Extended Mind Hypothesis
Context
John Sutton:
"On the extended mind hypothesis (EM), many of our cognitive states and processes are hybrids, unevenly distributed across biological and nonbiological realms (Clark 1997; Clark and Chalmers 1998). In certain circumstances, things-artifacts, media, or technologies-can have a cognitive life, with histories often as idiosyncratic as those of the embodied brains with which they couple (Sutton 2002a, 2008). The realm of the mental can spread across the physical, social, and cultural environments as well as bodies and brains. My independent aims in this chapter are: first, to describe two compatible but distinct movements or "waves" within the EM literature, arguing for the priority of the second wave (and gesturing briefly toward a third); and, second, to defend and illustrate the interdisciplinary implications of EM as best understood, specifically for historical disciplines, by sketching two case studies.
EM, an offshoot of mainstream functionalist information-processing cognitive science, has been focused in particular on our abilities to hook up with what Merlin Donald calls "exograms" or external symbols, by analogy with the brain's memory traces or "engrams" (Donald 1991, pp. 308-333; 2001, pp. 305-315).2 These abilities allow us to create and support cognitive profiles quite unlike those of creatures restricted to the brain's biological memories or engrams alone. Among other typical features, Donald points out that exograms last longer than engrams, have greater capacity, are more easily transmissible across media and context, and can be retrieved and manipulated by a greater variety of means (1991, pp. 315-316): so our skilled use of such crafted aids changes both the locus of memory in general."
(https://philarchive.org/archive/SUTEIA)
Typology
First Wave EM based on the Parity Principle vs Second Wave EM based on Complementarity
John Sutton:
"First-wave EM is based on the parity principle (Clark and Chalmers 1998, reprinted in this volume): cognitive states and processes extend beyond the brain and into the (external) world when the relevant parts of the world function in the same way as do unquestionably cognitive processes in the head. If "exograms" act as engrams do, then for explanatory purposes they can be treated as engrams, the difference in their location being entirely superficial. Thus breaking down classical and individualist distinctions between brain, body, and world, we see that the object can be (part of) the subject, and that, as we've noted, things can have a cognitive life.
Second-wave EM is based on a complementarity principle: in extended cognitive systems, external states and processes need not mimic or replicate the formats, dynamics, or functions of inner states and processes. Rather,
different components of the overall (enduring or temporary) system can
play quite different roles and have different properties while coupling in
collective and complementary contributions to flexible thinking and acting. So "exograms" can be radically unlike engrams even while co-opted for the same purposes, and these differences will often be the focus of
complementarity-oriented explanations in the EM framework. We need
both historical and developmental accounts of how our brains have just
about managed "to make the world smart so that we can be dumb in peace"
(Clark 1997, p. 180)."