By embracing an active externalism, we allow a more natural explanation of all sorts of actions. One can explain my choice of words in Scrabble, for example, as the outcome of an extended cognitive process involving the rearrangement of tiles on my tray. Of course, one could always try to explain my action in terms of internal processes and a long series of "inputs" and "actions", but this explanation would be needlessly complex. If an isomorphic process were going on in the head, we would feel no urge to characterize it in this cumbersome way. In a very real sense, the re-arrangement of tiles on the tray is not part of action; it is part of thought.
My general reaction to the paper was that I didn't see why one must commit to the idea that cognition occurred outside the mind simply because a problem could be more easily solved by reorganizing it in a more solvable way.
For example, I can determine that a particular Tetris piece will fit into the larger puzzle by manipulating the piece on the screen. I'm not thinking through the screen; I'm just simplifying the problem by moving the piece in a way that visibly and more obviously fits. — Hanover
If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (so we claim) part of the cognitive process.
Language appears to be a central means by which cognitive processes are extended into the world. Think of a group of people brainstorming around a table, or a philosopher who thinks best by writing, developing her ideas as she goes. It may be that language evolved, in part, to enable such extensions of our cognitive resources within actively coupled systems.
One thing I'd like is to see someone clarify the distinctions they make between cognition, mind and consciousness. — jamalrob
I wasn't entirely joking when I said that the authors come very close to the spirit of Derrida in their approach to the mind here.
Hands and feet, apparatus and appliances of all kinds are as much a part of it [thinking] as changes in the brain. Since these physical operations (including the cerebral events) and equipments are a part of thinking, thinking is mental, not because of a peculiar stuff which enters into it or of peculiar nonnatural activities which constitute it, but because of what physical acts and appliances do: the distinctive purpose for which they are employed and the distinctive results which they accomplish. — John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic
If Heidegger's vile treatment of his mentor and friend Husserl is any indication, however, he would never have acknowledged he was influenced by Dewey even if he was. — Ciceronianus the White
The Question concerning Technology was clear enough also, in my opinion, so I think I understood it. I thought his reference to the "monstrous" hydroelectric plant and other horrifying modern technology and their juxtaposition with good, simple peasants placing seeds in Nature's loving bosom was rather silly, though, and felt the essay was more an expression of romantic sentiment and hyperbole than anything else. — Ciceronianus the White
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