Brain, body, and world are united in a complex dance of circular causation and extended computational activity. In Being There, Andy Clark weaves these several threads into a pleasing whole and goes on to address foundational questions concerning the new tools and techniques needed to make sense of the emerging sciences of the embodied mind. Clark brings together ideas and techniques from robotics, neuroscience, infant psychology, and artificial intelligence. He addresses a broad range of adaptive behaviors, from cockroach locomotion to the role of linguistic artifacts in higher-level thought.
Being There
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Editorial Reviews
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"Clark's book is an excellent introduction to this new movement incognitive science. It is clear, wide ranging, well informed, and fullof fascinating examples. And, unusually, it manages to be botheminently sensible and highly provocative." Margaret A. Boden , Nature
About the Author
Andy Clark is Doctor of Philosophy at the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences at the University of Sussex.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
58 of 62 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Clark develops in a very clear way the main threads of contemporary mind-body research. He argues for a non-dogmatic approach to the very difficult questions that epistemology, brain research and artificial life have put in the last twenty years. His position is with those who are not trying to explain everything from a single source or with single set of tools. Not reductionism, not holism or not only emergence or cognitivism or connectionism. Still, he sees the advantages of each theory and he gives a very subtle and insightful overview of what each strand has to contribute. I have read maybe twenty books on the subject in the past few months, from Varela to Jackendorf and from Minsky to Harré, but only Clark seems to be able to make the field transparent and coherent. If he sometimes loses in boldness, he certainly wins in promise. A book that should become a compulsary reading for anyone who wants to be introduced in the field.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Andy Clark provides us with a new framework for thinking about the mind. Gone are the old notions of a clean boundary between the thinker and the world. Clark does a great job of making the point that our brains are essentially embodied agents that profit profoundly from the local environmental structure. He introduces this new movement in cognitive science to study the brain, body, and world together as a complex system of interactions and dependencies and calls for a cognitive science of the embodied mind.
Clark is not proposing a radical idea. In fact, he defends at some length that his work is in fact a solution to the radical ideas that currently dominate the field. Clark suggests refining the tools of study used, and finding a middle ground between competing theories. I personally question whether a middle ground is appropriate in science. When anomalies exist in current models, does it serve us well to take the best of all available theories and smooth them together as Clark does? Perhaps in the case of the brain, this is a good idea, even though many other sciences (like physics) fair better with simpler one-size-fits-all solutions. Due to the brain's complexity unmatched anywhere in the known universe, maybe a simple (radical) way of studying it isn't possible (or at least within human capabilities).
Clark certainly builds a strong case, particularly by applying examples and comparisons throughout the book. His ideas are well thought out, his writing is clear (though perhaps a little repetitive), and the book as a whole is well worth reading.
Being There definitely gets you thinking.
Clark is not proposing a radical idea. In fact, he defends at some length that his work is in fact a solution to the radical ideas that currently dominate the field. Clark suggests refining the tools of study used, and finding a middle ground between competing theories. I personally question whether a middle ground is appropriate in science. When anomalies exist in current models, does it serve us well to take the best of all available theories and smooth them together as Clark does? Perhaps in the case of the brain, this is a good idea, even though many other sciences (like physics) fair better with simpler one-size-fits-all solutions. Due to the brain's complexity unmatched anywhere in the known universe, maybe a simple (radical) way of studying it isn't possible (or at least within human capabilities).
Clark certainly builds a strong case, particularly by applying examples and comparisons throughout the book. His ideas are well thought out, his writing is clear (though perhaps a little repetitive), and the book as a whole is well worth reading.
Being There definitely gets you thinking.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
For those dissatisfied with both dualism and West Coast eliminative materialism, Andy Clark's philosophy of mind offers readers an alternative: an embodied mind. Here's a philosophy that embeds the human mind in its environment, its culture, and its history. And and author who writes like a dream! For a revitalized philosophy of mind, read it together with Alicia Juarrero's Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System and Merlin Donald's Origins of the Modern Mind!Enjoy!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Piece
I found this book very interesting and exciting. It presents a very beautiful and unique insight into the nature of cognition and its role in various social emergences.
Published 23 months ago by Chenna Reddy Cotla
4.0 out of 5 stars
Read even if your interest is cognitive psych and not philosophy
I am reading Clark's book to learn how the understanding of mind, brain, and action has changed since I got a doctorate in cog. psych many decades ago. Read more
Published on September 30, 2009 by Jeffrey A. Johnson
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Book on A Great Topic
Besides this being a very creative and unique home-work assignment, the point of this review is to help you decide if this book is what you want to read for your neuroscience... Read more
Published on September 26, 2009 by Benjamin Bolaji
5.0 out of 5 stars
A new conceptual framework in the offing
When read in tandem with Paul Cilliers Complexity and Postmodernism, and Alicia Juarrero's Dynamics in Action, Andy Clark's Being There articulates the outline of a new... Read more
Published on April 11, 2000
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