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.