The Extended Mind (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology) Review

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The Extended Mind (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology) ReviewRichard Menary has done a very good job! The books beginns with an contribution by philosophers Clark and Chalmers who coined the term "extended mind". What is their prototypical example? Think of Inga hearing from an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art recalling that the museum is on 53rd street. She uses her memory for recall and does what must be done: she walks to the MOMA on 53rd street. Now think of Otto who suffers from Alzheimer's and who forgot the adress. He asks his notebook which he carries with him everywhere. His memory is outside of his head but he uses his notebook in a way of special coupling. This coupling, Clark and Chalmes argue, is an example for the extension of cognition. It's not the notebook working as a cognitive system. No, both of them when coupled in this special way. - Here the debate starts. Well known authors in the cognitive field contribute. There is a fair and detailed discussion on what "coupling" means, on the role of active externalism, on cognitive integration, on the kind of meaning making implied here and on the mother-child-coupling when babies need being understood and are enabled only for utterances. So, what another researcher in the field, Ed Tronick, has termed "dual consciousness" and considered as very important in human development finds strong confirmation and engaged debate. The term "extended mind" or "extended cognition" has an ability to correct a failure of trivial neuroscientific reductionism. Mind is constituted in interaction with other minds. This volume presents a strong argument for those who cannot see mind emerging upward from brain, only. Mind in cooperation with other minds uses brains. This is an urgently needed complementary view. I can recommend this book to everyone interested in new developments of cognitive science, philosophhy and developmental psychology.
Prof. Dr. Michael B. BuchholzThe Extended Mind (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology) OverviewLeading scholars respond to the famous proposition by Andy Clark andDavid Chalmers that cognition and mind are not located exclusively in thehead.

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Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes In The Age Of The Machine Review

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Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes In The Age Of The Machine ReviewThis book is easy to read - and should open most peoples eyes a bit more...
It describes how we (mankind) uses external representations to assist our brains - from writing, to diagrams, to maps, to the way we build our offices.
If you want a deeper psychological understanding with which you can do your own reasoning on different types of external representation - get this book. If you want clear-cut guidelines - get another book.
If you like this book - try Normans: The Design of Everydaythings as well. You might like Donald Schöns The Reflective Practitioner also.
Last word: Norman seems to prefer easy reading to structure - which means the book is best read end-to-end.Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes In The Age Of The Machine Overview

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Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence Review

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Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence ReviewWhat is the future of humanity? Is the next phase of human evolution the merging of humans and machines? Or perhaps, are we humans already merged with machines and have we been for centuries? These and other questions are ones that occupy Andy Clark, director of the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University and author of this thought-provoking book written for an informed but lay audience. Clark makes the case that long before cyborgs became the villains of so many popular films--the "Terminator" and "Matrix" series, "Blade Runner," and "2001: A Space Odyssey" come immediately to mind--humans had become inextricably linked to machines in a way that ensured that they could not survive without them. Accordingly, even without electronic implants Homo Sapiens are cyborgs, and have been as far back as the first time one of our ancestors picked up a tree limb and used it as club. Clark argues that the human-technology symbiosis is totally natural and has been for millennia. The speed with which the merging of human and machine is advancing expanded greatly in the twentieth century as such technologies as pacemakers, artificial hips and knees, prosthetics, and other electronic implants have enhanced and sometimes prolonged the lives of millions of people.
Andy Clark explores this increasingly close relationship of humans and machines--the "cyborg-ization" of humanity--in eight chapters. Beginning with the argument that we are already cyborgs dependent for our lifestyle on all manner of technologies, he moves through a succession of possible steps into the future that will find us more and more closely tied to the technologies we have created. Eventually, we will reach a post-human state. Rather than invoking fear that we will become non-human, Clark celebrates this possibility and the wondrous potentialities it offers. He urges caution in this transition, for not all possibilities are desirable, but generally Clark is optimistic. He asks: "if it is our basic human nature to annex, exploit, and incorporate nonbiological stuff deep into our mental profiles [and he firmly believes that it is]--then the question is not whether we go that route, but in what ways we actively sculpt and shape it. By seeing ourselves as we truly are, we increase the chances that our future biotechnological unions will be good ones" (p. 198).
In my own research concerning the past, present, and possible future of spaceflight, I find much in Andy Clark's study that is useful. One of the truly fascinating developments associated with the rise of robotic capabilities is the possibility of post-human migration. In fulfilling the spacefaring dream, the intelligent life to leave Earth and colonize the galaxy may not be entirely human in form. Extensive discussions have taken place in recent years on the relationship between artificial computer intelligence, biotechnology, and human evolution. In spite of its obvious relevance to space travel, little of this has been extended to outer space. The early space pioneer Robert H. Goddard suspected that humans might be obliged to transport genetic material to distant stars rather than go themselves. The rigors of galactic flight that will likely confine humans to the inner solar system might not confine our machines. Given the great difficulties of interstellar flight, these would have to be machines with human-like intelligence or even possibly humans reengineered to withstand long-duration space travel. The possibilities are truly amazing and somewhat weird, and as remote today from common experience as were the early images of space travel to the people who first envisioned them centuries ago. Nonetheless, they are not wholly impossible. Given current directions in technology as envisioned by such authors as Andy Clark, a post-biological galaxy teeming with enhanced human intelligence is not beyond the realm of possibility. In one such vision, biological species become so technologically proficient that they cease to exist in purely biological form. The possibilities for post-human evolution has the potential to radically alter the dominant paradigm of human spaceflight.
"Natural-Born Cyborgs" is a challenging and useful book. Highly recommended.Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence Overview

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