Symbiotic cognition as an alternative for socially extended cognition (original) (raw)
Related papers
From Notebooks to Institutions: The Case for Symbiotic Cognition
Frontiers in Psychology, 2020
Cognition is claimed to be extended by a wide array of items, ranging from notebooks to social institutions. Although the connection between individuals and these items is usually referred to as ‘coupling’, the difference between notebooks and social institutions is so vast that the meaning of ‘coupling’ is bound to be different in each of these cases. In this paper I argue that the radical difference between ‘artefact-extended cognition’ and ‘socially extended cognition’ is not sufficiently highlighted in the literature. I argue that there are two different senses of ‘cognitive extension’ at play, that I shall label, respectively, ‘implementation extension’ and ‘impact extension.’ Whereas implementation extension is a causal-functional notion, impact-extension hinges on social normativity that is connected with organization and action coordination. I will argue that the two kinds of cognitive extension are different enough to warrant separate labels. Because the most salient form of social extension of cognition involves the reciprocal co-constitution of cognitive capacities, I will propose to set it apart from other types of extended cognition by using the label ‘symbiotic cognition.’
Cognitive Integration, Enculturated Cognition and the Socially Extended Mind
Shaun Gallagher presents an interesting case for the social extension of mind. I argue that there is one way in which Gallagher can argue for social extension, which is continuous with an enculturated model of cognition, such as cognitive integration. This way requires us to think of the mind as extended by social/cultural practices that are specifically targeted at cognitive tasks. The other way in which Gallagher argues for social extension is that social institutions -such as museums or the law -are literal constituents of our minds. This second way involves a number of problems and objections and is inconsistent with an enculturated or practice based approach. I conclude by urging Gallagher to endorse the first way.
2016
Thinking, or knowledge getting, is far from being the armchair thing it is often supposed to be. The reason it is not an armchair thing is that it is not an event going on exclusively within the cortex.... Hands and feet, apparatus and appliances of all kinds are as much a part of it as changes within the brain. (John Dewey 1916, 13-14). The concept of the extended mind, as introduced by Clark and Chalmers (1998) was meant in part to move beyond the standard Cartesian idea that cognition is something that happens in a private mental space, “in the head. ” Elsewhere (Gallagher 2011; Gallagher and Crisafi 2009), I’ve pursued a liberal interpretation of the extended mind, suggesting that we consider cognitive processes as constituted in various social practices that occur within social and cultural institutions. This idea of the socially extended mind builds on the enactive idea of social affordances. Just as a notebook or a hand-held piece of technology may be viewed as affording a wa...
Socially Extended Cognition and Shared Intentionality
Frontiers in psychology, 2018
The paper looks at the intersection of extended cognition and social cognition. The central claim is that the mechanisms of shared intentionality can equally be considered as coupling mechanisms of cognitive extension into the social domain. This claim will be demonstrated by investigating a detailed example of cooperative action, and it will be argued that such cases imply that socially extended cognition is not only about cognitive vehicles, but that content must additionally be taken into account. It is finally outlined how social content externalism can in principle be grounded in socially extended cognition.
Beyond Distributed Cognition: Towards a Taxonomy of Nonreductive Social Cognition
Proceedings of the 39th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2017
Studies of social cognition often assume a reductionist, computational-representational conceptual framework. Distributed cognition is one of the few extant conceptual frameworks for a nonreductive understanding of social cognition. This concept’s prototypical cases are exclusively of technical-scientific human institutions, including ships, cockpits, and the Hubble Space Telescope. In the first part of the paper, we outline the properties of distributed cognitive systems. We look at the case of wolf (Canis lupus) packs as an instance of distributed cognition in nonhuman systems. Nevertheless, a broad range of social cognitive phenomena across human and animal populations may not fit into this conceptual framework. We present a case study of bird flocks as a counterexample to distributed cognition. We propose “swarm intelligence” as an alternative concept of nonreductive social cognition. This is not to replace distributed cognition as a concept, but to add to and diversify the taxonomy of nonreductive social cognitive systems.
The Individuation of Social Systems: A Cognitive Framework
Procedia Computer Science, 2016
We present a socio-human cognitive framework that radically deemphasizes the role of individual human agents required for both the formation of social systems and their ongoing operation thereafter. Our point of departure is Simondon’s (1992) theory of individuation, which we integrate with the enactive theory of cognition (Di Paolo et al., 2010) and Luhmann’s (1996) theory of social systems. This forges a novel view of social systems as complex, individuating sequences of communicative interactions that together constitute distributed yet distinct cognitive agencies, acquiring a capacity to exert influence over their human-constituted environment. We conclude that the resulting framework suggests several different paths of integrating AI agents into human society. One path suggests the emulation of a largely simplified version of the human mind, reduced in its functions to a specific triple selection-making which is necessary for sustaining social systems. Another one conceives AI systems that follow the distributed, autonomous architecture of social systems, instead that of humans.
Social Parts: A Cognitive Analysis
2005
A programmable autonomous business is a novel kind of business built entirely in software that is functionally indistinguishable from a conventional business—acquiring customers, providing a product to those customers, and making an actual profit for doing so. The difference is that the autonomous business has no employees or managers guiding it; all operations are automated in software. While we know that autonomous businesses are possible, we do not understand why. To address this issue I analyze a basic autonomous business as a distributed cognitive system. I show that an autonomous business is composed of a rather mundane set of social practices whose performance is mediated by online technology. These social practices when performed "offline" have nothing to do with business. However, the synthesis of these technological-mediated social practices results in the emergence of an autonomous business. I discuss why mediating the performance of these social practices with ...