The Symbol Detachment Problem

In situated and embodied approaches it is
commonly assumed that the dynamics of sensorimotor
engagement between an adaptive agent and its environment
are crucial in understanding natural cognition. This perspective
permits to address the symbol grounding problem,
since the aboutness of any mental state arising during
agent-environment engagement is guaranteed by their
continuous coupling. However, cognitive agents are also
able to formulate representations that are detached from the
current state of affairs, such as expectations and goals.
Moreover, they can act on their representations before--or
instead of--acting directly on the environment, for example
building the plan of a bridge and not directly the bridge.
On the basis of representations, actions such as planning,
remembering or imagining are possible that are disengaged
from the current sensorimotor cycle, and often functional to
future-oriented conducts. A new problem thus has to be
acknowledged, the symbol detachment problem: how and
why do situated agents develop representations that are
detached from their current sensorimotor interaction, but
nevertheless preserve grounding and aboutness? How do
cognitive agents progressively acquire a range of capabilities
permitting them to deal not only with the current
situation but also with alternative, in particular future states
of affairs? How do they develop the capability of acting on
their representations instead of acting directly on the
world? In a theoretical and developmental perspective, we
propose that anticipation plays a crucial role in the
detachment process: anticipatory representations, originally
detached from the sensorimotor cycle for the sake of
action control, are successively exapted for bootstrapping
increasingly complex cognitive capabilities.