The Extended Mind - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Extended MindSlide2

The asymmetric dependence theorySlide3

Horses Don’t Cause Horse

Horse!

Causes

Causes

DependsSlide4

C.O.A.D.N. Don’t Cause “Horse!”

Horse!

Causes

Causes

Does Not DependSlide5

Asymmetric Dependence Theory

Concept C represents property P in virtue of the fact that

Things with P cause C

Things without P that also cause C only cause C because things with P cause C, and not vice versa.Slide6

Asymmetric Dependence Theory

The concept “Horse!” represents the property of being a horse in virtue of the fact that

Horses cause “Horse!”

Non-horses that also cause “Horse!” only cause “Horse!” because horses cause “Horse!,” and not vice versa.Slide7

Robustness

Causes

Causes

Why doesn’t “pepper” mean pepper-or-“salt”?Slide8

Proximal Stimuli

Why doesn’t “dog” mean dog-or-doggy-image?

Causes

CausesSlide9

Proximal Stimuli

Causes

Bark!Slide10

Hit on the Head with a Hammer

There’s one objection that Fodor cannot answer however. I call it the “hit on the head with a hammer” objection.

Suppose there’s a particular part of your head where, if I hit it, you will think of a penguin.Slide11

Hammer Objection

Causes

CausesSlide12

The extended mindSlide13

Functional Types

A functional type is a type of something that performs a certain task, does a particular job, or plays a certain role.

Any object that performs that task, does that job, or plays that role is a token of that type.Slide14

Example: Pain

For example, the job of pain seems to be (1) to register bodily damage and (2) to cause aversion to the source of the damage.

So the functionalist might say:

any state

(not just human brain states) that performs these jobs is a pain stateSlide15

Example: Beliefs and DesiresSlide16

Functionalism

Stimulus

Response

Other Mental StatesSlide17

Stimulus

Response

Other Mental StatesSlide18

The Extended Mind Thesis

Some states outside of the human brain count as human mental states.

Some processes outside of the human brain count as human mental processes.Slide19

Epistemic Actions

Ordinary actions work like this:

We want the world to be a certain way.

We take an action that makes the world that way, or an action that is a precondition for such an action.Slide20

Epistemic Actions

Sometimes, however, we take an epistemic action.

This is where we change the world in order to find out how to act.

It’s like a mental simulation, but real.Slide21

Arranging Scrabble TilesSlide22

Content Internalism

Internalism

about content says that content supervenes on mental representations:

There’s no change in what a mental representation represents without a change in the representation itself.Slide23

Example: Idea Theory

For example, the idea of a dog couldn’t represent a cat unless you changed the idea itself so it resembled a cat .Slide24

Content Externalism

Externalism about content, however, says that content does not supervene on mental representations:

There can be a difference in content with no difference in “what’s in the head.”Slide25

Example: Causal Theories

According to a causal theory, our mental representations represent what causes them.Slide26

Example: Causal Theories

Therefore, if you change what causes them, without changing the representations, they represent something new.Slide27

Clark & Chalmers argue for a different sort of externalism that they call “active externalism.”Slide28

Objection from Consciousness

Mental processes are conscious, but nothing outside the head is.

Reply: Lots of mental processes recognized by cognitive science are unconscious– like language processing.Slide29

Objection from Portability

Mental processes are portable in a special sort of way. You can remove my scrabble tiles, but it’s hard to remove the mental representations of those tiles in my mind.Slide30

Objection from Portability

Reply: this still allows for treating counting on your fingers as a mental process.

And there’s reason to think that in the future, other external processes will be coupled to us by implantation.Slide31

Objection

Objection: OK, so I’ll count rotating

tetris

shapes, arranging scrabble tiles, and counting on your fingers as mental processes.

But you can’t convince me that there are mental

states

outside the head.

Beliefs and desires, for example, are always internal.Slide32
Slide33
Slide34
Slide35

Otto vs. Inga

“Inga hears

from a friend that there is an exhibition at the Museum of

Modern Art

, and decides to go see it. She thinks for a moment and recalls that

the museum

is on 53rd Street, so she walks to 53rd Street and goes into the museum. It seems clear that Inga believes that the museum is on 53rd

Street, and that she believed this even before she consulted her memory.”Slide36

Otto vs. Inga

“

Otto suffers from Alzheimer’s disease,

and like

many Alzheimer’s patients, he relies on information in the

environment to

help structure his life. Otto carries a notebook around with him everywhere he goes. When he learns new information, he writes it down. When he needs some old information, he looks it up.

For Otto, his notebook plays the role usually played by a biological memory.”Slide37

Otto vs. Inga

“Today

, Otto hears about the exhibition at the Museum of

Modern Art

, and decides to go see it. He consults the notebook, which

says that

the museum is on 53rd Street, so he walks to 53rd Street and goes into the museum.”Slide38

Extended Mind

There is no deep difference between Otto and Inga.

Therefore, since Inga believes the museum is on 53

rd

St. before she consults her memory, Otto believes the museum is on 53

rd

St. before he consults his notebook.That belief is stored in the notebook. Therefore, some beliefs are outside the head.Slide39

Introspection Objection

Objection: Inga’s access to her belief is introspective. She directly perceives her belief. Otto doesn’t have the same access to his beliefs.

Reply: This begs the question. If the belief really is in the notebook, then Otto is directly perceiving his belief when he looks at the notebook.Slide40

Phenomenology Objection

When Inga consults her memory, it doesn’t involve visual imagery.

When Otto consults his notebook, this requires visually seeing the notebook.Slide41

The Terminator ReplySlide42

Extended Desire?

“[T]he

waiter at my favorite

restaurant might

act as a repository of my beliefs about my favorite

meals

(this might even be construed as a case of extended desire).”Slide43

Fodor vs. the extended mindSlide44

Intentionality the Mark of the Mental

“[I]f

something literally and

unmetaphorically

has content, then either it is mental (part of a mind) or the content is ‘derived’ from something that is mental. ‘Underived’ content (to borrow John Searle’s term) is the mark of the mental; underived content is what minds and only minds have

.” – Fodor, “Where Is My Mind?” LRBSlide45

Underived Content

Mental states, according to Fodor, have underived content. This means they get their contents from their direct causal relations with the world.

(Remember that Fodor holds the asymmetric dependence theory of mental

represenation

.)Slide46

Derived Content

How do non-mental representations get their contents? How do maps, words, diagrams, paintings, etc. get their contents?

One very standard answer is: from minds which already have (underived) contents. Words mean what they do

because we want them to

. Mind is the source of all representation.Slide47

The Mark of the Mental

Fodor proposes the following principled distinction between mind and non-mind: something is mental if and only if it has underived content.Slide48

Fodor’s Argument

Otto’s notebook contains only words.

Words have derived content; they only mean things because we mean things by them.

Therefore Otto’s notebook is not mental.Slide49

Objection

But wait! Doesn’t Otto’s notebook play the same causal/ functional role as Inga’s memory?

And doesn’t Fodor hold a causal theory of mental (underived) representation?

So doesn’t Fodor have to say that the notebook has underived content and is thus mental?Slide50

A Difference in Processing

Fodor says “no.” Return to Inga. When she “consults her memory” of where

the museum does she: “remembers that she remembers the address of the museum and, having consulted her memory of her memory then consults the memory she remembers having, and thus ends up at the

museum” (quote from Fodor)?Slide51

A Difference in Processing

No. If you always had to remember a memory before retrieving it, every memory retrieval would take infinite steps.

But now consider Otto: Otto

does

have to remember that he has a “memory” stored in his notebook before he can retrieve it. So the cases aren’t the same after all.