The Over-extended Mind David Cole umd

David Cole UMD

[3225 words Sept 28 2010 + references
Are you smarter than a Fifth Grader? OK, well how about a Fifth grader with G4 mobile high-speed internet access??
There’s a possibly more interesting general question: does technology transform and extend the mind and our mental powers? In a widely discussed 1998 paper titled “The Extended Mind”, Andy Clark and David Chalmers argue that mind and cognition can extend outside the head and can include items and processes in the world. In their thought experiment, Otto has alzheimer’s syndrome but does not lose his ability to function because he records information he learns in a notebook that he always carries. Thus, C&C claim, Otto continues to have beliefs. The notebooks function as his memory. C&C propose a "parity principle": a part of the world is part of a cognitive process if it "functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing [it] as part of the cognitive process .... Cognitive processes ain't (all) in the head!" (in Menary p. 29, original emphasis).

The Extended Mind (EM) movement is part of a large clash of approachs to understanding mind and cognition. On the classic Representational Theory of Mind, sensory processes bring information into the head, these produce representations in the brain, neural processes produce cognitive operations such as inferences including practical reasoning that results in intentions to behave, and this output controls behavior, including linguistic behavior. Regarding language, in particular, linguistic input is translated into Mentalese, mentalese reps are processed, and the result is translated back into representations of natural language, resulting in speech or writing. All cognition is inside the head. This clashes with EM, aka embodied or embedded cognition, which sees the environment as often a component of cognition. In particular, devices such as an abacus or a computer, and natural languages are seen as extenders of cognition and mind. Finally, Radical Embodied Cognition (e.g. Chemero 2009) dispenses with representations whether inside or outside the mind and sees the mind as coupled with the environment to form a single dynamic system that functions without the need for representations. I’ll focus here on EM and its direct critics.

Clark has gone on to defend and extend the extended mind thesis in his 2008 book _SuperSizing the Mind_. The Extended Mind claim has been controversial, and many (e.g. Jerry Fodor, no surprise) think it is unacceptable. It is easy to understand the tension. On the one hand, we have long used various tools when thinking, including books, pen and paper, abacus and calculator, and have always distinguished between the tool and the mind that uses them. On the other hand, the EM claim seems a relatively straight-forward consequence of functionalism, the position that what makes something a mental state or process is the causal role it plays. Functionalism was designed to counter substance chauvinism (e.g. pain must involve activation of particular neurons); why isn’t requiring a particular location for cognitive processes, namely confined to the cranium, just location chauvinism? And if to the question “Do you know what time it is” I can rightly answer “yes”, then glance at my watch, and say “4:30”, it seems I often attribute to myself knowledge that I have only in virtue of interaction with an artifact. The external watch becomes an essential component of my self-ascribed state of knowledge. So what then can be the difference between merely using a cognitive tool and extending one’s mind?

For starters, one must be causally coupled with the tool, but that by itself is not sufficient. Chalmers and Clark propose three conditions for a coupling to count as constitutive of cognition: information in the resource must be 1) reliably available and used, 2) automatically endorsed, and 3) easily accessible.  The second condition is meant to rule out e.g. mobile access to Google, as in our 5th grader example - but, as near as I can tell, it would not rule out mobile access to self-authored Google-docs or diary entries. Nor does it rule out the watch example, assuming my watch is virtually always with me and I generally unreflectingly rely on it and endorse its time indications. So Extended Mind thesis is not just about exotic technology; it appears to entail that Otto’s mind includes his notebooks, and, moving from thought-experiment to the real world, that my mind includes my watch and the things-to-do list in my pocket.

I think there are important insights, perhaps of focus, that come from the extended mind approach, but I don’t think we have discovered that our minds are partly on our wrists or in our cell phones or pockets. Rather I’ll argue that just as we have a pretty good distinction between our bodies and our cars and hammers, we have a good distinction between our minds and the information tools with which they couple. At the same time, I think we can hold that our minds can be parts of larger cognitive processes that include cognitive tools. Building a house is a task that involves bodies and tools; designing the building is a cognitive task that involves minds and tools. The extended mind thesis holds that we must include as part of the mind anything which, if it were in the head, we would count as part of a cognitive process. But clearly we don’t do this with the physical – I am not required to count as part of my body anything such that if it were inside my body would be counted as a bodily part. If I am on an artificial kidney machine, even though the process of blood cleansing is the same that would count as a bodily process were my body doing it, the dialysis machine is not a part of my body. Buying a Subaru Outback is not body-building. In general, being coupled to a machine does not make the machine part of my body.

So the modest proposal comes down to continuing to draw the mind/world boundary where we have done, but recognize the important ways in which cognitive processes can extend beyond our skin. Thus we can reject an identity of our minds with all the cognitive processes in which we are involved. Some cognitive processes take place entirely inside our heads and minds, and are purely mental, and some do not.

Along the lines suggested here, in thinking about A&A’s coupling-constitution criticism, I think we need to make the distinction between mind and cognitive process. On this view, contary to A&A it is not a fallacy to hold that when we causally couple with things and processes in the external environment these come to constitute – be part of – our cognitive processes. On the other hand, it is a mistake to think that these come to be parts of our minds. So the distinction between mind and cognitive process is crucial, on the view I am advocating here, and marks the boundary between fallacy and interesting idea and research program.

Blindsight and multiple personality disorders are also related phenomena - blindsight is perhaps best described as a single mind with internal communication problems. Hallucinating Schizophrenics and Multiple personality disorder is difficult to categorize - extreme cases might be treated as single body/ multiple minds. In the case of MPD, perhaps it would depend on what information the "personalities" share.