120 Environments of intelligence
the presence and function of some cognitive traits. Accordingly, the strong interpretation (Int S ) would seem in place here. However, these claims are quite casually
placed alongside remarks on how a view of cognition as extended into the environment allows for a more elegant, unified and simplified explanation of cognitive
processes (see Clark and Chalmers 1998, 10, 14). There is no reference in these
places to explanatory problems that would require a view of cognition as being thus
extended. Accordingly, the weak interpretation (Int W ) would seem in place here.
There are two adjacent claims on the first pages of Clark and Chalmers’s essay
where that ambiguity becomes manifest:
If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which,
were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part
of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (so we claim) part of
the cognitive process.
(Clark and Chalmers 1998, 8, emphasis in original)
After having thus introduced the parity principle, the authors present the core of
the hypothesis, the coupled system claim, and add:
All the components in the system play an active causal role, and they jointly
govern behaviour in the same sort of way that cognition usually does. If we
remove the external component the system’s behavioural competence will
drop, just as it would if we removed part of its brain. [. . .] The external
features in a coupled system play an ineliminable role – if we retain internal
structure but change the external features, behaviour may change completely.
The external features here are just as causally relevant as typical internal
features of the brain.
(Clark and Chalmers 1998, 8f )
If, taking the first claim at face value, a part of the world worked as a process
that could, in practice or in principle, also occur in the head, the ‘external’ and
the ‘internal’ versions of that process would be equivalent, hence interchangeable without loss, and arguably without a difference beyond the physical location of that process. If, however, according to the second claim, we took some
environmentally coupled cognitive process and removed the external component,
we would not be left with an intact set of internal operations within the person
accomplishing the cognitive task – only minus that component. Even less would
we be left with a set of internal operations identical to the case of accomplishing
the same task by internal means. As Clark and Chalmers implicate in the second
passage, very different kinds of mental operations are required for doing a calculation in one’s head and for doing it with a pocket calculator, or for finding one’s
way by visual recognition of a scene or by consulting a map or a notebook.
Clark and Chalmers’s choice of examples is not precisely helpful in keeping
these points apart. The examples they extensively discuss in order to substantiate
their hypothesis – which are the examples that also dominate the Extended Mind
the presence and function of some cognitive traits. Accordingly, the strong interpretation (Int S ) would seem in place here. However, these claims are quite casually
placed alongside remarks on how a view of cognition as extended into the environment allows for a more elegant, unified and simplified explanation of cognitive
processes (see Clark and Chalmers 1998, 10, 14). There is no reference in these
places to explanatory problems that would require a view of cognition as being thus
extended. Accordingly, the weak interpretation (Int W ) would seem in place here.
There are two adjacent claims on the first pages of Clark and Chalmers’s essay
where that ambiguity becomes manifest:
If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which,
were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part
of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (so we claim) part of
the cognitive process.
(Clark and Chalmers 1998, 8, emphasis in original)
After having thus introduced the parity principle, the authors present the core of
the hypothesis, the coupled system claim, and add:
All the components in the system play an active causal role, and they jointly
govern behaviour in the same sort of way that cognition usually does. If we
remove the external component the system’s behavioural competence will
drop, just as it would if we removed part of its brain. [. . .] The external
features in a coupled system play an ineliminable role – if we retain internal
structure but change the external features, behaviour may change completely.
The external features here are just as causally relevant as typical internal
features of the brain.
(Clark and Chalmers 1998, 8f )
If, taking the first claim at face value, a part of the world worked as a process
that could, in practice or in principle, also occur in the head, the ‘external’ and
the ‘internal’ versions of that process would be equivalent, hence interchangeable without loss, and arguably without a difference beyond the physical location of that process. If, however, according to the second claim, we took some
environmentally coupled cognitive process and removed the external component,
we would not be left with an intact set of internal operations within the person
accomplishing the cognitive task – only minus that component. Even less would
we be left with a set of internal operations identical to the case of accomplishing
the same task by internal means. As Clark and Chalmers implicate in the second
passage, very different kinds of mental operations are required for doing a calculation in one’s head and for doing it with a pocket calculator, or for finding one’s
way by visual recognition of a scene or by consulting a map or a notebook.
Clark and Chalmers’s choice of examples is not precisely helpful in keeping
these points apart. The examples they extensively discuss in order to substantiate
their hypothesis – which are the examples that also dominate the Extended Mind