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“The brain is just a brain. It has no function without the body and the environmental niche it occupies. The Ecological Brain is an attempt to explain this trivial yet often neglected embeddedness, integrating recent knowledge from psychology and neuroscience research.”
—György Buzsáki, M.D., Ph.D., Biggs Professor of Neural Sciences, NYU Neuroscience Institute, New York University, USA
“After decades of asking what your head’s inside of, ecological psychologists are beginning to ask, “what’s inside your head?” In The Ecological Brain, Luis Favela takes seriously the claim that mind is low-dimensional dynamics in a brain-body-environment system. By synthesizing complexity theory, nonlinear dynamics, and recent work on neural manifolds, he points a way forward for understanding perception and action at neural, organism, and ecological scales.”
—William H. Warren, Chancellor’s Professor of Cognitive Science, Brown University, USA
The Ecological Brain
The Ecological Brain is the frst book of its kind, using complexity science to integrate the seemingly disparate felds of ecological psychology and neuroscience. The book develops a unique framework for unifying investigations and explanations of mind that span brain, body, and environment: the NeuroEcological Nexus Theory (NExT).
Beginning with an introduction to the history of the felds, the author provides an assessment of why ecological psychology and neuroscience are commonly viewed as irreconcilable methods for investigating and explaining cognition, intelligent behavior, and the systems that realize them. The book then progresses to its central aim: presenting a unifed investigative and explanatory framework ofering concepts, methods, and theories applicable across neural and ecological scales of investigation. By combining the core principles of ecological psychology, neural population dynamics, and synergetics under a unifed complexity science approach, NExT ofers a compressive investigative framework to explain and understand neural, bodily, and environmental contributions to perceptionaction and other forms of intelligent behavior and thought.
The book progresses the conversation around the role of brains in ecological psychology, as well as bodies and environments in neuroscience. It is essential reading for all students of ecological psychology, perception, cognitive sciences, and neuroscience, as well as anyone interested in the history and philosophy of the brain/mind sciences and their state-of-the-art methods and theories.
Luis H. Favela is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Central Florida, USA, and is a fellow with the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. His research is interdisciplinary, situated at the intersections of the cognitive sciences, experimental psychology, and the philosophies of mind and science.
Resources for Ecological Psychology
A Series of Volumes Edited By Jefrey B. Wagman & Julia J. C. Blau
[Robert E. Shaw, William M. Mace, and Michael Turvey, Series Editors Emeriti]
Dexterity and Its Development
Edited by Nicholai A. Bernstein, Mark L. Latash and Michael T. Turvey
Ecological Psychology in Context
James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the Legacy of William James’s Radical Empiricism
Harry Heft
Perception as Information Detection
Refections on Gibson’s Ecological Approach to Visual Perception
Jefrey B. Wagman and Julia J. C. Blau
A Meaning Processing Approach to Cognition
What Matters?
John Flach and Fred Voorhorst
Behavior and Culture in One Dimension
Sequences, Afordances, and the Evolution of Complexity
Dennis P. Waters
Afective Gibsonian Psychology
Rob Withagen
Introduction to Ecological Psychology
A Lawful Approach to Perceiving, Acting, and Cognizing
Julia J. C. Blau and Jefrey B. Wagman
Intellectual Journeys in Ecological Psychology
Interviews and Refections from Pioneers in the Field
Edited by Agnes Szokolszky, Catherine Read and Zsolt Palatinus
Places, Sociality, and Ecological Psychology
Essays in Honor of Harry Heft
Edited by Miguel Segundo-Ortin, Manuel Heras-Escribano and Vicente Raja
The Ecological Brain
Unifying the Sciences of Brain, Body, and Environment
Luis H. Favela
The Ecological Brain
Unifying the Sciences of Brain, Body, and Environment
The right of Luis H. Favela to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Favela, Luis H., author.
Title: The ecological brain : unifying the sciences of brain, body, and environment / Luis H. Favela.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. | Series: Resources for ecological psychology series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2023037791 (print) | LCCN 2023037792 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367444716 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367444723 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003009955 (ebook)
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023037791
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023037792
ISBN: 978-0-367-44471-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-44472-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-00995-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003009955
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Para mi Nona.
Acknowledgments
1 Making everybody upset 1
1.1 The scope of the issue 2
1.2 Why think ecological psychology and neuroscience are irreconcilable? 5
1.2.1 Neuroscience approach to visually-guided action 6
1.2.2 Ecological psychology approach to visually-guided action 9
1.2.3 Radically diferent scientifc worldviews 11
1.3 What’s to come 12
2 Why “ecological” psychology? 19
2.1 From computers to environments 19
2.1.1 Why “cognitive” psychology? 19
2.1.2 Why “ecological” psychology? 24
2.2 Conclusion 36
3 The sins of cognitivism visited upon neuroscience 42
3.1 From cognitivism to neuroscience 42
3.2 From Hippocrates and Aristotle to Mike the Headless Chicken 43
3.3 From Ramón y Cajal to McCulloch and Pitts 45
3.3.1 Hodgkin-Huxley model 48
3.3.2 McCulloch-Pitts model 50
3.3.3 The McCulloch-Pitts tradition versus the Hodgkin-Huxley tradition 54
3.4 Cognitivism fnds a new home 56
3.4.1 Is neuroscience really cognitivist? 56
3.4.2 Yes, contemporary neuroscience is very much cognitivist 58
3.5 Conclusion 61
4 The varieties of ecological neuroscience 69
4.1 The story thus far 69
4.2 Preliminaries to an ecological neuroscience 70
4.2.1 Neuroscience and (titular) afordances 70
4.2.2 Ecological psychology and resonance 72
4.2.3 Playing nice with others 75
4.3 Reed and Edelman 76
4.4 Neural reuse 78
4.5 Bayesianism 80
4.6 Conclusion 82
5 Foundations of complexity science for the mind sciences 87
5.1 A way forward 87
5.2 What is complexity science? 88
5.3 The roots of complexity science 90
5.3.1 Systems theory 90
5.3.2 Nonlinear dynamical systems theory 91
5.3.3 Synergetics 96
5.4 Key concepts and ways to get a grip on them 99
5.5 Putting complexity science to work 106
5.6 Conclusion 110
6 What is NExT? NeuroEcological Nexus Theory
6.1 Assembling the pieces 120
6.2 What is NExT? 121
6.3 Six hypotheses 122
6.4 Conclusion 147
7 Putting the NeuroEcological Nexus Theory to work
7.1 Investigating an afordance via NExT 157
7.2 The afordance of pass-through-able 157
7.3 Making everybody happy? NExT = complexity science, ecological psychology, and neuroscience 163
7.3.1 NExT and complexity science 163
7.3.2 NExT and ecological psychology 164
7.3.3 NExT and neuroscience 165
7.4 What comes NExT? 165
7.5 Conclusion 168
8 Conclusion
8.1 The ecological brain 170
8.2 Challenges 173
8.3 So is everybody upset? 177
Acknowledgments
This book took too long to complete. But it’s not my fault! Well, it is, but there was a lot going on when the contract was frst signed and the time soon after. You know, little stuf, like a pandemic, promotion and tenure, and frst-time homeownership.
I would like to start by thanking Julia J. C. Blau and Jef B. Wagman, editors of the Resources for Ecological Psychology Series, for their interest in the book and support along the way. A big thanks to Ceri McLardy and Emilie Coin, Routledge publisher and editor, for their patience, kindness, and support during those tough years. They never made me feel bad for delaying my submission—though they could have!
There are too many colleagues to thank who provided feedback on various parts of the book that were presented at conferences and the like over the years. There are two that deserve to be explicitly thanked. First, thanks to Tony Chemero for comments on various parts of earlier drafts and chatting about material. Second, thanks to Mary Jean Amon for reading the entire manuscript and providing helpful edits and comments. Their eforts made the book much better. Any remaining errors or limitations are mine alone.
This book drew from several earlier works of mine:
• Favela, L. H. (2021). The dynamical renaissance in neuroscience. Synthese, 199(1–2), 2103–2127.
• Favela, L. H. (2020). Dynamical systems theory in cognitive science and neuroscience. Philosophy Compass, 15(8), e12695, 1–16.
• Favela, L. H. (2020). Cognitive science as complexity science. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 11(4), e1525, 1–24.
I would like to thank the editors and reviewers at these venues for their helpful critiques and suggestions. Thanks also to Springer and Wiley for permission to reproduce text and fgures.
For permission to use images, thanks to Troy Waters for his grandfather’s photo of Mike the Headless Chicken (Figure 3.1a), Jefrey Goldstein for the origins of complexity science image (Figure 5.1), and Aaron Lou and Christopher Matthew De Sa for the dynamic chart method image (Figure 7.2a). Thanks to Dr. Greg Dunn for allowing me to license his beautiful artwork for the book cover (Pranayama: Breath of Fire) and producing one more of that out-of-print image for my home.
An immeasurable amount of thanks to my family: Nona, Mom, and Tia. Your neverending support helped keep me going during the challenging years that overlapped with
xii Acknowledgments
much of the period of time spent writing this book. It was even helpful to hear you constantly asking me, “Is the book done yet?!” I love you, mi familia.
I am incredibly grateful for my life partner and wife, MJ. Thanks for the love, support, and laughs. When things got toughest, you always reminded me to, “Watch your step, kid!” Thank you. MNLW.
Preface
Dear to me is Plato, dearer still is truth.1
(Aristotle)
James J. Gibson was no Plato, and I certainly am no Aristotle. Still, to paraphrase, “Gibson is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.” It is important to honor our sources of inspiration. But it is prudent that we not do so—to paraphrase another inspiration of mine—“come what may” (Quine, 1951).
At the time I frst learned about Gibson, I was quite committed to mainstream understandings of mind: brain-centric, computations and representations, and reductionism. Exposure to ecological psychologists during graduate school changed all that.2 The ecological approach to perception that I learned about, along with ideas from complex and dynamical systems theory, undermined my confdence that perception and/or action could be reduced to brain activity, that cognition was fruitfully understood in terms of computations and representations, and that a full account of mind could be provided without substantial contributions from the body and environment. Although the path was painful at times (e.g., Socratic sessions during graduate seminars), I came out the other side confdent that ecological psychology, dynamical systems theory, and embodiment were the proper ways to understand mind in its various forms.
While fruitful lines of philosophical and experimental research grew from these newfound and appreciated approaches, a substantial part of me remained quite interested in the brain. So I supplemented my philosophical and experimental psychology education and training with neuroscience-focused fellowships and visiting positions. Following on those later experiences, I realized something potentially paradoxical in my thinking: Even though I view much mainstream neuroscience as adhering to mistaken core commitments (e.g., computations and representations), I think ecological psychology will remain incomplete without providing serious accounts of the brain’s contributions to its phenomena of investigative interest. The bottom-line is that the brain is ecological—it is not a special, isolated entity that can be properly understood in ways that disregard its situatedness in bodies
1 Though this statement—or a version of it—is widely recited (e.g., Durant, 1933; Shorey, 1938), there is no specifc reference to its actual use. The real quote that it is based on is as follows: “Yet it would perhaps be thought to be better, indeed to be our duty, for the sake of maintaining the truth even to destroy what touches us closely, especially as we are philosophers or lovers of wisdom; for, while both are dear, piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1096a15, in Aristotle, 1908).
2 Thanks Tony Chemero, Mike Richardson, Mike Riley, and Kevin Shockley!
and environments. So too must explanations of interactions of bodies and environments by organisms like us include a substantial account of the brain’s causal and constitutive contributions. So while Gibson’s lessons are dear to me, I cannot ignore the truth that is the signifcance of brains, even when investigating perception-action. What would an account look like that integrates lessons from ecological psychology and neuroscience? From that question, a book was born.
Two aims guided my early forays into the book’s subject matter: First, to try to understand why ecological psychology has traditionally not provided substantial descriptions of the brain’s contributions and why neuroscience has not embraced lessons about embodiment and environmental embeddedness so compellingly motivated by ecological psychology. Second, to provide an investigative framework that can incorporate the best both felds have to ofer. I soon found that addressing these required doing quite a bit of history (the frst aim) and identifying a broadly-applicable set of methods and theories (the second aim). Since I am engaging with big issues that have vast literatures, Chapter 1 starts by setting the scope of the discussion (e.g., limiting the discussion to certain areas of neuroscience). The next part of the book (Chapters 2–4) is primarily historical and conceptual in nature. I explain why ecological psychology and neuroscience are typically understood as being incommensurable and irreconcilable by telling a story that traces both of their lines of development as originating during the World War II era. Twentieth century neuroscience can be understood in light of two traditions: one that lays emphasis on biological features of neurons (i.e., Hodgkin-Huxley tradition) and one that lays emphasis on abstract features of neurons (i.e., McCulloch-Pitts tradition). The division from ecological psychology was evident early as neuroscience seemed to embrace the tradition (i.e., McCulloch-Pitts) that accepted much of what ecological psychology rejected in other areas of psychology where cognitivism (i.e., information processing understanding of mind) came to be overrepresented. With a plausible story about the origins of the division provided, the frst part of the book concludes with an overview of prior attempts to integrate ecological psychology and neuroscience.
The second part of the book ofers a solution. In Chapter 5, complexity science is described as ofering concepts, methods, and theories that are broadly applicable to phenomena of investigative interest by both ecological psychology and neuroscience. Chapter 6 ofers a specifc framework for integration, namely, the NeuroEcological Nexus Theory (NExT). As a complexity science, NExT leverages concepts, methods, and theories that are broadly applicable to the neural, bodily, and environmental scales. In particular, NExT ofers a framework that integrates neural population dynamics, body organization, and environmental information into an account of perception-action events. Chapter 7 demonstrates the potential of this framework by application to the case of mice navigating an environment of opportunities for action, or afordances. The book concludes with the third part in Chapter 8. Here, I present some challenges likely to be hurled at NExT (e.g., “real cognition”) and ofer responses. After, I summarize aspects of ecological psychology and neuroscience that each will need to compromise for the sake of integration (e.g., eliminating core concepts like resonance and representation, respectively). I conclude the book on a hopeful note and ofer reasons to think something like NExT is not just possible but that there are signs of it happening now.
In this way, the book is a bit of a meditation. I am trying to understand a problem (i.e., the division between ecological psychology and neuroscience), what a solution needs (i.e., complexity science), test out a solution (i.e., NExT), and conclude with the hope that the story is correct and that the resolution can happen. Did I present ecological psychology
and neuroscience in ways that will make everybody happy? Most likely not. But that is okay. I am content with what I learned during the journey and hope some folks out there learn a little and—just maybe—agree with some points made. Either way, readers might be entertained by my attempts to sprinkle in some humor here and there.
References
Aristotle. (1908). The works of Aristotle (W. D. Ross, Trans.). London, UK: Oxford University Press. Durant, W. (1933). The story of philosophy: The lives and opinions of the greater philosophers. New York, NY: Time Incorporated.
Quine, W. V. (1951). Two dogmas of empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60, 20–43. https://doi. org/10.2307/2181906
Shorey, P. (1938). Platonism: Ancient and modern. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
1
Making everybody upset
If you’re making everybody happy, then you’re doing something wrong.
(Anonymous, n.d.)
The primary aim of this book is to reconcile two mind sciences that are often viewed as being at odds with each other: ecological psychology and neuroscience. In order to bring them together, I argue that complexity science provides a unifying set of concepts, methods, and theories for ecological psychology and neuroscience to adopt. The secondary aim is to provide an investigative framework that demonstrates how ecological psychology and neuroscience can be unifed as a complexity science. That framework is the NeuroEcological Nexus Theory (NExT). The third aim is to show that reconciling ecological psychology and neuroscience by way of a complexity science-based framework like NExT has lessons with broad applicability to other mind sciences and related issues. Achieving these three aims will facilitate progress toward a unifed framework for investigating, explaining, and understanding the various forms of mind and the systems those features are realized in.1 Before diving in, a word of caution.
Big reward can come with big cost. As I will argue, the path to reconciliation will require both ecological psychology and neuroscience to loosen their grip on some of their core conceptual, methodological, and theoretical commitments. Due to that fact, my current proposal is bound to make everybody upset. There should be no doubt that both ecological psychology and neuroscience have theoretical sophistication and a wide range of empirical support and have greatly contributed to our understanding of mind and its physical realizers. Nevertheless, they have each only shed light upon a limited range of phenomena.
1 Throughout the book I will intentionally refer to investigation, explanation, and understanding as diferent features of a scientifc framework. In brief, “investigation” refers to the work scientists do, such as experimental setup, hypothesis testing, data analyses, etc., as they attempt to achieve an explanation and/or understanding of a target of inquiry. “Explanation” is a controversial term, especially in the philosophy of science (e.g., Kitcher & Salmon, 1989; Woodward, 2019). With the hope of providing as basic a sense of “explanation” as I can, I simply refer to the successful outcome of an investigation. A “successful investigation” results in the achievement of such goals as illuminating relevant details about a phenomenon (e.g., mechanisms), its causes, the ways it exemplifes a law or theory, and other scientifc virtues as supporting counterfactual reasoning. “Understanding” is also a controversial term (e.g., de Regt, 2017; Grimm, Baumberger, & Ammon, 2017; Khalifa, 2018). Scientifc understanding overlaps with explanation a great deal but is not equivalent. It requires an additional level of comprehension, such as the ability to generalize features of explanations to other cases and answer deeper “why” questions.
Having limited scope is not a shortcoming in itself. In a variety of ways, specialization is what facilitates many of science’s successes.
Imagine a social psychologist investigating online chatroom behaviors but not being able to make any conclusions until they incorporated quantum-level efects and the infuence of the moon’s gravitational pull. The point is that scientifc disciplines beneft from focusing on certain parts of nature. At the same time, specialization can be a double-edged sword. By focusing on certain phenomena, a discipline needs to develop particular investigative frameworks to best conduct research and provide explanations. Scientists both within and outside a discipline can become perturbed—to put it mildly—when an investigative framework is applied to phenomena outside its originally intended purview. Those within may worry that their concepts and methods are being misapplied. Those from outside may worry that a feld is overstepping its boundaries. In order for reconciliation to occur in the current context, discipline insiders will need to be open to such occurrences as redefning concepts and new applications of their methods. Discipline outsiders will need to be open to incorporating new theories and reconsidering the adequacy of typical methods. Though doing so is, as I argue, necessary for progress, it is certainly going to make many practitioners upset—at least, at frst. Only time will tell if this situation ends up being an instance of Planck’s principle. 2
Before providing an overview of what is to come, in the next section I defne the scope of the issue. After, I present an example phenomenon that illustrates the tensions between ecological psychology and neuroscience. These two sections are aimed at helping readers who are unfamiliar with the topics. Additionally, they are for those who know the relevant literature and are interested in the extent to which the current arguments are intended to apply.
1.1 The scope of the issue
The purpose of this section is to set the scope of the issue. First, although more will be introduced throughout the upcoming chapters, it is helpful to present some basic terminology at this early stage. Note that my aim is not to present the necessary and sufcient conditions for these terms. I aim to provide defnitions that I think are minimally controversial and could reasonably be understood by multidisciplinary audiences. Here, “mind sciences” refers to those disciplines that investigate mind in a scientifc manner, such as the cognitive sciences, neuroscience, psychology, and their many subfelds. This could also include the philosophies of those sciences (e.g., philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of neuroscience, and philosophy of psychology), as well as other disciplines such as computer science, education, and engineering. The term “mind” denotes those capacities of organisms commonly referred to as cognition, consciousness, goal-directed behavior, and mental processes. Examples of mind include decision making, perception, prospective control, and subjective experience. Connoting ‘mind’ with the aforementioned words may seem like defning by synonym and covering quite a wide range of phenomena. Since my current aim is not to defend a philosophical or theoretical thesis about what “mind” is, I am willing to accept
2 Often paraphrased as “science progresses one funeral at a time,” the actual quote from Max Planck is, “A new scientifc truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up familiar with it” (Planck, 1950, pp. 33–34; cf. Azoulay, Fons-Rosen, & Graf Zivin, 2019; Hull, Tessner, & Diamond, 1978).
those critiques. I hope that in lieu of a straightforward defnition, paradigmatic examples of phenomena investigated by the mind sciences will sufce for achieving my overall goal. In addition, what things have minds is not essential for current purposes. My current goals are not afected by what stance I take on whether computers, extraterrestrials, or nonhuman organisms have minds. Related, I take no stance on the metaphysics of mind other than the naturalist ontology of most contemporary science, namely, that science studies natural phenomena and that natural phenomena are physical. In view of that, “physical realizers” are those structural and functional features of an organism that instantiate the various facets of mind, such as neurophysiology and bodily dynamics. It is worth noting that the literature on physical realization—including multiple realization, physicalism, supervenience, etc.—is enormous (e.g., Fodor, 1974; Francescotti, 2014; Polger & Shapiro, 2016; Putnam, 1975; Shoemaker, 2007; Stoljar, 2017). I utilize the term here in as harmless a way as I can, with an aim toward capturing what a practicing scientist would mean, such as those phenomena accountable in the natural sciences.
Second, it will help the discussion to know what I mean by “ecological psychology” and “neuroscience.” By “ecological psychology,” I refer to a research program and theoretical approach in experimental psychology that was originally developed by James J. Gibson in the 1950s and 1960s to investigate perception and action (e.g., Gibson, 1966). In its early days, Eleanor J. Gibson expanded the approach to include developmental psychology (e.g., Gibson, 1969). The details of ecological psychology as an investigative framework are outlined in the next chapter. For now, it is helpful to know that ecological psychology began as—and continues to be—an alternative to the more cognitivist approach to psychology. In the current context, cognitivism defnes mind as computational and representational in nature, and localizes it primarily in the central nervous system, especially the brain (e.g., Von Eckardt, 1995; Thagard, 2020). Ecological psychology rejects those commitments: Perception, for example, is in no literal way like a computer, does not involve indirect representations of the world, and is not realized primarily in neural systems. Instead, perception is essentially dynamic, direct (i.e., antirepresentational), and realized across organism-environment systems (e.g., Gibson, 1986/2015). The predominant form of ecological psychology to stem directly from Gibson was that of Neo-Gibsonians (Heft & Richardson, 2017), such as William M. Mace, Robert E. Shaw, and Michael Turvey (e.g., Turvey, Shaw, Reed, & Mace, 1981; Chemero, 2009, p. 109). Ecological psychology as a whole has evolved and been incorporated into other frameworks (e.g., radical embodied cognitive science; Chemero, 2009). Specifc features, such as the term ‘afordances,’ have been applied in ways not always directly compatible with Gibsonian or Neo-Gibsonian ecological psychology (e.g., Bruineberg, Kiverstein, & Rietveld, 2018; Cisek, 2007; Friston et al., 2012). For current purposes, I refer to “ecological psychology” in a basic sense, which I believe overlaps with many contemporary practitioners who call themselves “ecological psychologists.” To that end, I focus on three core principles commonly adhered to by ecological psychologists: perception is direct, perception and action are continuous, and afordances are the meaningful facets of perception (Chemero, 2013; Favela & Chemero, 2016; cf. Michaels & Palatinus, 2014; Lobo, Heras-Escribano, & Travieso, 2018; Richardson, Shockley, Fajen, Riley, & Turvey, 2008; Turvey, 2019). Explaining what I mean by “neuroscience” is not as straightforward.
Unlike ecological psychology, neuroscience does not stem from a single school of thought, and the majority of its practitioners do not share a widespread set of concepts, methods, or theories. Consequently, it would be unreasonable for me to say by “neuroscience” that I mean the entire feld. A list of themes to select from when submitting an
abstract to a recent meeting of the Society for Neuroscience makes this point evident, with ten broad category options (e.g., cognition, development, and neurodegenerative disorders and injury) and well over 100 topics that span scales from the molecular to society (Society for Neuroscience, 2021). That being said, there are common commitments shared by those who identify their work as falling under the heading of “neuroscience.” From a Kuhnian perspective, a reasonable place to locate such commitments is textbooks used in the training of neuroscientists.3 Kandel’s, Schwartz’s, Jessell’s, Siegelbaum’s, and Hudspeth’s (2013) “Principles of Neural Science” is exemplary in this regard. As they state, “The current challenge . . . we outline in this book, is the unifcation of the study of behavior—the science of the mind—and neural science—the science of the brain” (Kandel et al., 2013, p. 5). To that end, they layout the core commitments of neuroscience, which I paraphrase as: First, the neuron is the elementary building block of brains and minds; also known as the “neuron doctrine” (Crick, 1994; Gold & Stoljar, 1999; Golgi, 1906/2021). Second, brains have distinct functional regions; that is, localization and modularity. Third, “mental processes” and behavior are the end product of brain processes (Kandel et al., 2013, p. 17). Either explicitly or implicitly, these commitments are central to other standard neuroscience textbooks as well (e.g., Bear, Connors, & Paradiso, 2016).
While it may be fair to say that neuroscientists generally adhere to these three commitments, their targets of inquiry and methods can vary quite considerably. Examples include, but are not limited to, cellular and molecular neuroscientists mapping the mouse brain at the synaptic level via gene targeting techniques (Zhu et al., 2018), cognitive neuroscientists studying frontal lobes during decision making via neuroimaging tools like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; Gage & Baars, 2018), computational neuroscientists utilizing network theory to reveal structural connections in the brain (Sporns, 2011), and theoretical neuroscientists making use of formal theories like Bayesian inference (Abbott, 2008) and criticality (Beggs, 2008) to develop hypotheses and models of neuronal activity. From this very small sample, neuroscientists look like everything from geneticists and physiologists to mathematicians and physicists. It is for those reasons that I limit what I mean by “neuroscientists” to a particular range of practitioners.
With an eye toward making clear diferences from ecological psychology, I will utilize the word ‘neuroscience’ as generally referring to that subset of disciplines that investigate the same range of phenomena as ecological psychologists typically do. For now, that limits the discussion to those neuroscientists who conduct research on those features of mind involving perception and action. As a result, moving forward “neuroscience” will primarily signify research in
• Behavioral neuroscience: Aims to classify general forms of behavior and reduce them to physiological processes in the nervous system (Carlson, 2014).
3 Thomas Kuhn (1962/1998) argued that the kind of scientifc practice commonly thought of can be referred to as “normal science.” In short, normal science is group problem solving by individuals who share a core set of beliefs, agree what problems are to be solved, and share methodologies for investigating and solving those problems. These beliefs and practices are encapsulated in textbooks: “These textbooks expound the body of accepted theory, illustrate many or all of its successful applications, and compare these applications with exemplary observations and experiments” (Kuhn, 1962/1998, p. 10; see also pp. 137–143).
bases of cognition, with emphasis on identifying functional specialization in the brain (Gazzaniga, Ivry, & Mangun, 2014).
• Computational neuroscience: Two general aims, which are not necessarily exclusive: (1) Leveraging mathematical models and abstract and formal theories to guide experiments, and model and interpret data (Trappenberg, 2014). (2) Investigate the nervous system in terms of its processing and computing information (Piccinini & Shagrir, 2014).
• Sensory neuroscience: Aims for functional localization of sensory processes by mapping stimuli to the somatosensory cortex (Barwich, 2020; Reid & Usrey, 2013).
Although neuroscience as a whole may not be unifed (e.g., methods used, scales of investigation, etc.), as I argue in Chapter 3, the afore-listed subdisciplines come close to a common set of conceptual and theoretical commitments. What is more, I argue that those commitments are directly connected to a shared source, namely, the cognitivism that arose out of the cognitive revolution of the 1950s and 1960s (e.g., Cobb, 2020).
Granting that it is clearer what I mean by ecological psychology and neuroscience, it is still likely—at least for those unfamiliar with these topics—that it is unclear why they are at odds. As such, I turn to the next section and present an example target of inquiry shared by both that illustrates their—at least at this point in the story—potentially irreconcilable diferences.
1.2 Why think ecological psychology and neuroscience are irreconcilable?
Thus far, I have asserted that ecological psychology and neuroscience each hold vastly different conceptual, methodological, and theoretical commitments. I mentioned some of these main diferences in the previous section. Neuroscience—remember, as stated earlier, I refer to particular subfelds—is committed to a computational, representational, and brainfocused conception of mind. Ecological psychology is committed to a dynamic, antirepresentational, and organism-environment system-level understanding of mind. In this section, I provide a straightforward example that makes clear how such commitments lead to ecological psychology and neuroscience being understood as irreconcilable. What, though, is meant here by “irreconcilable?”
By “irreconcilable,” I refer to four conficting features of the general investigative approaches of ecological psychology and neuroscience. First, each one has concepts that are not acknowledged as existing in the other or are contradictory. For example, mental representations are not accepted within ecological psychology, though they play indispensable roles in many neuroscience hypotheses and explanations. Second, there are methods not used by the other or that lead to conclusions not acceptable as proper explanations. For example, it is common for ecological psychologists to utilize “scaled” data—e.g., body-scaled units of measurement instead of absolute units—and methods that facilitate nonreductive dynamical explanations, whereas neuroscience does not utilize such scaled data and appeals to methods that facilitate reductive and mechanistic explanations. Third, each one appeals to theories that provide radically diferent responses to scientifc problems and goals. For example, an ecological psychologist explains the ability of somebody to pass through apertures of various widths as an afordance (i.e., pass-through-able) defned in terms of the aperture-to-shoulder-width ratio ( A / S , where A is width of the aperture and S is shoulder width at the broadest point) that separates the transition from passing through the aperture while walking normally to needing to turn shoulders to ft through (Favela, Riley, Shockley, & Chemero, 2018;
Warren & Whang, 1987). In this way, the perceptual-motor (note the single concept signifying the continuous ontology) task of walking through apertures requires accounting for the afordance at the point of organism-environment interaction. On the other hand, a neuroscientist explains this perceptual and motor (note the separate concepts signifying the distinct ontology) task in terms of identifying the obtaining of the representation of the environment and how it is computed in the visual system, and then how that information sends motor commands to the body to successfully guide walking through the aperture (e.g., Edelman, 1999; Jeannerod, 1994; Jordan & Wolpert, 2000; Marr, 1982/2010; Pylyshyn, 1980).
Finally, by irreconcilable I mean that each adheres to distinct guides to discovery. In science, guides to discovery are sources of new hypotheses that can assist in the development of new experiments (Chemero, 2009, 2013), and provide theory to constrain explanations of experimental results (Golonka & Wilson, 2012). For the ecological psychologist, afordances regularly serve as the guide to discovery. For neuroscientists, there is no single dominant guide to discovery as afordances in ecological psychology. However, there are various contenders, such as the Bayesian brain (Knill & Pouget, 2004), coordination dynamics (Bressler & Kelso, 2016), criticality (Beggs, 2008), free-energy principle (Ramstead, Badcock, & Friston, 2018), Neural Darwinism (Edelman, 1987), and neural reuse (Anderson, 2014).
In sum, the investigative frameworks of ecological psychology and neuroscience are irreconcilable in crucial ways with regard to each of the four aforementioned features. Visually-guided action provides a clear example of these diferences. At its most general, visually-guided action can be understood as the voluntary control a perceptual system can exert to ensure successful movements while integrating and utilizing various sources of information, such as distance and shape of objects and location of limbs (Westwood, 2010). For organisms that rely on visual information (e.g., light, or the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum perceivable by a perceptual apparatus, like a mammalian eye), visuallyguided action is as commonplace as looking at a bug bite on one’s leg and then scratching it or reaching for a cup of cofee on a desk, to as specialized as dribbling a ball past an opponent’s team toward a goal or surgically removing a brain tumor. This general description of visually-guided action can be accepted by both ecological psychology and neuroscience. But that is where the agreement stops. Their respective investigative approaches are radically diferent and are framed in what follows in terms of contrasting concepts, methods, theories, and guides to discovery.4
1.2.1 Neuroscience approach to visually-guided action
The neuroscience approach to investigating visually-guided action is presented here via an attempt to address the following question: “How does a mammal (e.g., orangutan) grab a piece of fruit from a tree?” One way to understand the neuroscientifc approach is by breaking the issue into three subproblems, known as Marr’s three levels of analysis (Figure 1.1; Marr, 1982/2010, pp. 24–27). For the sake of ease of discussion, I refer to them as Levels 1, 2, and 3. Though arguments could be made about which level is most important, the
4 Admittedly, the ecological psychology and neuroscience accounts of visually-guided action I describe here are quite simplistic. I request that the reader suspend judgment of the details in favor of the overall points being made, which are to highlight the diferences of these approaches in a succinct and introductory-level manner.
Figure 1.1 Neuroscience account of visually-guided action via Marr’s three levels of analysis. (a) Level 1: Computational theory: What is that which is being computed for? Here, the problem of obtaining a piece of fruit from a tree branch. (b) Level 2: Representation and algorithm: How do we understand the computation in terms of inputs and outputs. Here, a modelbased view of sensorimotor control, with a schematic of the processes (left) and outline of anatomical pathways (right). (c) Level 3: Hardware implementation: Identify how the algorithms and representations are realized. Here, mapping of sensorimotor cortex via fMRI and intraoperative optic microscopic (bottom right).
Source: (a) Modifed and reprinted with permission from Pixabay; (b) Modifed and reprinted with permission from Lan, Niu, Hao, Chou, and Dai (2019). Copyright 2019 IEEE CC BY 4.0; (c) Reprinted with permission from Rosazza et al. (2014). Copyright 2014 Public Library of Science; CC BY 4.0.
number is not intended to signify a hierarchy (see Eliasmith & Kolbeck, 2015 for discussion of Marr intending the three levels to be integrated). The most general level is Level 1, the computational theory, which asks, “What is being computed; what is it for?” In this case, the computation is the orangutan trying to fgure out how to traverse tree branches to bring fruit within grabbing distance. Level 2, representation and algorithm aims to provide an account for how the computation is implemented; that is, how do we understand the computation in terms of inputs (e.g., indirect mental representation of fruit hanging of branch) and outputs (e.g., control and coordination of limbs). Last, Level 3, is hardware implementation, which seeks to provide an account for how the algorithms and representations are realized, in this case, in the orangutans brain.
By taking the three levels of analysis approach, a number of investigative commitments are revealed. First, with regard to concepts, it is clear that “computations” and “representations” are crucial to all three levels. Computations play the role both of formalizing the target phenomenon (Levels 1 and 2) and as providing the means to understanding the nature of the physical realization, for example, neuronal activity (Level 3). Representations also play the role of understanding what the algorithm processes (Level 2) and what the physical realizers should be doing (Level 3). Second, in terms of methods, the approach reveals the importance of decomposing phenomena to their parts (Level 2) and reducing them to neuroanatomy (Level 3). The third, theory, and fourth, guide to discovery, are combined. In many ways, this general approach is “theory broad,” though not quite “theory neutral.” It is theory broad in the sense that several theories can serve as guides to discovery under this general three levels approach, for example, Bayesian brain, free-energy principle, and Neural Darwinism. As long as some form of computationalism and representationalism is involved, hypotheses can be generated from a variety of approaches and experimental results explained as broadly.
Another way to understand the neuroscience investigative approach to visually-guided action is as an instance of the outside-in framework (Buzsáki, 2019). Buzsáki presents the generally-accepted outside-in approach of neuroscience as centering on the theoretical commitment of understanding the brain as an information-processing system that receives information (e.g., light through the eyes), computes the information (e.g., acts on representations), and then responds (e.g., send motor command to limbs).5 The ecological psychology approach is not an outside-in approach and does not share any of the earlier concepts, methods, or guides to discovery, especially with regard to visually-guided actions.6
5 One need not look far to fnd confrmation of Buzsáki’s claim. As a recent neuroscience textbook states, “The brain’s representation of the visual world is dictated by the optics of the eye and, in particular, where light from the visual scene falls on the retina” (Postle, 2020, p. 90).
6 In Marr’s immensely infuential “Vision” (1982/2010), where he lays out the three levels approach and sets the foundation for investigating visual perception in terms of information processing, he briefy discusses Gibson’s ecological approach. Marr stated that Gibson made an “important contribution” (p. 29) to the feld by highlighting the signifcance of the structure of environmental information when attempting to explain visual perception. However, Marr thought Gibson “had a much oversimplifed view” of how to do that, which lead to two “fatal shortcomings” (pp. 29–30). First, not understanding that perception of environmental information is information-processing and, second, the detection of environmental information is difcult and complicated for systems.
1.2.2 Ecological psychology approach to visually-guided action
The ecological psychology approach to investigating visually-guided action is presented here via an attempt to address the following question: “How do mammals (e.g., dogs and humans) avoid obstacles?” When investigating such perceptual-motor occurrences, the ecological psychologist does not appeal to features of the neuroscientifc approach just presented. As stated earlier, the three core principles of ecological psychology are that perception is direct (i.e., not involving indirect mental representations), perception and action are continuous, and afordances are the meaningful facets of perception. Building on these core commitments, Neo-Gibsonians have incorporated various formal tools (e.g., dynamical systems theory) to facilitate the development of mathematically-rigorous explanations.
A typical starting point for ecological psychologists is to identify the afordance of interest. Remember, afordances are the meaningful opportunities for behavior that an organism perceives (more on afordances in Chapter 2). Here, the afordance is obstacle avoidance (Figure 1.2a). In other words, if there are obstacles, then do they aford avoiding based on the environmental conditions and the bodily dimensions and capacities of the acting organism? The next task is to identify the relevant variables that capture features of the environment and organism during the target of investigation. That is to say, those features most critical to the perceptual-motor event. This step can involve creating a schematic of the environment based on body-scaled information, which are environmental dimensions as they relate to bodily dimensions of the organism (Figure 1.2b). A simple example of such body-scaled variables is the A/S ratio—aperture width (A) to shoulder width (S)—discussed previously, which captures the critical point that an aperture afords passing through or not for a human. In addition to more static features like body and object size, dynamic features such as locomotor capabilities must be identifed, such as approach speed and time-to-crossing (Figure 1.2c). With all relevant optical, spatial, and temporal variables identifed (Figure 1.2d), the model fully accounts for the obstacle-avoidance afordance. Explanations like these exhibit such scientifc virtues as controlled manipulations, predictions, and simplicity.
Such work as Fajen’s (2013) afordance-based model of visually-guided action in the presence of moving objects—from which much of the current discussion is borrowed—is exemplary of an ecological psychology investigative approach. It adheres to the three main principles customary to ecological psychology since its earliest days and leverages the formalisms incorporated by Neo-Gibsonians. Moreover, it reveals a number of investigative commitments. First, with regard to both concepts and methods, it is clear that the ecological psychologist considers both features of the organism and environment as equally important to explaining perceptual-motor events. Accordingly, concepts like “body-scaled information” are utilized instead of absolute units. For example, distance between organism and environment is not in terms of an absolute space measured by a Cartesian coordinate system. Instead, distance is in terms of features like relative eye-height. Next, in terms of theory, this work reveals the crucial roles that theoretical commitments play in ecological psychology research. Specifcally, the continuity of perception and action (e.g., actionscaled information), as well as other nondualities like the organism-environment system. Such emphases on theory reveal the source of many hypotheses in ecological psychology research, namely, afordances. Afordances are the primary guide to discovery in ecological psychology and, as such, both inspire and inform hypotheses as well as provide a resource for explaining experimental results.
Figure 1.2 Ecological psychology account of visually-guided action. (a) Obstacle avoidance; a common visually-guided action. Here, a dog avoiding a series of pillar-like obstacles. (b) An example schematic of the target phenomenon. Here, a human is moving toward an obstacle. (c) Model of visually-guided locomotion in terms of afordances specifed by information in the optic array and accounting for physical size of both perceiver and obstacle. (d) Table of defnitions of symbols designating spatial, temporal, and optical variables.
Source: (a) Modifed and reprinted with permission from Pixabay); (b–d) Modifed and reprinted with permission from Fajen (2013). Copyright 2013 Frontiers Media CC BY 3.0.
1.2.3 Radically diferent scientifc worldviews
The aim of the previous two sections was to provide a general overview of ways ecological psychology and neuroscience investigate, explain, and understand a common natural phenomenon, namely, visually-guided action. A summary of their diferences is presented in Table 1.1. At the risk of making everybody upset, I think each approach can be summed up as follows: Ecological psychology is a systems-level approach, in that phenomena of interest (i.e., afordances) emerge primarily at the level of systems, such as the perceptionaction system and organism-environment system (i.e., not the type of “system” of systems neuroscience, e.g., auditory system). Neuroscience is an information-processing approach, in that phenomena of interest (e.g., motor control) occur primarily in the central nervous system (CNS), especially brains (i.e., not the kind of “information” of ecological psychology, namely, invariant ecological information available in, for example, the optic array). Of course, no ecological psychologist would deny that the CNS plays necessary roles in mammalian perception-action. But they would not say the CNS is the primary target of investigation. Similarly, no neuroscientist would deny that the CNS cannot do its job without a body or environment. But they would not say embodiment or situatedness are the prime factors in their explanations. Granting that each acknowledges the other’s preferred investigative purview, the fact is that in many ways each conducts research from within radically diferent worldviews.
The distinct concepts, methods, theories, and guides to discovery presented in Table 1.1 are not merely diferent aspects of the same world. Though a physicist studies subatomic particles, a chemist studies compounds and elements, and a biologist studies cells and organs, all of their targets of investigation exist within the same world. That is to say, compounds and elements, cells and organs are all constituted by subatomic particles—each is just investigated for various epistemic and practical reasons. The same is not necessarily true of the diferences between ecological psychologists and neuroscientists, which, in a number of crucial ways, have entirely diferent ontologies—or things that exist. The kind of “representations” posited by neuroscience are not merely outside the investigative purview of ecological psychology. For the ecological psychologist’s ontology, “representations” do not exist. In the same way, though neuroscientists may use the word ‘afordance’ loosely to refer to “potential actions” (e.g., Cisek, 2007, p. 1586; cf. Frey & Grafton, 2014), they do not use it in the stricter ecological sense, namely, directly perceivable opportunities for behavior based on properties of both organism and environment, and specifed by environmental information (e.g., Chemero, 2009; Stofregen, 2003). Consequently, the “afordances” of ecological psychology do not exist in neuroscientist’s ontology.
Table 1.1 Key investigative diferences between ecological psychology and neuroscience
Ecological Psychology
Concepts
Methods
Theories
Guides to Discovery
Neuroscience
body-scaled information, actionscaled information mathematical modeling; dynamical explanations continuities of perception-action and organism-environment afordances computation; representation
Note: These examples are not intended to be exhaustive.
neural imaging; reductionist and mechanistic explanations information processing; outside-in Bayesian brain; free-energy principle, Neural Darwinism; neural reuse
The dissimilarities are also epistemic—or the ways things are known, e.g., deductions and inferences made based on data—especially with regard to explanations. As discussed earlier, a model of visually-guided action that captures all relevant variables and their interactions can serve as an explanation for an ecological psychologist (Figure 1.2c; cf. Chemero & Silberstein, 2008; Dale, 2008; Silberstein, 2021; Stepp, Chemero, & Turvey, 2011). However, a neuroscientist is unlikely to accept such a model alone as explanatory (e.g., Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 2010; Craver, 2007; Kaplan & Craver, 2011; Piccinini & Craver, 2011; cf. Favela, 2021; Izhikevich, 2007; Ross, 2015). In the same way, identifying the sequence of neuronal fring patterns and imaging corresponding neuronal activity underlying representations contributing to visually-guided action can serve as an explanation for a neuroscientist. However, an ecological psychologist is unlikely to accept such an explanation as long as, among other reasons, it does not provide a compelling account of what “representations” are (Richardson et al., 2008; Riley & Holden, 2012; Turvey, 2019; Turvey & Carello, 1981; see Dennett, 1971 on “loans of intelligence”).
It is for these reasons and more (e.g., sociohistorical) that ecological psychology and neuroscience can be considered irreconcilable scientifc frameworks for investigating, explaining, and understanding mind. As I have argued previously, the situation is not one of merely diferent preferred concepts, methods, theories, and guides to discovery. Those components of their investigative frameworks are committed to some radically diferent ontological commitments (e.g., afordances and representations), as well as conficting epistemic standards for justifed explanations. With all that said, there are reasons to think that a bridge can be built between them.
1.3 What’s to come
Though the details of the earlier argument can be debated, it is uncontroversial to accept the claim that ecological psychology and neuroscience are considered irreconcilable scientifc frameworks for investigating, explaining, and understanding mind. In response to that current state of afairs, the primary aim of this book is to defend the following thesis: ecological psychology and neuroscience can be reconciled via complexity science. This thesis will be motivated by demonstrating the ability of a specifc complexity science framework to integrate ecological psychology and neuroscience: the NeuroEcological Nexus Theory (NExT). The successful reconciliation of ecological psychology and neuroscience via NExT will exhibit a number of lessons with broad applicability to other mind sciences and related issues. There are at least three reasons to think such reconciliation is possible. First, and as a basic point, since at least the 1980s, ecological psychologists and neuroscientists have collaborated on various projects (e.g., Chemero & Heyser, 2009; Favela, Coey, Grif, & Richardson, 2016; Kugler, Kelso, & Turvey, 1980). Second, and of more signifcance, there is a recent trend in ecological psychology literature to explore ways to make stronger connections between the CNS and perception-action. Such work endeavors to supplement ecological psychology explanations of perceptual-motor events with explicit discussion of the contributions the brain and other facets of the nervous system make to those events. This work has been described as “Gibsonian neuroscience” and “ecological neuroscience” (e.g., de Wit & Withagen, 2019; Golonka & Wilson, 2019; van der Meer & van der Weel, 2020; van Dijk & Myin, 2019; though not by those names, attempts at this approach are found in Anderson, 2014; Raja, 2018; Raja & Anderson, 2019). Third, and most important for my purposes, various features of complexity science have already been successfully imported in a range of ecological psychology (e.g., Richardson & Chemero, 2014; Stephen & Van
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25. I shall recommend but one more help; and that is, the conscientious use of that holy sacrament, which is peculiarly appointed to nourish and increase the spiritual life, when once it is begotten in the soul. All the instruments of religion meet together in this ordinance; and while we address ourselves to it, we are put to practise all the rules which were mentioned before. Then it is that we make the severest survey of our actions, and lay the strictest obligations on ourselves: then are our minds raised to the highest contempt of the world, and every grace doth exercise itself with the greatest activity and vigour All the subjects of contemplation there present themselves unto us with the greatest advantage; and then, if ever, doth the soul make its most powerful sallies towards heaven, and assault it with a holy and acceptable force. And certainly the neglect, or careless performance of this duty, is one of the chief causes that be-dwarfs our religion, and make us continue of so low a size.
A P R A Y E R.
AND now, O most gracious God, Father and fountain of mercy, who hast blessed us with the knowledge of our happiness, and the way that leadeth unto it, excite in our souls such ardent desires after the one as may put us forth to the diligent prosecution of the other. Let us neither presume on our own strength, nor distrust thy assistance; but while we are doing our utmost endeavours, still depend on thee for success. Open our eyes, O God, and teach us out of thy law. Bless us with an exact and tender sense of our duty, and a knowledge to discern perverse things. O that our ways were directed to keep thy statutes! Then shall we not be ashamed when we have a respect unto all thy commandments. Possess our hearts with a generous and holy disdain of all those poor enjoyments which this world holdeth out to allure us, that they may never be able to inveigle our affections, or betray us to any sin. Turn away our eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken thou us in thy law. Fill our souls with such a deep sense of those great truths which thou hast revealed in the gospel, as may influence and regulate our whole conversation: so that the life which we henceforth live in the flesh, we may live through faith in the Son of God. O that the infinite perfections of thy blessed nature, and the astonishing expressions of thy goodness may overpower our hearts; that they may be constantly rising towards thee in flames of devout affection, and enlarging themselves in cordial love towards all the world for thy sake; and that we may cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in thy fear, without which we can never hope to behold and enjoy thee. Finally, O God, grant that the consideration of what thou art, and what we ourselves are, may both humble and lay us low before thee, and also stir up in us the strongest and most ardent aspirations towards thee. We desire to give up ourselves to the conduct of thy Holy Spirit: lead us in thy truth, and teach us, for thou art the God of our salvation. Guide us with thy counsel, and afterwards receive us unto glory; for the merits and intercession of thy blessed Son, our Saviour Amen.
The End of the E V .
E R R A T A, Volume VIII.
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