ABSTRACT
But in a complex reflexive world, the manipulative or action function interferes with the cognitive function because people act on what they know, action changes what the world is, and thus changes knowledge. Action thus has a feedback effect on knowledge so that
worldˆmind ð2Þ
So it is incorrect to say as in (1) that the world is fully independent of us and independently determines our knowledge of it. The main direction of causation when we think of knowledge is still from the world to the mind, but the feedback loop from action in (2) produces a reverse causation that modifies the world and thus knowledge.1 The cognitive function modified by manipulative function might thus be represented as
world!mind ½worldˆmind� or
‘world!mind’ ð3Þ
(ii) In the case of the manipulative function, the direction of causation is from the mind to the world. Taken in isolation, people act on what they know as if their motivations in doing so were fully independent of their actions.
