Extended cognition
Extended cognition is the thesis that a subject's cognitive processes can extend beyond the brain and central nervous system of the subject; indeed, can extend beyond her skin and skull.
In particular, it is the thesis that features of the subject's cognitive environment, such as technology, can in the right conditions become genuine, proper parts of the subject's cognitive processes.1 Extended cognition has in recent years become a very influential research programme in the cognitive sciences, with its philosophical implications developed and explored by philosophers of mind and cognitive science.Putative examples of extended cognition are legion, and uniformly controversial.The canonical example, due to Andy Clark and David Chalmers (1998), concerns a subject, Otto, who is losing his memory and so begins to use a notebook to compensate for his memory loss. The question is whether Otto's use of the notebook can eventually count as an extended cognitive process—i.e., as a kind of extended memory, on a par with his biological memory. Clark and Chalmers claim that it can. In particular, they appeal to the following parity principle:
If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is [...] part of the cognitive process.
(Clark and Chalmers 1998, 29)
Applied to Otto and his notebook, the rationale in play is that, so long as the notebook functions just like his ‘internal' onboard memory, then we should treat it as a genuine part of an extended cognitive process.That is, Otto's use of the notebook is not to be understood as simply an agent employing an instrument, but rather as an integrated part of his cognitive processes, and thus cognitively equivalent to his (biological) memory.2
The crucial element in this thought experiment is, of course, whether Otto's use of the notebook could ever be on a functional par with his use of his biological memory.
In particular, the latter tends to have an immediacy and a distinctive kind of phenomenology that goes along with its usage that seems very different to how one might employ a notebook. For example, one can employ one's memory in one's reasoning in such a seamless fashion that one might not even be consciously aware that this is what one is doing. Could one's use of a notebook ever be seamless in this fashion? In particular, won't the use of the notebook always involve a kind of intellectual distance, just like that present when one uses an instrument?Still, even if one is not convinced that the parity principle is satisfied in this case, one might think that there are cases that are more plausible in this regard. Indeed, for the purposes of this article we can just stipulate a kind of technology that would fit the bill, and leave it an open question as to whether such technology yet exists. Elsewhere I have referred to such technology as neuromedia, which I described as follows:
information processing technology that is so seamlessly integrated with one's on-board cognitive processes that the subject is often unable to distinguish between her use of those on-board processes and the technology itself. The subject's relationship to the technology is consequently no longer one of subject-to-instrument, but rather ‘feels' like a technological extension of her normal cognitive processes.
(Pritchard 2018d, 328)3
So understood, neuromedia would clearly satisfy the parity principle. Moreover, even if one is not convinced that there is any technology available just now that would count as neuromedia in this specific sense, I think it is undeniable that those who are developing new technologies of the relevant kind are aiming to create something along just these lines. For example, couldn't we easily imagine a time when consulting the internet for information is so automatic and phenomenologically immediate that it is no different from consulting one's memory (to the extent that one might not ordinarily be able to tell the difference)?4 If so, then this would be neuromedia, and hence a plausible case of extended cognition, in virtue of its satisfaction of the parity principle.5
Notice, too, that neuromedia would also clearly manifest a further feature that is often thought to be entailed by the parity principle, which is that cognitively extended processes need to be sufficiently integrated into one's wider cognitive system that their employment leads to rich feedback loops.The information one gains from one's neuromedia could mesh in substantive ways with information from other sources (memorial, perceptual, and so on), such that they collectively guide action, leading in turn to new information-processing that employs both extended and onboard cognitive resources.
This kind of cognitive integration is important to any claim about functional equivalence between the extended and the corresponding onboard cognitive processes, given that one's onboard cognitive processes are clearly cognitively integrated.Think, for example, about how one's feeling of coldness meshes with one's memorial and perceptual knowledge of one's environment (seeing that it is night time, remembering how cold it gets at night in these parts, and so on), with each reinforcing the other and guiding action accordingly (seeking out one's jumper, for example).6Of course, one might dispute the parity principle, not just in terms of the detail (e.g., whether it entails cognitive integration, and to what extent) but more broadly as a test for extended cognition. Indeed, one might be suspicious of the very idea that there can be extended cognition, and hence the possibility of neuromedia would be neither here nor there.7 For our purposes, however, we will take it as given that there could be such a thing as extended cognition, and that were it to exist then neuromedia would be an instantiation of it. The question we will be engaging with is what implications the extended cognition thesis might have for humility.
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