Extending the Extended Mind: From Cognition to Consciousness (New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science)

This book argues that conscious experience is sometimes extended outside the brain and body into certain kinds of environmental interaction and tool use. It shows that if one accepts that cognitive states can extend, one must also accept that consciousness can extend. The proponents of Extended Mind defend the former claim, but usually oppose the latter claim. The most important undertaking of this book is to show that this partition is not possible on pain of inconsistency. Pii Telakivi presents three arguments for the hypothesis of Extended Conscious Mind , examines and answers the most common counterarguments, and introduces a novel means to interpret and apply the concept of constitution. She also addresses the tensions between analytic philosophy of mind and enactivism, and builds a bridge between two different traditions: on the one hand, extended mind, and on the other, enactivism and embodied mind―and maintains that a unifying approach is necessary for atheory about extended consciousness. Acknowledgements Contents Introduction: Out of Our Heads Chapter 1: A Roadmap from the Extended Mind to the Extended Conscious Mind 1.1 Where Does the Mind Stop? 1.2 Concepts of Cognition and Consciousness 1.3 4E’s: Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, Extended 1.3.1 Embodied 1.3.2 Embedded 1.3.3 Enacted 1.3.4 Extended 1.4 From the Extended Mind to the Extended Conscious Mind 1.4.1 The Extended Mind 1.4.2 The Waves to the Extended Conscious Mind 1.4.3 Vehicular Externalism 1.5 Conclusions and Methodological Remarks References Chapter 2: Arguments for Extended Conscious Mind 2.1 Introduction 2.2 First Argument for ECM: Parity Argument 2.2.1 Cognition and Consciousness Are Often Inseparable 2.2.2 Occurrent EM 2.2.3 Wheeler’s Objection 2.2.4 Summing Up the First Argument 2.3 Second Argument for ECM: Sensorimotor Enactivism 2.3.1 Landscapes of Sensorimotor Enactivism 2.3.2 Bridging the Comparative Explanatory Gap 2.3.3 Sensorimotor Reductionism or Sensorimotor Integrationism? 2.3.4 Temporal Nature, Virtual Presence 2.3.5 Arguments Drawn from Sensorimotor Enactivism in Support of ECM 2.3.6 Does Entailment Hold? From the Personal to the Sub-Personal Level 2.3.7 Summing Up the Second Argument 2.4 Third Argument for ECM: The Leaky Body 2.4.1 Experience Is Embodied 2.4.2 The Frontiers of the Body Are Not Rigid 2.4.3 External Body Parts as Substrates of Experience 2.5 Conclusions to the Three Arguments References Chapter 3: The Constitution-Turn and Extended Conscious Mind 3.1 Introduction 3.1.1 The Causal–Constitution Fallacy 3.1.2 The Constituted Phenomenon: The Dynamic Nature of Experiences 3.2 Defining Constitution 3.2.1 Material Constitution 3.2.2 Mechanist Constitution The Ambiguity in the Mechanistic Model 3.2.3 Diachronic–Dynamical Constitution 3.3 Demarcating the System Boundaries 3.3.1 Mutual Manipulability as a Demarcation Criterion Mutual Manipulability in Practice Limitations of Mutual Manipulability 3.4 Conclusions References Chapter 4: Tools as Extenders: The Pathway to Functional Incorporation 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Spectrum of Extensions 4.2.1 Momentary Extension 4.2.2 Integrated Extension 4.2.3 Prosthetic Incorporation 4.2.4 Functional Incorporation 4.2.5 Summing Up the Four Degrees of Extension 4.3 “Glue & Trust” Conditions 4.3.1 Glue & Trust Conditions for EM 4.3.2 Criteria Compared with ECM 4.3.3 Glue & Trust Conditions for ECM 4.4 An Example of Functional Incorporation: Sensory Substitution 4.5 Conclusions References Chapter 5: Possible Objections to Extended Conscious Mind 5.1 Introduction 5.1.1 Clark’s Criticisms of ECM 5.2 The Argument from High Bandwidth 5.2.1 Answers to the High-Bandwidth Argument 5.3 Predictive Processing 5.3.1 Answering the Counter-argument from Predictive Processing 5.4 The Brain-in-a-Vat Thought Experiment 5.5 Dreams and Hallucinations 5.5.1 Revonsuo’s Dream Argument 5.5.2 Answering the Dream Challenge Noë’s Disjunctive Enactivism Experience as Sense-Making Weak Enactivism Multiple Realisability of Experiences Conclusions from the Dream Argument 5.6 Summarising the Counter-arguments References Chapter 6: Concluding Remarks and the Future of Extension References References Index This book argues that conscious experience is sometimes extended outside the brain and body into certain kinds of environmental interaction and tool use. It shows that if one accepts that cognitive states can extend, one must also accept that consciousness can extend. The proponents of Extended Mind defend the former claim, but usually oppose the latter claim. The most important undertaking of this book is to show that this partition is not possible on pain of inconsistency. Pii Telakivi presents three arguments for the hypothesis of Extended Conscious Mind , examines and answers the most common counterarguments, and introduces a novel means to interpret and apply the concept of constitution. She also addresses the tensions between analytic philosophy of mind and enactivism, and builds a bridge between two different on the one hand, extended mind, and on the other, enactivism and embodied mindand maintains that a unifying approach is necessary for a theory about extended consciousness.