Week 13 Assignments - Cognition: Bringing Forth a World

Would I agree that "to live is to know"?:

In researching this question a little further, I came across an article that talks about our immune system - and talks about further research done by Varela and Maturana. In part, the article states (in reference to the regulatory function of the immune system):

From the perspective of the Santiago theory, this regulatory function is part of the immune system's process of cognition. When foreign molecules enter the body, the resulting response is not their automatic destruction but regulation of their levels within the system's other cognitive activities. The response will vary and will depend upon the entire context of the network.

What occurs to me after reading this and after our discussion in class of the Santiago theory in general, is whether the idea of cognition in living systems does not in some way suggest the existence of a "soul" - could the driving force behind otherwise biological behavior be something bigger and essentially unknown, and might not we go so far as to name that other a soul?

In this respect, I would have to say that I definitely do agree that to live is to know - that the sum total of our experiences including something energetically unknown to us (Qi?) drives our processes, development, and ultimately our deaths.

Memory and Magic - how might you view things differently now?:

I guess that the most startling thing about this article, to me, was the assertion that in one well known magic trick - where a magician pretends to throw a ball up in the air - there really isn't a ball at all - that the illusion is strictly in our minds. I have to admit that this idea really blew me away....and it also explains a great deal about the world we live in, where people are completely capable of seeing only what it is they are prepared or willing to see, and why so much is out of balance because of this. It really gives pause to the statement of "seeing is believing"...