Extended Mind Thesis (EMT) Proposed By Clark And Chalmers

Cognition is a broad term referring to the mental processes that occur in our brain including attention, perception, language, memory, and reasoning. In the field of cognitive psychology, cognition has been closely studied and a fundamental assumption held by many cognitive psychologists states that cognition takes place entirely within the head. However, there are several approaches that challenge this belief and suggest that cognition is not restricted to the confines of our skull. This essay will outline one such approach, more specifically the Extended Mind Thesis (EMT) proposed by Andy Clark and David Chalmers, as well as demonstrate how someone who attests that cognition resides entirely in the head may argue against it. Finally, I will

(11a) It essentially states that our mind and cognitive abilities may exist outside the physical structure of our skull and even beyond the realms of our skin and that there are external aspects of cognition involved in our perception and understanding of the physical world. Consider an experiment requesting people to mentally rotate an object on a computer screen in three different scenarios, where Scenario 2 and Scenario 3 allow the use of a button and then an implanted chip, respectively, to perform the rotation. According to the EMT, if these two distinct mental systems can accomplish the same tasks, even with the use of external, physical objects, it would be considered chauvinistic to attribute cognitive functionality to one as opposed to the other. (11a) This invites the principle of parity which argues that externalizing cognitive processes should not diminish its cognitive status if, when occurring within the brain, it would be considered cognitive.

To begin with, they might argue that the whole act of coupling oneself with external objects to perform cognitive tasks does not imply that these objects are by themselves cognitive. (11b) This stems from the notion that just because some external system can accomplish brain-like mental states and processes, we cannot attribute mindedness to it as it is simply a tool to be used by individuals. An example of this is seen in the way humans use calculators. These are necessary tools used for making computations; however, the actual mathematics is being performed by the person, not the calculator. Thus, such theorists believe that it would be illogical and nonsensical to deem a calculator capable of cognition. This directly disagrees with the functionalist view of cognition which attributes cognitive abilities to anything that accomplishes brain-like processes, like digital computers, and suggests that overgeneralizing the definition of cognition can strip it of its true meaning.