Tools as extensions of the mind

24 Apr 2018

Philosophers have long speculated that our minds are not just in our brains, they are embodied, that is, our bodies form part of our minds. Our bodies do not just consist of peripheral components that are involved in input and output - they do some processing too. They release chemicals and process signals as well - some of which are processed further or interpreted in the brain to give us complex feelings about things and others that fall below the threshold of consciousness. Shockingly, most of the processes going on in our bodies fall below this threshold. It gives us the sense and perspective of how consciousness is really just the tip of the iceberg, if that.

Now there’s a theory that was put forward by Andy Clark and David Chalmers and others, that they call Extended Mind, that takes this idea further. This theory says that objects in the external environment can form part of the mind as well - that tools out there can be considered part of our cognitive apparatus. This is fascinating and it ties in nicely with some things I’ve read about lately.

First of all, this idea is not new, others have alluded to it and Andy Clark and crew acknowledge this. Richard Dawkins’ idea of the Extended Phenotype comes to mind - although the idea is wholly different from Extended Mind it’s got a familiar ring to it. In Extended Phenotype, Dawkins explores the idea that genetic expression is not limited to just animal bodies but extends to the things they do and make in the environment. Think beavers and their dams and how that affects the environment. The dam is a genetic trait that can alter the environment and it’s subject to natural selection/evolution just like an organ attached to the animal! This trait is controlled by genes that most likely affect the mind of the beaver to make it want to make a dam. Or give one.

So back to minds. A study that comes to mind is the one that demonstrated that the presence of a mobile phone lowers cognitive abilities in people. The mere presence of it - not use. This can be explained in terms of the Extended Mind - the brain considers the mobile phone with all it’s capabilities part of its computational space. It knows roughly the kinds of things that the phone is capable of and would rather have it do those tasks while it perhaps drives the sequential steps required to produce the desired outcome. Phones are connected to the internet, to Google and Wikipedia and all, they have calculators and GPS and all sorts of apps that can do a whole lot better than the brain can and at very little cost…to the brain - cost here being in terms of effort/energy/cognitive load.

So this had me thinking about the tools that we use in our daily lives as part of our minds(!) and whether or not thinking about them as such would change what tools we use and how we use them. I mean, these tools can give us superpowers but they can also reduce our umm… natural cognitive abilities. Like muscles and virtually all the systems of the body - if you don’t use it, you lose it - or more likely it will get a new job in the case of neurons. It makes me think about the learned helplessness theory due to an over-reliance on the tools we use or perhaps the fact that no one really knows how to make anything. Of course that’s the stuff that progress is built on, competencies on top of competencies. It really does make me think about the tools I use and how I would want things to be.

I’m was not deliberate about the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the tools I use but after considering this, I am starting to think more about it, and so should you.