A. Clark, Surfing uncertainty

Daniel Williams

pp. 985-991

in: Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 16 (5), 2017.

Abstract

In the 1940s, the Cambridge psychologist and philosopher Kenneth Craik hypothesised that organisms use their nervous systems to construct and manipulate an internal model of the world, the chief function of which is prediction: “If the organism carries a “small-scale model” of external reality and of its own possible actions within its head, it is able to… react to future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of past events in dealing with the present and future, and in every way to react in a much fuller, safer, and more competent manner to the emergencies which face it” Craik 1943, 61). Craik died at the age of 31 before he could develop this idea in any detail. If the central message of Clark (2016) is along the right lines, however, it turns out he was extremely prescient.