Where do we draw the boundary of a self?
Compare descriptions of the self across ethics, cognitive models and developmental biology. The readings use different definitions and methods.
Ways into the question
Begin with Zhuangzi
How does a change of perspective change a judgment?
Begin with Simone de Beauvoir
How does a situation shape the possibilities of freedom?
Begin with Karl Friston
How can an action change the information available to an agent?
Begin with Michael Levin
What would distinguish an anatomical-control mechanism from a metaphor about cognition?
Thinkers to read
Zhuangzi
Stories and arguments about perspective, language and skilled action. Start with a short episode and examine what its change of viewpoint does.
Simone de Beauvoir
Freedom, ambiguity and the social making of gender. Connect philosophical claims to the historical situations and exclusions the text examines.
Karl Friston
Neuroscience and mathematical frameworks for inference, perception and action. Begin with a small probabilistic model before tackling the formal free-energy principle.
Michael Levin
Developmental bioelectricity and frameworks for regulation and biological agency. Separate a voltage intervention and observed anatomical outcome from its interpretation.