A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA05 Marked and Returned

This has been a long and frustrating wait, it has been 3 weeks since it was submitted. I put a lot of effort in to this TMA and was pretty sure it was pretty good, so I was pleased with a Pass 1, but not really as high a mark as I had hoped for.

I am now in the odd position that if I pass the last TMA with 40% I will achivev an overall Pass 2, and if I managed a 100% on the last TMA the overall score would still be a Pass 2, so it will be interestign to see where the motivation to put a huge amount of effort in to the next TMA comes from.

However, now that I finally have this mark I can concerntrate better on Book 6. I have read the 4 chapters and am now going back over the chapters making more notes to help answer the incredibly long question.

I guess we are now on the home straight, just one TMA and the Exam to go.

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA05 STILL NOT MARKED !!!!!

This is just painful, 12 days now and still no mark - hopefully soon.

On a brighter note the last book is really interesting and it brings in quite a lot of what we have already studied from previous books, so I think Politics is a definite one to revise for the exam.

The TMA seems pretty straight forward really,   well.... more so than some others. Just more reading to do, and then set out a firm plan on how to deconstruct the argument and critique it. Hope to at least make a rough start on it this week, and will decide on much effort to put in to finishing it once I have the mark for TMA05.

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA05 still not marked

This was submitted before the 5th April deadline and I have not had the mark back yet - this is driving me crazy, I can't begin to count the number of times that I have checked the email and OU website hoping for it to have been returned.

Hoping that this post will somehow prompt it along :-)

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA05 finished

Well that's that finished, spent about 2 hrs on Friday explaining Clark and Chalmers thesis, and then about 4 hrs on Saturday setting out the case against their ideas. Today spent an hour editing and  getting the word count below 2,000.

I'll leave it for a couple of days and give it a final read before submitting.

Wonder, if I can get a head start on he final chapter, Politics, had a quick look at the next TMA question and it looks a ridiculously long question,

‘Citizens only have obligations towards their state if that state is broadly just. States that exhibit large economic inequalities between citizens are not broadly just. So citizens can have no obligations to such states.’ Is this a sound argument?

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Still Writing TMA05... and could be for some time.

Can your mind extend beyond your brain?

Guidance Note

This question asks you to describe and assess Clark and Chalmers’ Extended Mind thesis. The relevant study material includes plenty of arguments in favour of it, as well as counterarguments and objections.

Which arguments you choose to cover is a matter of judgement. But remember, you receive credit for giving a good report of views opposed to the one you eventually favour. So a good ‘No’ answer will present arguments in favour of Clark and Chalmers’ position as charitably as possible before saying where they go wrong; and a good ‘Yes’ answer will present objections to Clark and Chalmers’ view as charitably as possible before saying what is wrong with these objections.

The first reading of this article, especially from a non-critical and unbiased point of view, seems to give a fairly good account of their thesis, with reasonable and well argued ideas.

The second reading, more critical and questioning, reveals quite a few - to my kind - gaping holes in their ideas.


In the Clark and Chalmers paper, their first practical example, the Tetris example, seems to make huge leaps of assumption first to equate 1 to 3 without much discussion, then to equate 2 to 3, which by inference and where they needed to be, got to the conclusion that 1 equals 2 – but without actually having a discussion regarding whether 1 did equal 2. So this section is all about making the point that using a computer or something else to aid cognition, then means that that object is part of the cognitive process and therefore part of your extended mind.

I just can’t agree with this. Using tools to aid cognition does not make them part of the process, using a calculator to crunch numbers is a labour saving function, the cognitive part is knowing what arithmetic or mathematical function need to be carried out on what particular data and then being able to make use of the result. We don’t need calculators or computers to do this – they just save time. So if we treat every labour saving device as part of the cognitive process does this extend to levers and pulleys, wheel barrows – of course not, therefore the function of carrying out a process controlled by the mind, does not make the process doing thing part of the mind.

They then move on to the Inga/Otto example. Again seemed plausible on first reading, but they have subtly shifted from talking about a cognitive process being part of the mind to artificial memory being part of the mind – this seems to me to be two differing arguments. It is still about the extended mind, but one is active – the processing in the calculator – while Ottos note book appears passively to record facts.
This section also seems full of contradiction or lack of explanation for assumptions made.

“It seems clear that Inga believes that the museum is on 53rd Street and that she believed this even before she consulted her memory. It was not previously an occurrent belief, but then neither are most of our beliefs. The belief was sitting somewhere in memory, waiting to be accessed.”
 
How can she believe something that is not an occurrent belief before she consults her memory? I could agree that she may have this belief in memory – but as a dispositional belief. Also, surely the two sentences in red are contradictory.
Then
We are happy to explain Inga's action in terms of her occurrent desire to go to the museum and her standing belief that the museum is on 53rd street, and we should be happy to explain Otto's action in the same way. Why should we be happy to explain Otto’s action in the same way, they are very different situations

The alternative is to explain Otto's action in terms of his occurrent desire to go to the museum, his standing belief that the Museum is on the location written in the notebook, and the accessible fact that the notebook says the Museum is on 53rd Street; but this complicates the explanation unnecessarily.
 
But this is exactly how I see it and imagine it to be – rather than ‘complicating it unnecessarily’, it explains it properly and in doing so simply defeats their position. Dismissing this objection due to it being ‘unnecessarily complicated’ seems to just ignore the objection.

If I think about going to a museum many ‘ideas’ spring to my mind, what could be there to see, if I’ve been before who I went with,  excitement, interest, consult mental diary about my availability to go, and where the museum is – but often that would be the one fact (the rest are feelings) that I would not necessarily know exactly – especially if I need the postcode for the SatNav – is the internet part of my extended mind – No – it is a tool to be manipulated by my mind.

In Otto’s example, and this is Clark and Chalmers hypothetical situation of which they provide only one example – this museum address – and leave the rest of Otto’s mental activity to our imagination – he hears about the museum, must feel/remember that this would be interesting pleasurable, that he is able to go – not appointment clashes – but checks the notebook for the address. Clark and Chalmers then say that this notebook is part of his extended mind – but I just can’t see it.

I feel that this whole article and idea is very much like the Emperor’s New Clothes, and is all smoke and mirrors.

If you can see where I am going wrong with this can you leave a comment – this is driving me crazy.

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Writing TMA05

Started writing TMA05 rather than what I should be doing - reading the last Chapter on the Mind - but as this has to be in by 5th April I needed to start.

I am still forming arguments against Clark and Chalmers proposition that the Mind is external, and I think this is going to happen in three ways.

1. I need to look at their conclusions really closely, but I'm not sure they are necessarily all valid or sound. I think there are various objections raised which are not really objections and are very similar, so by the time you have read through the article they are claiming to have refuted many objections - but possibly objections that don't really exist while ignoring more obvious objections. The suggestion that certain objections look at the situation in a far more complex than necessary way, just seems false and surely it is their need to simplify the Otto / Notebook example than means they have to claim this.

2. I need to look at their hypothesis through a Functionalist view point - so need to read a bit more about functionalism.

3. Then finally, the bulk of the argument must be the flimsiness of their example. I can not see how they can claim that using a notebook means the notebook is part of the cognitive process, reading that the museum is on 52nd Street (or wherever) does not mean the notebook imparts the cognitive process of how to get there, how long it will take, what mode of transport is available etc. the notebook merely provide a cold fact that the brain carries out a cognitive process on. The article was written some time ago and now with iPhones and iPads information is always at your finger tips but are they part of the cognitive process - surely not - they merely provide the data requested by the mind, which is then used by the mind. I suppose if I were to think about it from a computing point of view, if the mind is the CPU, and the notebook is the disc drive holding files and facts - the CPU requests data from the disc drive with which it can then make decisions but the disc drive is not part of the data processing process.

A lot more reading and thinking required........

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : End of Week 25

Just finished the Clark and Chalmers article 'The Extended Mind', gosh.... was that hard going.

Not sure I can agree with them Otto's notebook, and his reliance on it, proves that his mind has extended outside of his skull to include the notebook. They keep talking about cognitive processes, but all of their examples, I would ague, are not actually a cognitive process. The notebook provides facts, as the memory does, but does not compute or make decisions, therefore I would ague that it is not part of the cognitive process, it is just a tool employed by the person.

Far better was the YouTube video, 'The Extended Mind' with Rupert Sheldrake. far more thought provoking ideas, although there was much there that I instinctively disagree with, but need to think much more about.

This has been a bit of a odd book, sometimes interesting, sometimes unintelligible, sometimes just odd..... but must get through the last chapter and on to writing the TMA.

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Week 23

3 March •

This week starts early to try and get a head start on this topic and read in to what appears to be an almost impossible question for TMA05, "Can your mind extend beyond your brain?".

Book 5: MIND Chapter 1, Descartes and dualism

• Book 5, Chapter 1: Descartes and dualism PDF document (313.1KB)
• Introducing the philosophy of the mind sound file (3.9MB)
• Cartesian dualism sound file (12MB)
• Book 5: Quiz for Chapter 1 iCMA
• Optional further material Structured content
•   Book 5 discussion