Review - Supersizing the Mind Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension by Andy Clark Oxford University Press, 2008 Review by Lars Marstaller Mar 7th 2009 (Volume 13, Issue 10)
In Supersizing the Mind, the philosopher Andy Clark presents his latest view on the role of embodiment for cognition and an extensive discussion of his widely received extended mind thesis. Over the last 15 years, scientists and philosophers in the field of cognitive science have increasingly paid attention to the relation between brain, body, and world. While there exists some agreement in the embodiment community that the body of a cognitive agent has to be considered a crucial factor when it comes to understanding the mind, the notion of embodiment itself is still rather poorly fleshed out in computational and signal processing terms. This is where Clark's book attempts to fill a gap by providing theoretical ground-work that is closely related to recent advances in robotics, neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and computer science.
In discussions of topics such as autonomous agents, brain-computer interfaces, morphological computation, or sensory substitution systems, Clark explores the many body-mediated relationships between sensing and acting. He argues that the whole body rather than the mere brain should be seen as the locus where sensing and acting come together and allow cognitive systems to engage with the world. While the body is thus considered fundamental for cognition, Clark further champions the view that it is not a fixed and constant entity but rather "negotiable". He pictures the body as providing possibilities for shaping, altering, and enhancing the very abilities that constitute intelligent being, viz. to successfully achieve goals under constantly changing conditions.
By thus characterizing the body as negotiable in terms of its contribution to cognitive processing, Clark is further able to offer a fresh and challenging view of the role the embeddedness of cognitive agents in cultural environments plays for evolution. From his perspective, culture is a constitutive factor for the human mind. Cultural artifacts such as iphones, computers, and especially language are considered not only as tools that extend our powers but rather as extensions of the cognitive system itself. Thus, Clark argues that by being able to deeply integrate cognitive extensions, our primate minds are 'supersized'. That is, combined with the flexibility and plasticity of our brains cultural artifacts yield the cognitive system necessary for the kind of information processing that underpins human intelligence.
The pinnacle of this view is clearly expressed in his extended mind thesis the discussion of which constitutes the bulk of Supersizing the Mind. It claims that under some conditions the only way to understand what the term ‚mind' refers to is not only by appeal to the brain alone but has to include physical structures external to the body. In the original treatment of the thesis (Clark & Chalmers 1998, which is reprinted as an appendix to Supersizing the Mind) the main example was the notebook of an Alzheimer's patient. The entries in the notebook – Clark and Chalmers claimed – should be seen as being equivalent to the memories stored in the biological wetware of a non-disabled person's brain. The initial argument has sparked many discussions (mainly) among philosophers to which Clark is devoting several chapters in response. I will not go into the details here. Since Supersizing the Mind is an extensive academic discussion of one of the hottest topics in the philosophy of mind and cognition, the reader should therefore expect some unfamiliar terms and concepts.
But despite its being a scholarly piece and dealing with rather specialized topics, Clark's beautiful writing turns reading Supersizing the Mind into a very enjoyable experience for experts and laypersons alike. Being a gifted writer, Clark is able to combine state of the art science and philosophy with the kind of accessible and enlightening prose rarely found in academic publications. His strong and exciting vision makes Supersizing the Mind an inspiring book that I recommend to everyone interested in the sciences of mind.
Clark, A. & D. Chalmers (1998) The extended mind. Analysis 58, 1: 7-19.
Lars Marstaller is currently a PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is also a member of the interdisciplinary research group on the 'Functions of Consciousness' at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and Humanities. His dissertation is on the process metaphysics of mind and cognition.
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