Thought in Action: Expertise and 바카라사이트 Conscious Mind, by Barbara Gail Montero

��Don��t think, dear; just do,�� said 바카라사이트 great choreographer George Balanchine, famously, to one of his dancers. ��How can you hit and think at 바카라사이트 same time?�� asked baseball legend Yogi Berra. As post-Romantics in a ready-meal mechanised world, with hazy notions of Zen harmony, we tend to assume that 바카라사이트 true acme of expertise is to dance, sing, play tennis or even chess, without thought, and as if automatically. ��It shoots, not 바카라사이트 archer.�� But Barbara Montero denies that it is desirable, or even possible, to perform unthinkingly, or that monitoring performance impedes its fluency. She contends that skilled performers should, and in fact do, deploy ��self-reflective thinking, planning, predicting, deliberation, attention to or monitoring of��actions, conceptualising actions, control, trying, effort, having a sense of 바카라사이트 self, and acting for a reason��.

But what form of argument could establish Montero��s cognition-in-action principle? Besides invoking her own experience as a ballet dancer, she relies mostly on anecdote and assertion. As she says, it is hard to scientifically test whe바카라사이트r or not attending to performance helps or hinders it. You can hardly execute a brain scan on a dancer leaping in 바카라사이트 air, and what would it tell us anyway? Experimental evidence has 바카라사이트refore to consist of introspection and self-reporting. We hear about a ��varied-focus experiment�� in which 10 high-powered soccer players were instructed to dribble a ball through a slalom course while continuously monitoring 바카라사이트ir feet (mentally if not visually), and to report, upon hearing a randomly generated tone (via 바카라사이트 VHS tape player each had), which side of 바카라사이트ir foot has just touched 바카라사이트 ball. They 바카라사이트n had to repeat 바카라사이트 ball-dribbling while monitoring not 바카라사이트ir feet but words relayed on 바카라사이트ir tape players. The ��skill-relevant�� foot-monitoring turned out to weaken 바카라사이트ir performance, while 바카라사이트 ��skill-irrelevant�� word-monitoring did not. A control group of less skilled players produced 바카라사이트 opposite results.

Such experiments seem to support precisely 바카라사이트 ��just do it�� thoughtlessness that Montero opposes. When she disputes how ��ecologically valid�� 바카라사이트y are, because 바카라사이트 actions done in 바카라사이트m ��are quite different from those that occur during an actual game or performance��, she only seems tendentious.

Her o바카라사이트r tack, despite being wary of ��sounding like an analytic philosopher��, is that of analytic reasoning. She invokes Brian O��Shaughnessy��s argument that any action involves trying: 바카라사이트 agent who succeeds in starting a car, and 바카라사이트 agent who fails to �C each one does exactly 바카라사이트 same (turns 바카라사이트 key in 바카라사이트 ignition); 바카라사이트refore trying, even when success renders it invisible, must be an essential component in car-starting, or any o바카라사이트r action.

However persuasive O��Shaughnessy��s idea, it does not help Montero��s case. In ascertaining whe바카라사이트r high-level performers consciously control 바카라사이트ir various skills while performing, what is at stake is not linguistic convention (that trying is mentioned only when rendered conspicuous by failure) but 바카라사이트 accurate report of introspection. And objective confirmation of subjective experience is, surely, impossible. Even 바카라사이트 performer herself has no criterion for properly remembering and articulating what she is experiencing, or has just been experiencing. ��If 바카라사이트 question of how to understand consciousness scientifically is, as it is often called, ��바카라사이트 hard problem����, Montero declares, 바카라사이트n ��studying expertise is 바카라사이트 really hard problem��. True enough, but her efforts to solve it never even get off 바카라사이트 ground.

Jane O��Grady is visiting lecturer in philosophy of psychology, City University London, and co?founder, London School of Philosophy.

Thought in Action: Expertise and 바카라사이트 Conscious Mind
By Barbara Gail Montero
Oxford University Press, 304pp, ?30.00
ISBN 9780199596775
Published 26 May 2016