Szymon Kaliski

Extended Mind

• paper by Andy Clark and David Chalmers
• propose idea that objects in the environment are part of the mind
• thought experiment:
  • Otto and Inga are going to a museum
  • Otto has Alzheimer's disease
  • both have a belief of where the museum is
  • Inga consults her memory to know
  • Otto consults his notebook to know (his mind is extended to include the notebook as memory)
  • the only difference in these two cases is that Inga's memory is being internally processed by the brain, while Otto's memory is being served by the notebook
• this could be extended to also hold parts of memory/thinking in other agents (people, computers, etc...)
• important to note that "extended mind" is mainly based on language, so other forms of thinking are harder/impossible? (body-thinking, etc.)
• related to:
  • Canvas for Thinking / Canvas for Programming
  • Memex
  • Situated Cognition / Embodied Cognition / Epistemic Actions

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The cockpit, with its pilots and instruments forming a single cognitive system, can only be understood when we understand, as a unity, the contributions of the individual agents in the system and the coordination necessary among the agents to enact the goal, that is, to achieve "the successful completion of a flight."

— A Small Matter of Programming - Bonnie Nardi

Backlinks

1. 2024-04-13Extended Phenotypes¹
2. 2024-04-13Each Extension is an Amputation¹
3. 2022-01-18Epistemic Actions¹
4. 2021-03-19Embodied Cognition¹
5. 2021-02-10Thinking by Writing¹