
Thinking Differently about Thinking: The Mind-Expanding Ideas of Andy Clark - oldgun
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/the-mind-expanding-ideas-of-andy-clark
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osullivj
No mention of Wittgenstein, and the argument for the impossibility of a
private language. All that material in Philosophical Investigations on how
natural language is game like, and an essentially social practice, is highly
relevant.

~~~
user51442
Or Heidegger, 'being-in-the-world-with-others' & all that.

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user51442
Heidegger doesn't seem too far from the mark, judging by Andy Clark's 1997
"Being There":

[http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/BeingThere.AClark1998....](http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/BeingThere.AClark1998.EntireBook.pdf)

The title even seems to be a nod to Heidegger's "dasein" (as well as to Woody
Allen).

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VyseofArcadia
This article reminds me of a sci-fi series I read a million years ago, The
Golden Queen by Dave Wolverton. In the series, some characters had a "mantle,"
an external mind worn on the head that could either passively impart knowledge
to the wearer or actively help them develop a skill.

After I read the series I started thinking about notes and books and
references as being a sort of external brain that I shouldn't be ashamed of
utilizing if I needed to. Or maybe more like the secondary storage to my
brain's RAM (long-term memory) and CPU cache (short-term memory.)

That isn't to say that I would actually recommend reading the Golden Queen. It
was cheesy and campy, but it had a couple of neat ideas and a talking bear.

~~~
EdwardCoffin
A few other SF books with the idea of an external co-brain:

\- Psychohistorical Crisis by Donald Kingsbury (plays a major role)

\- Accelerando by Charlie Stross (minor role)

\- The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge (relatively major
roles)

edited for formatting

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WhompingWindows
The important distinction drawn is between the brain, a physical organ that
exists within each human, to the mind, which is at this point an
interdisciplinary concept which is defined and explored by psychologists,
neuroscientists, and philosophers alike.

In general, I find the intermixing of science and philosophy an increasingly
common situation for those interested in "the mind." For me, it is hard to
reconcile the falsifiable and evidence-based nature of science with the
inherently linguistic nature of philosophy. Philosophers have come to this
question not due to their knowledge of neurology or psychology, but rather to
heap on more theory to the word "mind" itself.

My question is: What is the practical use of this theory of mind? How does it
"expand" my mind to be reminded that I use tools and props? Since it is
clearly not news that all of us use tools and props, is the author's primary
insight to claim that these are part of the mind? How does that claim aid
society?

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AnIdiotOnTheNet
Thing is, you don't just _use_ tools and props. From the perspective of your
mind, they become a part of you, of your concept of self, even if only
temporarily.

And the tools don't just exist without, your mind is built from tools _within_
as well. There is a part of your mind that rationalizes things, for instance.
Rationalization is a tool that other parts of your mind can draw on. I think
this is quite clear if you've spent a good amount of time having to argue with
your own thoughts, maybe that isn't a very common experience though.

Similarly there's a part of your mind that simulates experiences. It can be
used by the part of your mind that makes predictions, and it can be used by
the part of your mind that recollects.

Some people's minds use visual or auditory processing components to aid in
arithmetic. It's sort of the human equivalent of doing computation on the GPU.

The biggest myth we tell ourselves, on which so much flawed philosophy is
based in my opinion, is that we're a single thing. We like to think that what
we are is something that is a whole unto itself, that can be isolated, and
not, like everything else in the universe, a collection of interactions viewed
from a particular perspective.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Indeed. As Clark always points out, the brain is three pounds of meat trapped
in a black box made out of bone, given a few wires to the outside. A logically
necessary part of its job is figuring out how to extend its reach outside the
skull and entangle itself usefully with the inward-facing and outward-facing
faculties of the body, and thence, via those outward-facing faculties (ie:
motor systems in your arms or whatnot), with other stuff in the external world
(not so different, since it's all outside the black box of bone, is it?) that
can be organismically valuable, like a bicycle.

~~~
Maybestring
I notice that when I hit a bump on my bicycle I don't feel a force in my hands
and conciously deduce that this must have been caused by the bicycle's tire
hitting something. It seems more like I just feel it in my wheel.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I go "ouch" when my wife runs over a pothole while driving. It's a very neat
trick, even after I've read things like _Surfing Uncertainty_ and have an idea
how it's done.

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meganibla
If the mind extends beyond our heads and into the devices we carry around and
therefore into the cloud what about privacy?

It seems the distinction still remains between Inga and Otto in other words
between the mind in our heads and the mind in our devices because for what’s
in our heads we can always choose whether we want to tell others or not but
for our devices even if we set our privacy settings we lose control of choice
over who to share that information with as soon as we tell the cloud about it

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boukestam
It's not true that you can always choose whether to tell others or not. There
are certain drugs that make you more talkative and even consuming too much
alcohol makes you unable to control what you tell others. And it likely won't
be long until a device is discovered that allows you to see others thoughts.

~~~
meganibla
It is true some can always choose but maybe not everybody can, because people
react differently to drugs and alcohol. Psychics can already read minds better
than existing primitive devices. But AFAICT the gov does not employ them, at
least not at scale, so don’t worry. I don’t believe actual mind reading device
will ever exist, the closest will be like a synthetic / robotic AI brain with
the same abilities as human psychic. Meaning it’s a synthetic AI not “device“
that you completely control. So if you want to read minds without people’s
consent you better use psychics or torture.

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some_account
This is a good article for educating people that we need machines and implants
to be complete beings. Classic illuminati thinking that people will most
likely embrace once cute implants are available in white, rounded plastic with
names such as memory pod :)

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blackbagboys
Please tell me more about these illuminati thinkers and their strain of
thought

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vinchuco
That would be 'illusory'.

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perilunar
The "extended mind" seems to me to be an extension of Richard Dawkins' idea of
the "extended phenotype".

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deepnet
Does Andy Clark's hypothesis assert that self driving cars' neural networks
must necessarily contain the minds of pedestrians ?

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neolefty
Perhaps instead the minds of drivers diffuse into their cars. That's already
true for maps.

Pedestrians' minds rely on things like _Walk_ signs and sidewalk texturing.

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billysielu
I learnt that modal adverts are terrible. Thanks.

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douglaswlance
Mind = software.

Pen & Pencil are just environment variables.

