Rupert review of Clark

Adams & Aizawa, Andy Clark, brain science, cognition, cognitive science, cognitive systems, Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind, consciousness, david chalmers, distributed cognition, Embedded, embodiment, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, functionalism, journal of mind and behavior, robert rupert, robert wilson, Supersizing the Mind

Here’s a great pairing – Rob Rupert, one of the three most formidable critics of the extended mind thesis (the other two of course being Adams & Aizawa) – reviewing the most formidable promoter of EM. See the latest issue of The Journal of Mind and Behavior. (Also see another of Rob’s reviews of Clark here.)

Abstract:

For well over two decades, Andy Clark has been gleaning theoretical lessons from the leading edge of cognitive science, applying a combination of empirical savvy and philosophical instinct that few can match. Clark’s most recent book, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, brilliantly expands his oeuvre. It offers a well-informed and focused survey of research in the burgeoning field of situated cognition, a field that emphasizes the contribution of environmental and non-neural bodily structures to the production of intelligent behavior. The situated research program, fledgling though it may be in some respects, has reached an age at which its philosophical stock can reasonably be taken; and Clark is just the person to take it.

Anthony Flew

anthony flew, atheism, gellner, Language and Logic, No True Scotsman" fallacy, oakeshott, philosophy of education, philosophy of religion, ryle, theism

I heard through my chum David Livingtone Smith who heard through Leiter that Anthony Flew had died a few days ago. I recall Flew to be a most generous fellow. We corresponded by snail mail to his residence in Reading (I still have the letters). I was of the mind to invite him to the inaugural Oakeshott conference at the LSE thinking he’d be a fine chairman for the philosophy of education panel. When I spoke with him he said that he’d be delighted so long as I paid for his train and cab fare, which of course I was happy to do. In our discussions we never spoke about philosophy of religion (it seems that his turning from atheism to theism is unfortunately what he is being remembered for). As I indicated in a previous posting we talked about Ryle, Gellner, Language and Logic, and the “No True Scotsman” fallacy.

Times obituary

Telegraph

Guardian

LA Times

The Philosopher’s Magazine (reminiscences)

The Network-Extended Mind

Andy Clark, Cheryl Giammanco, cognitive systems, Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind, complexity, consciousness, cyborgs, Dave Braines, david chalmers, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, hci, James A. Hendler, Mike Strub, network theory, networks, Nigel Shadbolt, Paul R. Smart, Paula C. Engelbrecht, situated cognition

Here are two articles brought to my attention by my collaborator, a senior member of HSI engineering at Lockheed Martin. Extended mind is making its way into what one may think is an unlikely area. It’s not. Andy Clark’s cyborg is very much part of HCI – an example being a pilot’s helmet display. The emphasis in these articles, however, is on network theory.

The Network Extended Mind

Paul R. Smart, Paula C. Engelbrecht, Dave Braines, Mike Strub and Cheryl Giammanco

Abstract:

Whereas the traditional view in cognitive science has been to view mind and cognition as something that is the result of essentially inner, neural processes, the extended cognition perspective claims that at least some human mental states and processes stem from complex webs of causal influence involving extra-neural resources, most notably the resources of our social and technological environments. In this chapter, we explore the possibility that contemporary and near-future network systems are poised to extend and perhaps transform our human cognitive potential. We also examine the extent to which the information and network sciences are relevant to our understanding of various forms of cognitive extension, particularly with respect to the formation, maintenance and functioning of extended cognitive systems in network-enabled environments. Our claim is that the information and network sciences are relevant on two counts: firstly, they support an understanding of the mechanisms underpinning socially- and technologically-mediated forms of cognitive extension; secondly, they serve to guide and inform engineering efforts that strive to enhance and expand our cognitive capabilities. We discuss the relevance and applicability of these conclusions to current and future research exploring the contribution of network technologies to military coalition operations.

The Extended Mind and Network-Enabled Cognition

Paul R. Smart, Paula C. Engelbrecht, Dave Braines, James A. Hendler and Nigel Shadbolt

Abstract:

In thinking about the transformative potential of network technologies with respect to human cognition, it is common to see network resources as playing a largely assistive or augmentative role. In this paper we propose a somewhat more radical vision. We suggest that the informational and technological elements of a network system can, at times, constitute part of the material supervenience base for a human agent’s mental states and processes. This thesis (called the thesis of network-enabled cognition) draws its inspiration from the notion of the extended mind that has been propounded in the philosophical and cognitive science literature. Our basic claim is that network systems can do more than just augment cognition; they can also constitute part of the physical machinery that makes mind and cognition mechanistically possible. In evaluating this hypothesis, we identify a number of issues that seem to undermine the extent to which contemporary network systems, most notably the World Wide Web, can legitimately feature as part of an environmentally-extended cognitive system. Specific problems include the reliability and resilience of network-enabled devices, the accessibility of online information content, and the extent to which network-derived information is treated in the same way as information retrieved from biological memory. We argue that these apparent shortfalls do not necessarily merit the wholesale rejection of the network-enabled cognition thesis; rather, they point to the limits of the current state-of-the-art and identify the targets of many ongoing research initiatives in the network and information sciences. In addition to highlighting the importance of current research and technology development efforts, the thesis of network-enabled cognition also suggests a number of areas for future research. These include the formation and maintenance of online trust relationships, the subjective assessment of information credibility and the long-term impact of network access on human psychological and cognitive functioning. The nascent discipline of web science is, we suggest, suitably placed to begin an exploration of these issues.

What is this thing called social epistemology?

alvin goldman, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, epistemology, hayek, social epistemology, systems, william alston

Check out two recent MSS by Alvin Goldman that addresses this question.

1. Why Social Epistemology Is Real Epistemology (to appear in D. Pritchard, A. Haddock, and A. Millar, eds., Social Epistemology, Oxford University Press). Goldman, the doyen of analytical social epistemology takes on the late Bill Alston.

2. Systems-Oriented Social Epistemology (to appear in T. Gendler and J. Hawthorne, eds., Oxford Studies in Epistemology). “Systems oriented SE is a flexible form of epistemological consequentialism that evaluates social epistemic systems in terms of their impact on epistemic outcomes.” Good grief – Hayek even gets a mention.

Social epistemology meets network theory

aggregation, alvin goldman, Carlo Martini, Christian List, Condorcet, consensus, Lehrer-Wagner model, network theory, networks, Robert E. Goodin, social cognition, social connectionism, social epistemology, sociocognition

Here’s a paper written by Carlo Martini.

From The Sensory Order to the Moral Order

cognitive closure, cognitive science, complexity, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, hayek, network theory, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, nomoi, Road to Serfdom, spontaneous order, the sensory order, Troy Camplin

Check out Troy Camplin‘s just published article in NOMOI: Revista Digital sobre Epistemología, Teoría del Conocimiento y Ciencias Cognitivas No. 1 – Año 2010. (Scroll down to p. 3).

Visualizing the internet: Akamai’s network traffic

akamai, data visualization, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, edge platform, internet, internet traffic, network theory, optimization, stigmergic, stigmergy, streaming

Check out Akamai‘s data visualizations for the internet traffic it handles. Though pretty cool seeing this in their Cambridge control room when I visited, I was told it was more for show than anything else. Check out their online vizualizations page. Also, do check out their EdgePlatform blurb, a superb example of distributed computing.

Arizona ’10

Antonio Damasio, cognitive science, consciousness, david chalmers, Frédérique de Vignemont, neurobiology, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Wish I were there. Maybe in two years time.

A Dialogue on Consciousness/Amazon’s Recommendation Algorithm

amazon, cognitive science, collaborative filtering, consciousness, Dialogue on Consciousness, philosophy of mind, psychology, qualia, recommendation algorithm, robert howell, stigmergic, stigmergy, torin alter

Thanks to Amazon’s Recommendation Algorithm I chanced upon this book. I haven’t read it yet but it promises that it would provide a light (though hardly condescending) interlude between other drier and more technical works and the more stilted fictional attempts on which to hang the issues. And any work that makes philosophical approaches to consciousness more accessible, is a good thing. Of course it helps that it has as its authors are the top-notch Torin Alter and Robert Howell. The two discussants are Tollens and Ponens – unemployed graduate students who secretly live in a university library (tee hee, chortle, chortle).

Recommendation algorithms generally come in two varieties – collaborative filtering (CF) and cluster models (CM). CF attempts to mimic the process of ‘‘word-of-mouth’’ by which people recommend products or services to one another. CF runs on the notion that people who agreed in the past will agree in the future. CF aggregates ratings of items to recognize similarities between users, and generates a new recommendation of an item by weighting the ratings of similar users for the same item. But this technique is computationally expensive because ‘‘the average customer vector is extremely sparse’’ (Linden, Smith, & York, 2003, p. 77). By contrast CM divides the agent base into segments, treating the task as a classificatory problem. An agent is assigned a category comprised of similar agent profiles. Only then are recommendations generated. CM is computationally efficient since it only searches segments, rather than the complete database. Amazon.com’s recommendation algorithm is a derivative form of CF and CM. Consider an example. A search on Amazon for ‘‘stigmergy’’ returns 176 items, the default sort being by relevance (as opposed to price, reviews, publication date). Also given some prominence is a category ‘‘Customers who bought items in your Recent History also bought x, y, z . . ..’’ supplemented by Listmania, lists of salient material compiled by agents (all-comers as in Wikipedia) who ostensibly have some intimacy with the topic. There are also so-called ‘‘reviews’’ of a given title. All this over and above a record of my recent purchases which included stigmergy related material, assuming one hasn’t expunged Amazon’s cookies from one’s browser. Even on offer is the opportunity, for many titles, to peruse the contents page, read an excerpt and even be enticed by the dustjacket hyperbole. Furthermore, one can be alerted by email when a new title or new edition of a book matching one’s previous trails of interest, will become available: a preorder entitling the buyer to a discount. This all adds up to a highly bespoke experience that is better tailored than being in a bookstore, because it is unlikely the bookstore even stocks a title you have yet to discover as one scans the shelves – there is no ‘‘pheromone’’ trail. The Amazon algorithm rather than matching user-to-user finds items that customers tend to purchase together. It is computationally efficient (and easily scalable) because much of the computation has already been done off-line. The stigmergic interest of Amazon’s algorithm is patently clear: an item-to-item search generates a trail that gives rise to novel patterns of behavior. CF’s great virtue is that suppliers can be finely attuned to consumer behavior. The downside is that there runs the risk of ‘‘a kind of dysfunctional communal narrowing of attention’’ that can be self-fulfilling (Clark, 2003, p. 158; Gureckis & Goldstone, 2006, p. 296). Excerpt from Stigmergic epistemology, stigmergic cognition.

Extended Mind – Extended Time

Adams & Aizawa, Andy Clark, artificial intelligence, complexity, consciousness, cybernetics, cyborgs, david chalmers, David Spurrett, Descartes, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, don ross, Embedded, embodiment, enactivism, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, john sutton, mark rowlands, Michael Wheeler, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, psychology, richard menary, robert rupert, robert wilson, Shaun Gallagher, situated cognition, social cognition, Supersizing the Mind, susan hurley

Since we’ve been waiting for almost four years!!! for the publication of this collection of papers attached to The Extended Mind II conference held at The University of Hertfordshire in July of ’06, it’s arrival is going to be somewhat underwhelming on the grounds that: (a) most of the papers have been in circulation for quite a while, and (b) much good literature and more detailed statements by many of the participants have appeared, many addressing issues raised at the Hertfordshire conference. This kinda makes this book redundant. A shame really considering the calibre of the line-up.

Update: I’m told by someone in the know that some of the papers go back to 2003!