Supersizing the Mind {ReadingNotes}

Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension - Andy Clark - ISBN 0195333217 - Oxford University Press - 2008

note that this was finished much earlier but without recall, recall starts a month before the current date to already start with very spaced recalls

Motivation

Read previous paper in Where brain, body and world collide, Clark, Deadalus, 1998 for the SC02 seminar in Iceland (2005).

Pre-reading

• What difference with his previous work?
• Is he using the same "extended" mechanism as Cziko?
• Is he referencing and how does it relates to
  • Maturana/Varela - Enaction (Varela, F., 39, 169, 193, 234, 252 - Maturana, H., 16)
    • see TreeOfKnowledge
  • Brooks - Embodiment (Brooks, R. A., 15, 18, 141, 153, 234)
  • Campbell - Evolutionary Epistemology (Campbell, D. T., 246)
  • William Ross Ashby (Intelligence Augmentation) / Cziko (extended Bernard) / Hofstadter (distributed loops/entwinement cf I am a strange loop)
• How is it exploitable? How do it "extends" my own current work with Seedea?

Skimming

Main hypothesis : cognition isn't limited to the physical brain material (skull) but extends to the surrounding environment instead of merely using it as a support

• "active externalism, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes" p220 and from The Extended Mind, Andy Clark & David J. Chalmers, 1998
  • the original paper that gave rise to book

Process :

• offering an englobing simple name for his central thesis (EXTENDED)
  • opposing it to another (BRAINBOUND)
• then proposing sequentially several concepts to reject them and refine the central thesis
  • HEC = Hypothesis of Extended Cognition (first appearance p112)
  • HEMC Hypothesis of EMbedded Cognition = (first appearance p112, added value explicitly discussed p136)
  • HOC = Hypothesis of Organism-centered Cognition (first appearance p139)

Introduction : BRAINBOUND Versus EXTENDED

• excellent start with Feynman/Weiner exchange
  • “No, it’s not a record, not really. It’s working. You have to work on paper and this is the paper."
• description of the 2 opposing view
  • a trapped mind in a body in an environment
  • an intricate system in which cognition goes beyond the mere neuronal substrate

Part I - From Embodiment To Cognitive Extension

• 4.9 BRAINBOUND Versus EXTENDED: The Case So Far (quick sum-up of the 4 previous chapters) rewritten as :
  • organisms exploit their entire body for action and cognition to minimize energy usage
  • direct task cognition is optimized by using small scale local links instead of building a complex global picture
  • duplex flux of information for constant adjustment (enaction loop) and not complex information gathering
  • inclusion of physical tools directly within cognitive processes
  • usage of symbols to allow more complex problem-solving processes
  • exploitation of spacial abilities to minimize cognitive load and the use of epistemic actions
  • external memory artifacts

Part II - Boundary disputes

• 6.9/6.10 -> cybernetics? enactions? functionnal programming?
• 6.11 -> I am a strange loop by Hofstadter?
• ...

Part III

New concepts (try to attach examples in order to improve memorization)

• Principle of Ecological Assembly (PEA) (p13): the canny cognizer tends to recruit, on the spot, whatever mix of problem-solving resources will yield an acceptable result with a minimum of effort.
• Epistemic actions (p71): Actions designed to change the input to an agent’s information processing system. They are ways an agent has of modifying the external environment to provide crucial bits of information just when they are needed most. (quotring Kirsh and Maglio)
• hazard function of the response time (RT) distribution during problem solving (p72): a measure of the instantaneous probability of completing a process in the next move. In engineering, this is also known as the intensity function.
• deictic pointers (p?): ? (basically relative links instead of absolute description)
  • used with the example of visual problem solving (eye tracking and game of squares)
• transient extended cognitive systems (TECSs) (p158): transient creations, geared toward a specifi c purpose (doing the accounts, writing a play, locating a star in the night sky), and combine core neural resources with temporary add-ons such as pen, paper, diagrams, instruments, and so on.

Ideas inspired by the reading

• affordance tree (also inspired by my Seedea:Content/Conceptstree)
  • allowing each user to create order his affordances
    • by domain
    • by book
  • in order to generate a social cognitive scaffolding, each affordance being a part of the scaffolding
    • potential use could
      • affordance monitoring (having a an alert when a new affordance in your field appears)
      • bootstrapping domain discovering (quickly being able to grasp the key concepts)
  • Different from the Wikibot network feedback mechanism because the cognitive processes are not necessarily code and is entered by the user.
• Cognitive locii
  • chapter 6.5 regarding location and optimization seems to resonate with the cloud-market auto selector
• experiment on cognitive coupling using frustration as a measure
  • can frustration as consequence from low reliability or access time with a tool be used a measure of embodiment/extension?
    • is it the same frustration encountered with "tip of the tongue" experiences?
      • can fMRI/EEG show that?
    • could it also be used regarding other lacks including social phenomena? Missing someone?
    • cf Low-quality network copping mechanisms
• the mind is just the network of matter, as physical units, we have the cheapest, or least amount of energy required, control of
  • moved to Mind

See also

• Chapter 14 The Future of the Augmented Mind A combustible mixture of ignorance and power? from A Brief History of the Mind by William H. Calvin, Oxford University Press 2004
• Tool-use induces morphological updating of the body schema in my page on Key Experiments
• The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence by Rupert Sheldrake, GoogleTalk 2008
• Anders Sandberg on Neuroselves and exoselves: distributed cognition inside and outside brains, teleXLR8 April 2010
• reviews
  • by David Cole, Minds and Machines October 2009
  • by Lars Marstaller, metapsychology 2009
  • Where is my mind? by Jerry Fodor, London Review of Books 2009
    • including a reply by Andy Clark
  • by Lawrence Shapiro and Shannon Spaulding, Philosophical Reviews at University of Notre Dame 2009
  • by Deric Bownds, MindBlog 2009
  • by Seth Miller, It's Elemental 2010
• Wikipedia:Externalism
• Wikipedia:Situated cognition#Externalism
• Wikipedia:Andy Clark#The_Extended_Mind
• Wikipedia:Mind extension
• Quino's cartoon http://www.eatliver.com/i.php?n=7244
• Radical Embodied Cognitive Science by Anthony Chemero, The MIT Press 2009
• https://twitter.com/#!/frederickaplan/status/134932525616349184|Moreillon #tcch "our Brain is smaller than the brain of Lucy. It has outsourced its computational power"]]
• LessWrong Brussels meetup discussion on brain optimization via scanning (fMRI, EEG, ...) according to Mind#MindAsEconomicallyControllableNetwork

Categories

• Psychology

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