Mechanism, autonomy and biological explanation

Mechanism and Biological Explanation

This article argues that the basic account of mechanism and mechanistic explanation, involving sequential execution of qualitatively characterized operations, is itself insufficient to explain biological phenomena such as the capacity of living organisms to maintain themselves as systems distinct from their environment. This capacity depends on cyclic organization, including positive and negati...

Vision-Based Navigation and Deep-Learning Explanation for Autonomy

In this thesis, we investigate vision-based techniques to support robot mobile autonomy in human environments, including also understanding the important image features with respect to a classification task. Given this wide goal of transparent vision-based autonomy, the work proceeds along three main fronts. Our first algorithm enables a UAV to visually localize and navigate with respect to CoB...

Explanation: Mechanism, Modularity, and Situated Cognition 1

The situated cognition movement has emerged in recent decades (although it has roots in psychologists working earlier in the 20 century including Vygotsky, Bartlett, and Dewey) largely in reaction to an approach to explaining cognition that tended to ignore the context in which cognitive activities typically occur. Fodor’s (1980) account of the research strategy of methodological solipsism, acc...

Ecological Explanation between Manipulation and Mechanism Description

Biological Mechanisms: Organized to Maintain Autonomy

Mechanistic explanations in biology have continually confronted the challenge that they are insufficient to account for biological phenomena. This challenge is often justified as accounts of biological mechanisms frequently fail to consider the modes of organization required to explain the phenomena of life. This, however, can be remedied by developing analyses of the modes of organization foun...