L'âme, le holy ghost...

Je lisais ce matin un article du New York Times, Extended Mind Redux, d'Andy Clark. Je voulais vous en glisser quelques mots, mais je fus stoppé par la recherche d'une traduction valable du mot MIND: peine perdue. Je ne pus trouver aucun terme qui correspondait parfaitement en français. Déformation peut-être? Chaque mot choisi après quelques instants devenait inefficace; il promenait trop de bagages dans mon imaginaire sans doute. Le mot ÂME ne me satisfait pas non plus, il correspond trop à un terme religieux à mon goût. Il faudra s'y faire. Ici, ce mot ne se veut qu'une référence à une fonction réflexive. Comme le mentionne Clark, une fonction qui ne peut se situer facilement nulle part, un peu comme la fonction Turbo d'une automobile.

«A couple of replies touched on what is really one of the philosophical hot potatoes here, which is the distinction between “mere” inputs to a cognitive system and elements of the system itself. Critics of the extended mind (for example, Fred Adams and Ken Aizawa, in their 2008 book called “The Bounds of Cognition”) think theorists of extended cognition are guilty of confusing inputs to the cognitive engine with stuff that is part of (and “constitutes”) the cognitive engine. I think this distinction between “mere” inputs and processing elements in far less clear than it sounds. An analogy I sometimes use is with the workings of a turbo-driven car engine. Compare: the car makes exhaust fumes (outputs) that are also inputs that drive the turbo that adds power (up to around 30 percent more power) to the engine. The exhaust fumes are both outputs and self-generated inputs that, as they loop around, surely form a proper part of the overall power-generating mechanism. I think much the same is true of our use of bodily gestures while reasoning with others, and of the way that actively writing contributes to the process of thinking. The gestures and words on the page are outputs that immediately loop back in ways that form larger circuits of ongoing thinking and reasoning.» (Extended Mind Redux: A Response, Andy Clark)

Les religions ont eu tôt fait de prendre en charge ces fonctions dont on ne pouvait nier l'existence, mais qu'on ne parvenait pas à isoler pour en définir clairement et précisément le rôle. Pour les chrétiens, cette force de conceptualisation a pris le chemin du Saint-Esprit. Un genre d'anima encadré par un duo d'animus.

Mais...

Where is my mind?

«The question — memorably posed by rock band the Pixies in their 1988 song — is one that, perhaps surprisingly, divides many of us working in the areas of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Look at the science columns of your daily newspapers and you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no case to answer. We are all familiar with the colorful “brain blob” pictures that show just where activity (indirectly measured by blood oxygenation level) is concentrated as we attempt to solve different kinds of puzzles: blobs here for thinking of nouns, there for thinking of verbs, over there for solving ethical puzzles of a certain class, and so on, ad blobum. (In fact, the brain blob picture has seemingly been raised to the status of visual art form of late with the publication of a book of high-octane brain images. )»

La nouvelle imagerie nous permet de tracer les flux dans notre cerveau. Le trafic cérébral se colore et révèle ses secrets. Mais, en même temps, ces découvertes nous poussent vers de nouvelles questions, car certaines réponses manquent. Elles se trouvent forcément ailleurs, comme le dit Clark, out of brain, out of body, and in the world. Curieusement, nous revenons à la marotte de mon directeur de thèse : au-delà de l'imagination, il y a l'imaginaire et, là, la liberté créatrice est stoppée, soumise à l'environnement à l'intérieur de laquelle la vie opère.

«But we seem to be entering an age in which cognitive prosthetics (which have always been around in one form or another) are displaying a kind of Cambrian explosion of new and potent forms. As the forms proliferate, and some become more entrenched, we might do well to pause and reflect on their nature and status. At the very least, minds like ours are the products not of neural processing alone but of the complex and iterated interplay between brains, bodies, and the many designer environments in which we increasingly live and work.»

 Comme professeur, c'est aussitôt le socioconstructivisme qui me saute en tête : je dois rendre ma matière, ma littérature, ma passion, assez malléable pour permettre l'entrée de toutes ces imaginations morcelées et vibrantes à l'intérieur d'un imaginaire global puis suivre les méandres que j'y ai tracés.