If you had a computer chip implanted in your brain that allowed you to perform complex mathematical computations just by looking at numbers and equations, like an onboard calculator, would you consider that genuine cognitive activity? How about if the computer chip was instead in your pocket? Answering “yes” to the former question is much more intuitive than a “yes” to the latter, but why should that be?
This are questions that occur in the fields of “embodied cognition” and “the extended mind”, and the topic of a recent article in the New York Times. The author of the article, Andy Clark, argues that we should view the theoretical brain-mounted computer chip as “bio-external elements in an extended cognitive process: one that now criss-crosses the conventional boundaries of skin and skull”. Importantly, he argues that iPhones and blackberries function in a similar way that a brain mounted chip would, and so they should be thought of likewise.
I’ve made similar arguments before, and I think that in the not-so-distant future we won’t need thinkers like Andy Clark to prompt us to consider these questions, as technology will place them front and center. Even if you find it absolutely clear that none of todays technologies should be considered cognition, or part of your brain, mind, or self, it will be much less clear as future technologies become more seamlessly integrated with our thought process.
For instance, consider the inevitable scenario I’ve laid out before: micro-computers, visual retinal displays, augmented reality, and neural input devices combined so that you’ve essentially got a brain-mounted computer on virtual floating screens in front of you that you control with your thoughts. Whether or not using these future devices should be considered cognition and part of our minds will be much trickier than it is with today’s iPhones, especially considering that from everyone else’s perspective “organic thought”, as you might call it, will often be indistinguishable from “computer thought”. “Did he just remember my birthday when I asked if he knew it, or did he look it up?”
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Monday ~ December 13th, 2010 at 10:47 am
sardonic_sob
Scott Adams writes a lot about this, if you read his blog you’ll see many insightful (if not overly formalistic) thoughts on the matter as well.
Many years ago, a co-worker of mine started referring to the Internet as “the rest of his brain.” He explained that it was where he kept all the stuff he didn’t need immediate access to. He referred to his first smartphone as “his external brain interface.”
I think the way you think about this probably has a lot to do with how your own brain already works. While nobody can get inside anybody else’s head, it’s obvious from listening people try to describe how their own brains (thought processes) work that it’s very different from person to person. Highly intuitive people (not in the sense of “psychic,” in the sense of, “their brain works so fast that their conscious awareness often doesn’t *know* how they arrived at an answer or a conclusion”) seem to be more open to the idea that external computing power is just an aspect of their own cognition.
Monday ~ December 13th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
IVV
Incidentally, this is part of the reason that Noam Chomsky drives me up the wall with his Chinese Room.
Yes, it’s cognition. Understanding doesn’t require conscious processing within a biological brain. Is there really a boundary between the body, the mind, and the soul? When I drive a car, is not the car a part of my body? And if the car is not, then why would a prosthetic arm be? And if the prosthetic arm isn’t, then why would my meat arm be?
(It’s also why the Kids In The Hall skit with phonetically learned English is so funny.)
Monday ~ December 13th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Tom Fid
Do you control it, or does it control you? Some might argue that the iPhone/Crackberry is already crossing that line, too.
Monday ~ December 13th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
sardonic_sob
There is a story in Fritz Lieber’s “The Night of the Wolf” collection, published in 1966, which deals with electronic personal assistants (they’re not digital and they’re laughably simple by our standards) run amok.
It’s more about memetic viruses (although that term probably wasn’t in use then, I don’t know) than it is about the devices themselves, but it predicts exactly the problem you suggest. It’s a good story and when I first read it, my thought was, “My God, the man was a prophet.” You get that a lot with the old masters.
Monday ~ December 13th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Sister Y
Fire and cooking technology function as an external stomach.
The physical borders of the body are not necessarily helpful even WAY back in human evolution.
Monday ~ December 13th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
IVV
Excellent point!
To put that further into perspective, the size of our skulls is limited by the width of a mother’s pelvis. We needed much larger jaws before we learned the basics of food preparation. That limited the maximum size brain that could be birthed.
So, we needed to learn how to cook food before we had the brain capacity that we have today. Better cooking means we can have smaller jaws, which means we can have larger brains, which means we can figure out better cooking.
Tuesday ~ December 14th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
mike shupp
Suppose I meet a friend who wears glasses. Do I really spend time pondering whether he “really” is seeing me or some distorted artifact created by glasses lenses? The answer is obviously No.
I have a conversation with someone wearing a hearing aid. Do I feel troubled because he isn’t actually hearing ME? Again, No.
My telephone answering machine is blinking. I pick up the phone, listen for a few moments, and tell my companions, “That was Paul. He says he’ll be tied up in court the rest of the day.” Does anyone argue that WASN’T Paul and that the message should be treated as spurious? Likely not.
It strikes me as rather likely that we will rather quickly come to view people with drastic electronic brain enhancements as being “just people.” We’ll know of the enhancements, of course, and we’ll assume they’re being used, but we won’t read anything into that. “Julian-with-glasses” is Julian, even when we see him with contact lenses or watch him stumble nearsightedlt into a post. “Sam-with-handheld-calculator” is till Sam, even when he does arithmetic with on his fingers. “Jane-with-ESP” will still be Jane even when she lapses into Alzheimer’s.