BEING ABOUT Part II: Presence and simulation In Part I, Cognitive bodies, I described adaptive structure built in three kinds of time: evolutionary time, the developmental and maturational history of an individual (which would include any kind of learning), and the moment of present function. Part II, Presence and simulation, should be understood as continuing discussion of primarily cortical adaptation within immediacy. The notion of presence, as I am using it in this section, draws on two contrasts. One is the contrast between atemporal competence and performance in present time: the organism is about many things in virtue of its competent structure, but presence structure has to do with being about something in particular, at this moment. The other contrast is between aboutness that happens through contact with an environment -- being about what one is with -- and simulational aboutness -- being about something one is not with: being present to something, as opposed to being as if present to it. Perceiving and acting occur in the present and in contact with an environment. Simulation occurs in a present time that is minimally present to an environment. Cortical structure by means of which we perceive and act is significantly codetermined by the environment, through dynamic coupling in the present moment, while simulational structure is set up without such coupling. One of the advantages of presence as a term for an organism's immediate structural aboutness is that it can apply to structure that is the means of action as well as to structure that is the means of perception. Presence includes perception, but it is wider than perception as it has been understood. Contact occurs by means of sensors, but it also occurs by means of effectors. Motor structure in the cortex includes structure organizing the motion of sensors. Sensory structure in the cortex includes somatosensory structure monitoring movement. And all of this structure is connected -- a wide, interactive, evolving configuration by means of which a living thing is related to an entire circumstance. The first two chapters in Part II, Chapters 3 and 4, both consider perception-action constellations of this kind. The emphasis in Chapter 3 is on the senses, while Chapter 4 deals with sensory-motor act organization in deeper associative zones. Both presence chapters emphasize the spatial directedness or task axis that organizes perception and action. In Chapter 5, Simulation, I show how immediate but non-coupled aboutness can be built around a simulational task axis, and describe wide net implications for a philosophy of imagining.
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