Comments on the ecology of representations in computerised systems

This paper discusses how the difference between the disembodied and the embodied perspective on the human mind gives rise to a disagreement as to the status of representations in computerised systems. A major claim of the disembodied approach of contemporary cognitive science is that mental representations are constructed on the basis of sensory input. Hence, it is the mental mechanisms for the interpretation of these data that matters, not the external system representation per se. The embodied approach on the other hand claims that mental representations emerge as a relation between the perceiver and the perceived. Because the body constrains how we can perceive anything, the system representation per se is important. Following the latter approach, the ecology of common forms of representations were mapped. The mapping of representations, together with the notion of distributed cognitive systems, points in the direction of further augmentation of the ecology of human-machine systems. A case from energy management was presented which gives an example of how such a task might be pursued.