Magdalena Dakeva

PHIL 212 (LING 208 & VMS 302)

INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, Fall 2015
Final Paper
Topic 4
I have adhered to the Duke Community Standard in completing this
assignment.

What is the thesis of extended cognition? What do these

authors have in mind when they claim that your iPhone
could become a part of your mind? Carefully explain and
assess the conflicting claims of Clarke and Chalmers
versus Adams and Aizawa. In your essay, also explain the
computational theory of cognition and discuss its bearing
on this debate.

With the vast development of neuroscience, computer science and

cognitive science in the last few decades, new theories have emerged among
philosophers that examine closely the nature of mind, consciousness, and
cognition and attempt to explain mental states and processes in light of the
new discoveries in these scientific fields. One of the recent thesis that
emerged in the middle of 1990s proposes the concept of what the authors
define as extended cognition. This term was introduced by Andy Clark and

David Chalmers in their paper The Extended Mind (Clark and Chalmers,
1998) and has since caused various reactions among philosophers.
In this paper, I would like to discuss and assess the main arguments
presented by supporters and opponents of the extended cognition theory,
review their plausibility in terms of modern discoveries, and introduce new
hypotheses that extend the idea of Clark and Chalmers and bring new
arguments in support of their claim.
According to the Extended Cognition Hypothesis cognitive processes
are not bound to the human skull and skin but could be partially constituted
by the environment. This thesis challenges the standard common sense
view that cognition is exclusively concentrated in the brain by allowing
cognitive processing by external agents.
Clark and Chalmers first introduce this idea by advocating a certain
type of externalism active externalism that focuses on the parts of the
environment that play an active causal role in driving cognitive processes
and that are linked with the human body in a coupled system. Their main
argument rests on the 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).

To illustrate this idea they give an example of problem-solving with a

person who must rotate and align geometric shapes displayed on a computer
screen in the game TETRIS. Three different ways to perform the task are
proposed:
(1)Exclusively mental rotation
(2)Optional usage of external aid (rotate button)
(3)Optional usage of internal aid (neural implant)
The suggestion the authors make is that all three cases are similar in
that all represent cognitive processing in a similar way cases 1 and 3 are
internally located, whereas case 2 represents a coupled system between
human and physical aid but the outcome is the same which suggests the
same cognitive qualities. Their argument relies strongly on functionalism
which is interested in the causal relations and allows for material objects to
support mental states as long as they function in the same way. An important
distinction, however, is made:
Not every cognitive process, [], is a conscious process (Clark and
Chalmers, 1998).
This clarification is required in order to emphasize that cognition and
consciousness are clearly distinguished in the paper and in order to
invalidate any concerns about the inclusion of external features in conscious
processes. They also point out the distinction between the active externalism
introduced and the more traditional passive externalism proposed earlier by
Putnam and Burge (Putnam, 1975; Burge, 1979). In particular, the authors

make a claim that it is their intention to concentrate on showing that beliefs

could be extended into features of the environment which will reason the
thesis that mind could extend into the world.
In order to contextualize their claim, Clark and Chalmers propose the
thought experiment with Otto and Inga. In the experiment, both Otto and
Inga want to visit an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art and for this reason,
they first need to determine where the museum is. Ingas belief is embedded
in her biological memory in a very standard way so she easily accesses this
not previously occurrent belief in order to conclude that the museum is on
53rd Street. Otto, however, suffers from Alzheimers disease which hinders his
long-term memory capacities so he uses an external aid a notebook to
store his memories. In order to extract a memory, he looks into the notebook
and accesses this previously recorded belief. Under this circumstances, the
claim that the authors defend is that after Otto consults his notebook to find
out where the museum is, he believed the museum is on 53rd Street in the
same way as Inga did. In Ingas case the cognitive process is entirely internal,
whereas Otto makes use of a part of the environment outside his own body,
however, the causal dynamics of beliefs in the two cases are essentially
equivalent. In this sense, the tool Otto uses serves as a part of his cognitive
system.
To strengthen their point and avoid possible counterarguments based
on the restraints of the notebook as such, Clark and Chalmers also include
four requirements:

(1)The notebook must be a constant in Ottos life

(2)The information must be directly available without difficulty
(3)Otto must automatically endorse the information in the notebook
(4)The information must have been consciously endorsed in the past (from
lecture notes)
These criteria are needed in order to satisfy two requirements for the
coupled system discussed earlier in their paper portability and reliability
in order to consider a non-biological tool part of cognitive system.
Considering this example I am inclined to agree with Clark and
Chalmers the fact that Otto needs to consult a physical object in order to
remember is just as cognitive as accessing the memory in Ingas brain. The
fact that one is separated from the human organism does not seem to make
it implausible for this object to play a role in the cognitive system. Otto still
writes down his own belief at the moment of acquiring new knowledge in the
same way that Inga stores her belief in her memory. At the moment of
accessing this information they both perform in the same functional way
producing two causally equivalent actions.
I believe Ottos example is not very different from me studying for a
test and reviewing my notes, or using mnemonic methods for memorizing
facts that incorporate visual, auditory and motor actions, or using my phone
calendar to store my appointments, or even taking a picture that will help me
remember an experience later, etc. It is not very different from deaf people
using cochlear implants, or disabled people with prosthetic limbs (Clark,
2010). These are all tools which, when coupled with a biological organism,

help it execute particular functions that mirror the behavior of an organism

who does not need them. If I have difficulty remembering numbers and need
to write them down so that I can later refer to the information written, does
that mean I am not capable of performing cognitive processing?
Some might argue that the difference is I have the belief in my head
even though I am using aids whereas Otto is unable to retain beliefs in his
brain. To this I would answer using a statement given by Clark in response to
replies to their paper:
Ingas biological memory systems, working together, govern her
behaviors in the functional ways distinctive of believing. Ottos biotechnological matrix (the organism and the notebook) governs his
behavior in the same sort of way. So the explanatory apparatus of
mental state ascription gets an equal grip in each case and what looks
at first like Ottos action (looking up the notebook) emerges as part of
Ottos thought (Clark, 2010).
Clark points out that reading from the notebook is part of Ottos
thought process just like looking up into her memories is part of Ingas. Ingas
beliefs are not used until she explicitly tries to access them. Since we have
secured the requirements listed above, Otto can access his beliefs whenever
needed as well. The only difference is that one action is restricted to the
brain whereas the other uses an external entity.

Now lets look at another point raised by Chalmers and Clark in support
of their stance the idea that if we remove the external aid from the coupled
system, the behavior will change and the performance of the organism might
suffer:
The external features in a coupled system play an ineliminable role if
we retain internal structure but change the external features, behavior
may change completely. The features here are just as causally relevant
as typical features of the brain (Clark and Chalmers, 1998).
This argument emphasizes the active nature of the role the tool plays
in the system and refers to the idea of coupling between external entity and
human organism. Examined in the context of Otto and Ingas experiment, we
can view this in the following way - if we take away Ottos notebook, he wont
be able to go to the museum. Similarly, if Inga develops Alzheimers disease,
she also will not be able to determine where the museum is. Thus, the
notebook is crucial for Ottos cognition just like the part healthy Inga has in
her brain that does not function in Ottos is important for her memory.
Removing any of the two components will change the outcomes, regardless
of whether the nature of the feature is external or internal.
In addition to Clark and Chalmers arguments, I would like to mention
another externalist, Daniel Dennett, who explores the concept of evolution in
terms of the extended cognition theory and suggests that the only reason the

human kind has developed superiority over the animal world is the ability to
extend the cognitive tasks in the environment by:
[] extruding our mind [...] into the surrounding world, where a host of
peripheral devices we construct can store, process, and re-represent
our meanings, streamlining, enhancing, and protecting the processes of
transformation that are our thinking (Dennett, 1996).
I find this a reasonable suggestion since we have not discovered other
organisms that will use tools to the extent humans do. By distributing data
and memories in external features, we allow further development of our
brains in ways that surpass the capacities of our biological memory. By
offloading some of the load, we have managed to evolve in a more complex
way than all other known organisms have.
This argument is particularly relevant in regard to the recent advance
in technology. For this reason, both Chalmers and Clark review Otto and
Ingas example and reevaluate it in a more modern context that might be
more convincing considering current technology devices as extension of
cognition:
But spare a thought for the many resources whose task-related bursts
of activity take place elsewhere, [] even outside the biological body
in the iPhones, BlackBerrys, laptops and organizers which transform
and extend the reach of bare biological processing in so many ways.
These blobs of less-celebrated activity may sometimes be best seen,

myself and others have argued, as bio-external elements in an

extended cognitive process: one that now criss-crosses the
conventional boundaries of skin and skull. (Clark, 2010)

Things my brain used to do are now done by my iPhone. I mean there's

a million examples. Take memory. How many people use their brain to
remember numbers anymore? Not me. See my iPhone does all the
work. It used to be the biological memory used to carry the load. Now
the iPhone gets to carry it for me acting for my memory. []
Your iPhone hasnt been implanted into your mind. But you might think
its as if it were. (Chalmers, 2011)

Most of us are prone to accept that technology implants in our body

would indeed constitute a part of the system they are intended to aid.
Prosthetic limbs will perform motor functions as if they were real limbs,
cochlear implants would deliver sound signals that will mirror standard
hearing, etc. One might argue that the function performed artificially differs,
but as technology progresses, we find more precise ways to transfer
biological properties into external features to the extent that their
functionality no longer differs from the functionality of an actual organ.
According to Clark and Chalmers, this is enough to claim that coupling the aid

with the agent will form a cognitive system similar to that of an agent that
does not need the tool.
In this line of thought, using IPhone to store memory makes it part of
my cognitive processes as it takes away some of the processing my brain
would otherwise have to do. Furthermore, suppose I remove my prosthetic
limb - then I will have difficulty performing certain motor movements. In a
similar notion, if I were to remove (e.g. lose) my phone, I will lose important
information and my performance would suffer. And if we can perceive that
artificial features could exhibit functionality equivalent to the biological
functionality when they are located in the body, why not accept that the
artificial entity could serve the same function externally?
If we can repair a cognitive function by the use of non-biological
circuitry, then we can extend and alter cognitive functions that way
too. And if a wired interface is acceptable, then, at least in principle, a
wire-free interface (such as links your brain to your notepad, BlackBerry
or iPhone) must be acceptable too. What counts is the flow and
alteration of information, not the medium through which it moves
(Clark, 2010).
I believe this summarizes the authors idea and further leads to the
question: Can we really create a medium that will carry all the information?
This issue opens the debate for the computational theory of cognition.
This theory states that cognition is a computation that operates over

representational states. The statement relies on the assumptions made by

the computational theory of mind which describes mental states as
information processes similar to those of a program. Then, if we assume the
tools humans use as aid contain representations, it is plausible to admit that
they will be part of the cognitive processing. This hypothesis is strongly
supported by Edwin Hutchins who formulates the thesis like this:
[] computation observed in the activity of the larger system can be
described in the way cognition has been traditionally described that
is, as computation realized through the creation, transformation, and
propagation of representation states (Hutchins, 1995).
Other supporters of this hypothesis, Whitaker, Chorley, Allen (2015)
present case study to build on the argument of the extended cognition
theory. They introduce the concept of extended mind crowdsourcing (EMC)
which claims that humans naturally extend their cognition into the
environment, using external objects such as smartphones and applications to
augment their mental capacity. A slight modification of the traditional view,
the study supports the idea that cognition is in fact a computation by raising
a new point of view that takes into account the progress of computer science.
If we accept these two views, we can claim cognition will extend
beyond the human organism and brain, into the environment. Thus,
computationalism supports the extended cognition hypothesis.

The thesis of extended cognition and extended mind, however, is not

universally accepted. Opponents of this theory critique both Clark and
Chalmers argumentation and the notion of computability in representing
mental states and properties.
Fred Adams and Ken Aizawa find the form of active externalism
introduced by Clark and Chalmers implausible and introduce the thesis of
contingent intracranialism of cognition. They reject the idea that external
aids could be involved in cognitive processes:
Our view is that, as a matter of contingent empirical fact, in all actual
cases of human tool use brain-bound cognitive processes interact with
non-cognitive processes in the extracranial world (Adams and Aizawa,
2001).
But which processes are considered cognitive? The authors suggest the
idea of finding the mark of the cognitive which will then serve as a
reference point in categorizing a process as cognitive or non-cognitive. They
admit that their understanding of the mark is not complete yet. Nevertheless,
they believe that even without full understanding, there is enough reasoning
to reject what they call the transcranial cognition, or extended cognition
as defined by Clark and Chalmers, and attempt to formulate some basic
requirements that should be taken into account when rendering a process
cognitive.

The first necessary condition Adams and Aizawa present is the

requirement that a process involves solely non-derived, intrinsic content.
They claim that orthographical representations (such as the ones in Ottos
notebook) fail to capture completely the information in the way the brain
does due to the limited capacities of the formal conventions for writing:
Where the symbols written in Ottos notebook have merely derived
content, the recollection in Ingas brain has non-derived content. Ottos
notes do not, therefore, constitute beliefs or memories (Adams and
Aizawa, 2001).
Here, I would like to make the suggestion to slightly modify Inga and
Ottos case in order to solve their concern lets replace the notebook with
some sort of an electronic device that will play the same role. This device will
store all details constituted in a memory and will thus remove the syntactic
limitations in capacity that a notebook has. Under these conditions, I claim
that the storage object would contain the same non-derived content that
Ingas brain will with the only difference being that the device is placed
outside Ottos body. In this new situation, the device will satisfy the first
condition given by Adams and Aizawa.
In reply, the authors might reject the computational theory of cognition
and argue that such a machine is impossible to construct, however, in my
opinion, it is unreasonable to discard the possibility that in the future we will

be able to capture all elements that constitute a memory and reproduce

them in such electronic device.
What are the chances of there being interesting regularities that cover
humans interacting with all these sorts of tools? Slim to none, we
speculate (Adams and Aizawa, 2001).
I refuse to accept such a speculation since I find it unjustified. We have
invented technologies that can store pictures, videos, sounds, odors, why not
imagine a machine that can capture memories?
In fact, I would like to bring up some recent studies that prove the
potential of creating such a machine. Researchers from the University of CASan Diego (2014) conducted a series of experiments in which they have
managed to manipulate memories by isolating the fear conditioning
components that affect memories. The findings of their study present
evidence of the relationship between neurons (in particular, synapses) and
memory. This example gives us reasons to believe that the prospects of
discovering a way of storing memories and beliefs artificially are promising.
Going back to the non-derived content argument, I would like to point
out another issue in the authors claim - Adams and Aizawa insist on the
obligatory character of intrinsic content in cognitive states but later state
that:
Having argued that, in general, there must be non-derived content in
cognitive processes, it must be admitted that it is unclear to what

extent every cognitive state of each cognitive process must involve

non-derived content (Adams and Aizawa, 2001).
This, I believe, leaves the opportunity for cognitive processes to involve
derived content and thus fails to reject the coupling system principle
introduced by Clark and Chalmers.
Now lets consider the condition that cognitive processes should be
causally individuated. The authors claim that no machine could encompass
the full range of mechanisms involved in human processes. Regardless of the
final result, the nature of processing will differ in humans and machines
simply because there is more to cognition than merely passing the Turing
test. This statement also aims to invalidate the claims set by the
computational theory of mind by suggesting that there is some uniqueness in
human brains that could not be replicated.
As far as the example of Otto and Inga is concerned, the authors claim
that the processing in the two cases is performed in different ways since
Ottos memory requires motor and visual processing which would not be
present in Ingas memory recall. Clark and Chalmers, however, do not
claim the full similarity in every aspect, they just convey their point in terms
of dispositional belief. In Clarks reply, he addresses that issue:
To repeat, our claim is not that the processes in Otto and Inga are
identical, or even similar, in terms of their detailed implementation. It is
simply that, in respect of the role that the long-term encodings play in

guiding current response, both modes of storage can be seen as

supporting dispositional beliefs. It is the way the information is poised
to guide reasoning (such as conscious inferences that nonetheless
result in no overt actions) and behavior that counts. This is not
behaviorism but functionalism (Clark, 2010).
Pointing out this distinction makes Adams and Aizawas second
argument irrelevant for Inga and Ottos experiment.
Another issue identified in their paper concerns the so called threat of
pancognitivism a situation in which anything could be causally connected
to a cognitive process and then considered cognition. This statement,
however, falls short once again in rejecting Clark and Chalmers thesis since
the active externalism they are defending puts some constraints on the tools
that could be rendered parts of cognition. The effective coupling requires
portability and reliability and demands that the external feature play an
active role in the processing. Under these conditions, the pancognitivism
theory would not be a relevant concern.

By carefully evaluating the conflicting claims on the Extended Mind

Theory I have assessed the strengths and weaknesses in the arguments of
the opposing sides focusing on the statements of the supporters of active
externalism, Clark and Chalmers, and the advocates of contingent
intracranialism of cognition, Adams and Aizawa.

Taking into consideration the fast pace of scientific progress I am

inclined to adopt the externalists point of view. Advance in technology has
given us, in my opinion, more than enough reasons to consider that cognitive
processes could be represented as computations and accept the
computational theory of cognition. Even though Otto and Ingas experiment
has some flows is not that relevant in terms of modern tools, I find Clark and
Chalmers hypothesis quite appealing, especially in terms of the devices we
use nowadays. Without our phones, computers, notepads, e-book readers, we
would be lacking a great amount of storage we depend on, artificial memory
without which our cognitive functions will suffer.
Adams and Aizawas position, on the other hand, relies on the common
sense argument as their main point and makes use of the fact that existence
of transcranial cognition has not been indisputably proven yet nor have the
cognitive processes been clearly defined. By attempting to outline certain
conditions as mark of the cognitive they aim to invalidate the externalists
point of view. Although their argumentation has some strengths, however, I
find it unsuccessful in disproving of Chalmers and Clarks theory of extended
cognition. They emphasize the requirement of intrinsic non-derived nature of
cognitive processes. In response, I would like to conclude by quoting Adam
Clark:
The question is, must everything that is to count as part of an
individuals mental processing be composed solely and exclusively of

states of affairs of this latter (intrinsically content-bearing) kind? I see

no reason to think that they must (Clark, 2010).

References:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Clark, A. And Chalmers, D. (1998). The Extended Mind.

Adams, F. and Aizawa, K. (2001). The Bounds of Cognition.
Burge, T. (1979). Individualism and the mental.
Putnam, H. (1975). The meaning of 'meaning'.
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild, in The Bound of
Cognition, Adams and Aizawa.
6. Dennett, D. (1996). Kinds of minds.
7. Clark, A. (2010). Memento's Revenge: The Extended Mind, Extended,
in The Extended Mind, R. Menary (ed.)
8. TED talk (2011) - Is your phone part of your mind? - David Chalmers,
TEDxSydney
9. Bernecker, S. (2014). How to Understand the Extended Mind
10.
Clark, A. (2010). Out of Our Brains
<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/out-of-our-brains/>
11.
NIH/National Institute of Mental Health. (2014, June 1). Shining a
light on memory: It's all about strengthened connections between
neurons. ScienceDaily.
12. Whitaker, R., Chorley, M., Allen S. (2015). New frontiers for
Crowdsourcing: the Extended Mind