This edited collection clarifies which varieties of enactivism successfully reject traditional representationalist cognitivism and which do not. Centered on Hutto's paper, expert commentators—both enactivists and non-enactivists—explore enactivism's implications for perception, emotion, content theory, cognition, development, and social interaction. Hutto's replies add depth and integration. The book is aimed at readers interested in current developments in embodied and situated cognitive science.
A recent thermodynamic theory of the central nervous system proposes that its function—and that of living autopoietic units generally—is to minimize surprise by adapting internal organization or ecological niche to maximize predictability and minimize entropy production. The first-person correlate of this minimized-surprise state is plausibly déjà vu or habitual monotony. Contrastingly, philosopher Henri Maldiney describes surprise as a sudden encounter with radically unexpected reality, a concussion for the brain and a risk for the organism, yet lived as an awakening to what exists.