Speech and Fleeting Consciousness . . . . . . . . . 155 3.3.2 Material Culture as Distributed Cognition and Semiosis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 3.3.3 Semiotic Delegations through the Disembodiment of Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 3.4 Mimetic and Creative Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 3.4.1 External and Internal Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 3.4.2 Language as the Ultimate Artifact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 3.5 Model-Based Abduction and Semiosis beyond Peirce . . . . . . . 165 3.5.1 Man Is an External Sign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 3.5.2 Cultured Unconscious and External/Internal Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 3.5.3 Duties, Abductions, and Habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 3.6 Constructing Meaning through Mimetic and Creative External Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 3.6.1 Constructing Meaning through Manipulative Abduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 3.6.2 Manipulating Meanings through External Semiotic Anchors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 3.6.3 Geometrical Construction Is a Kind of Manipulatxive Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 3.6.4 The Semiosis of Re-embodiment and Its Sensorimotor Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 3.6.5 On-line and Off-line Intelligence Intertwined: The Problem of Language and of Inner Rehearsal . . . . . . . . 189 3.6.6 External Diagrammatization and Iconic Brain Coevolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 3.6.7 Delegated and Intrinsic Constraints in External Agents and the Role of Anchors in Conceptual Blending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 3.7 Mimetic Minds as Semiotic Minds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 3.8 “Symbols” as Memory Mediators. Maximizing Abducibility through Psychic Energy Mediators . . . . . . . . . . . 203 3.8.1 Mythologization of External “Observations” . . . . . . . . 203 3.8.2 Cognitive/Affective Delegations to Artifacts . . . . . . . . 208 3.8.3 Artifacts as Memory Mediators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 3.8.4 Artifacts as Symbols That Maximize Abducibility . . . 212 4 Neuro-multimodal Abduction Pre-wired Brains, Embodiment, Neurospaces . . . . . . . . . . . 219 4.1 Multimodal Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 4.2 Neuroabduction: Internal and External Semiotic Carriers . . . 222 4.3 Pre-wired Brains and Embodiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 4.3.1 The Pre-wired Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 4.3.2 Embodiment and Intentionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 4.4 Actions vs. Thoughts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 4.4.1 Decision Making and Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 4.4.2 Decision and Emotion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 4.5 The Agent-Based and Abductive Structure of Reasons in Moral Deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 4.5.1 The Ontology of Reasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 4.5.2 Abduction in Practical Agent-Based Reasoning . . . . . 244 4.6 Picking Up Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 4.7 Spatial Frameworks, Anticipation, and Geometry . . . . . . . . . . 247 4.7.1 Abduction and Neurospaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 4.7.2 Adumbrations: Perceptions and Kinesthetic Sensations Intertwined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 4.7.3 The Genesis of Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 4.7.4 Anticipations as Abductions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 4.7.5 The Genesis of Geometrical Idealities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 4.8 Non-conceptual and Spatial Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 5 Animal Abduction From Mindless Organisms to Artifactual Mediators . . . . . . 265 5.1 Iconicity and Logicality in Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 5.1.1 Perception vs. Inference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 5.1.2 Iconicity Hybridates Logicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 5.2 Instinct vs. Heuristic Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 5.2.1 The Peircean Abductive Chicken and Animal Hypothetical Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 5.2.2 Instinct-Based Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 5.2.3 Mind and Matter Intertwined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 5.2.4 Peircean Chickens, Human Agents, Logical Agents . . . 281 5.3 Mindless Organisms and Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 5.3.1 Worm Intelligence, Abductive Chickens, Instincts . . . . 284 5.3.2 Nonlinguistic Representational States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 5.4 Animal Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 5.4.1 “Wired Cognition” and Pseudothoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 5.4.2 Plastic Cognition in Organisms’ Pseudoexplanatory Guesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 5.4.3 Artifacts and Classical and Instrumental Conditioning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 5.4.4 Affordances and Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 5.5 Perception as Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 5.5.1 Reifications and Beliefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 5.5.2 Perception as Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 5.6 Is Instinct Rational? Are Animals Intelligent? . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 5.6.1 Rationality of Instincts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 5.6.2 Levels of Rationality in Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 5.7 Artifactual Mediators and Languageless Reflexive Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 5.7.1 Animal Artifactual Mediators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 5.7.2 Pseudological and Reflexive Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 5.7.3 Affect Attunement and Model-Based Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312 6 Abduction, Affordances, and Cognitive Niches Sharing Representations and Creating Chances through Cognitive Niche Construction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 6.1 Cognitive Niches: Humans as Chance Seekers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318 6.1.1 Incomplete Information and Human Cognition . . . . . . 318 6.1.2 Cognitive Niche Construction and Human Cognition as a Chance-Seeker System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 6.1.3 What Are the Cognitive Niches? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 6.1.4 Extragenetic Information, Loosely Darwinian Effects, Baldwin Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 6.1.5 Niche Construction and Distributed Human Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 6.2 Affordances and Cognition: The Received View . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 6.2.1 The Notion of Affordance and Its Inferential Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 6.2.2 Affordances Are Opportunities for Action . . . . . . . . . . 334 6.2.3 Affordances Are Ecological Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 6.2.4 Affordances Imply the Mutuality of Perceiver and Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 6.3 Affordances as Eco-Cognitive Interactional Structures . . . . . . 335 6.3.1 Pseudothoughts and Model-Based Thinking in Humans and Animals: Affordances as Chances . . . . . . 336 6.4 Direct and Mediated Perception, Proximal and Distal Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 6.4.1 Direct and Mediated Affordances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 6.4.2 Proximal and Distal Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 6.4.3 Reconciling Direct and Mediated Perception: Ecological and Constructivist Approaches Intertwined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 6.4.4 Attunement, Affordances, and Cognitive Artifacts: Extracting and Creating Affordances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 6.5 Affordances and Abduction: The Plasticity of Environmental Situatedness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 6.6 Innovating through Affordance Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 6.6.1 Latent Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 6.6.2 Creating Chances through Manipulating Artifacts and External Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 7 Abduction in Human and Logical Agents Hasty Generalizers, Hybrid Abducers, Fallacies . . . . . . . . . . 361 7.1 Beyond Peirce: Human Agents, Logical Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 7.2 Logical Agents as Mimetic and Creative Representations and Mediators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 7.3 Externalization in Demonstrative Environments . . . . . . . . . . . 368 7.3.1 Model-Based Abduction in Demonstrative Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 7.3.2 Model-Based Heuristic and Deductive Reasoning . . . . 369 7.3.3 Ideal Logical Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 7.4 Hasty Generalizers and Hybrid Abducers in Agent-Based Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384 7.4.1 Agent-Based Reasoning, Agent-Based Logic, Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384 7.4.2 Beings-Like-Us as Hasty Generalizers: Induction as a Fallacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 7.5 External and Internal Representations in Hybrid Abducers and Inducers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 7.5.1 Logic Programs as Agents: External Observations and Internal Knowledge Assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 7.5.2 Hybrid Inducers and Abducers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394 7.6 Manipulative Abduction, Hybrid Reasoning, Fallacies . . . . . . 396 7.6.1 Merely Successful and Successful Abductive and Inductive Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 7.6.2 Abduction, Fallacies, Rhetoric, and Dialectics . . . . . . . 398 7.7 Intelligence as Smart Heuristic: Ecological Thinking vs. Logical Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401 7.7.1 Reducing Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 7.8 Fallacies as Distributed “Military” Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . 403 7.8.1 Distributing Fallacies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 7.8.2 Military Intelligence through Fallacies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 7.8.3 Abduction in Argument Evaluation and Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411 7.8.4 Narrative Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414 8 Morphodynamical Abduction Causation of Hypotheses by Attractors Dynamics . . . . . . . 417 8.1 Abduction as Embodied Cognition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 8.1.1 Discreteness and Cognition: Imitation vs. Intelligibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420 8.1.2 Dynamical Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423 8.1.3 Attractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424 8.1.4 Cognitive Processes as Super-Representational . . . . . . 426 8.1.5 Embodied Cognition and Qualitative Modeling . . . . . . 427 8.2 Morphodynamical Abduction and Adumbrations . . . . . . . . . . 428 8.2.1 Hypotheses Anticipation and Abduction. . . . . . . . . . . . 431 8.3 Abduction, Pregnances, Affordances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 8.3.1 Saliences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 8.4 Pregnances as Eco-Cognitive Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435 8.4.1 Pregnances and Human Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 8.5 Semiotic Brains Make Up Signs: Mental and Mindless Semiosis through Abductive Anticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438 8.5.1 Language Acquisition through Attunement and Parental Deixis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441 8.5.2 “Discreteness” and Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 8.6 Hypothetical Cognition and Coalition Enforcement: Language, Morality, and Violence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445 8.6.1 Coalition Enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446 8.6.2 The Role of Abduction in the Moral/Violent Nature of Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515