“It is our biological nature (as I argue at length in Clark 2003) to be open to many forms of physical and cognitive hybridization. Some of these (I claim) may be so intimate as to effectively extend the thinking agent. All of them are crucial parts of the nested, iterated and ongoing process of cognitive self-re-creation that is the characteristic mark of human intelligence. It is important that we develop an understanding of ourselves (both scientific and philosophical) that is adequate to this open-ended process of physical and cognitive self-creation. To do so means questioning the notions of the mind and person as essentially biological, and recognizing the very large extent to which the commonplace identification of minds and persons with purely biological structures is itself what Locke (1694) termed a ‘forensic matter’: a matter of legal and moral convenience more than metaphysics, and a convenience, moreover, that must become increasingly inconvenient as science and technology progress. (Clark, 2005, pp. 9-10).”
Clark, (2005), "Intrinsic content, active memory, and the extended mind". Analysis, 65, 1-11.
No comments:
Post a Comment