The Extended Mind

Posted on February 16, 2009
Filed Under Philosophy, Science | 3 Comments

One view I’m rather partial to is the extended mind thesis. This is the notion that what we call mind shouldn’t be limited to the brain. This isn’t the same as externalism, although one can obviously see them related in certain ways. But it seems to me one could be an internalist about mental content while accepting an extended mind.

To me the main argument for the extended mind is that if much of the mind is sign-transformation and sign-process then limiting mind to brain is fairly arbitrary. Even if one moves from brain to nervous system I don’t think it works given the role of say hormones. Even beyond that though there’s the idea that our very use of external signs like writing are part of our mental processes. (The film Memento being the best illustration of this notion) That said clearly one can draw a division and say “these are external process which we’ll call input to the mind” and “these are internal processes.” In a sense then the argument hinges upon mental descriptions and whether these descriptions can be fully explained by the brain. For an externalist typically many can’t. Putnam’s twin earth thought experiment being the classic example.

But note that this is ultimately an argument about the language of mental descriptions in common language. (At least as I see it) One can always just ask if our descriptions of the mental are defining of the mental.

At a certain point I kind of lost interest because it all seemed a tad too tied to how we arbitrarily make descriptions rather than content. One can always do what Chomsky does and acknowledge the issue and then just say you are talking purely about what is internal and leave what is controversially external alone.

Anyway, I bring all this up because there are a couple of new essays on the subject. (HT: Weatherson) The first is by Jerry Fodor to which David Chalmers offers a rejoinder. Chalmers assumes that Fodor is in fact reacting to Chalmer’s own paper “The Extended Mind.”

To me the fundamental error in discussion related to the extended mind is confusing consciousness with mind. I take the more Peircean perspective that we ought distinguish them. Further one is then left recognizing that the external world offers considerable mental phenomena that isn’t just about brains (insect or mammalian). Mind is just sign-processes although Peirce usually calls non-human sign-processes quasi-minds to avoid too much confusion.

Until recently it was fairly easy to draw a distinction between the mental and non-mental simply because of our limited technology. Basically humans had books and that was about it. While writing can be seen as a kind of external memory it didn’t function on its own. So Peirce was rather a head of his time to think through the implications of signs.

Today the blurring is considerably greater. While we don’t yet have brain implants it’s just a matter of time. Consider for example someone who has their verb facility in the brain damaged by a stroke. Some future doctor repairs this by putting in an electronic link to a computer the person wears on their belt. Assume hypothetically that this restores the same functionality that the neurons once held. That’s the essence of the extended mind.

However one needn’t conceive of science fiction scenarios. I have an iPhone that in the short months since I got it has radically changed how I think. I can’t imagine living without it. I now have Google and other such things always available. To what degree is the internet a part of an extended mind? Clearly having Google available 24/7 is a radical expansion on external signs as part of the mind as in say Memento. I’ve become so used to being able to search for information that when it doesn’t work (because of say bad coverage) I seem somehow crippled – almost akin to how I feel with a bad cold or when on some medication.

Once again, I don’t want to say we can’t draw any distinction. But to my conscious self is there a huge difference between using an external sign to recall my own memory (say a string on a finger) and using Google on my iPhone? That is in terms of phenomenology the distinction breaks down a lot. But one can go beyond that in terms of unconscious tweaks to my decisions. Of course I did say one should distinguish between mind and consciousness. But it seems to me that things are quite blurry even if we can draw arbitrary boundaries. (Say the input and output to the physical biological brain)

As I said I once took this as quite profound and significant. Now I don’t simply because I think this merely points out that “mind” as a concept is rather muddled and arbitrary.

Comments

3 Responses to “The Extended Mind”

1 larryco_ on February 17th, 2009 2:57 pm

Interesting that you bring this up. There is a new weekly series showing Sundays on KUEN in SLC (an educational channel, but not PBS) called Closer To Truth. Two weeks ago they discussed consciousness under the title “Can the mind be equated with the brain?” and this week continued with the idea of whether the soul can be equated with the brain, bringing religious philosophers into the discussion. It’s all very thought-provoking…I think. I mean, I THINK I think…I mean, I think, therefore I am…aren’t I?

2 Clark on February 17th, 2009 3:49 pm

Yeah, as I said though it’s one of those questions that seems really profound at first until you realize it’s ultimately just a question about how we talk about “mind.” That is can the set of normative mental descriptions be seen as referring only to the brain. I’m pretty convinced they can’t. But I don’t think that’s terribly profound. I just think it means our mental descriptions (sentences about the mental) often involve relational aspects. To ignore the descriptions about relations is fundamentally to misinterpret the sentence.

Perhaps one can separate the meaning of such sentences into the part that is about the brain and the part that’s not. I’m more than a little skeptical, but I’m open to that being done in a non-ambiguous fashion. But even if one does this all one really has done is to create a new language that limits discussion to a certain class of descriptions. It’s not like one has done anything particularly significant.

3 Rich Knapton on February 17th, 2009 6:43 pm

It seems to me that Memento was about the loss of memory. The internet also seems about the extension of memory. The questions seems to be how memory relates to mind and brain. I can study the brain, I can study memory. How do I study mind? On top of all else, we throw in consciousness. And what about mental content? I think some defining needs to be done.

Rich

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