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THEORY-591: Cognition has two necessary marks, involving non-derived content and a distinctive kind of causal processing, and as a contingent fact only processes in the brain have both, so notebooks, screens and tools coupled to a thinker are not parts of cognition, and human-plus-tool systems will support no science of their own

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Properties5
StatusProposed
Tagscognition, embodied-cognition, mereology, philosophy-of-science
SourceLIT-438 — The bounds of cognition, LIT-455 — Defending the Bounds of Cognition
RivalsTHEORY-512 — The extended-mind thesis worth disputing is that external entities partly constitute a subject's mental states in virtue of the subject's sensorimotor interaction with them; so stated it can reach standing belief but not consciousness, if consciousness needs information directly available for global control, since perception makes availability indirect, THEORY-579 — If belief is individuated by functional role, an external store that is constantly consulted, directly available and automatically endorsed can carry a standing belief, so the material vehicles of some mental states extend beyond the skin; the step from coupling to parthood rests on that premise and a parity principle the authors state rather than argue
PresupposesTHEORY-582 — Causal coupling between a process and something outside it does not by itself make that thing part of the process, so an argument from coupling to extended cognition needs a further premise saying what makes a process cognitive

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Source

Adams & Aizawa (2001), “The bounds of cognition”, LIT-438, read in full in NOTE-368. Adams & Aizawa (2010), “Defending the Bounds of Cognition”, LIT-455, read in NOTE-380 from a draft that predates the published chapter.

What was actually shown

The method (LIT-438 p. 46). The bounds of cognition “must be determined by finding the mark of the cognitive, then seeing what sorts of processes in the world have the mark”. Parity is granted as “true and obvious”: it shows only that being in the brain is not the mark.

Mark 1, non-derived content (LIT-438 §2.1). Cognitive states “must involve intrinsic, non-derived content”. The support is a claimed “fairly broad consensus” (Dretske, Fodor, Searle, Millikan) and arguments against Dennett’s stance view. The 2010 text says the condition has “calculated openness”: states must involve such content, not consist of it, and a process with none is non-cognitive (NOTE-380, C2).

Mark 2, causal processing (LIT-438 §2.2). Sciences sort phenomena into causally homogeneous kinds, so cognition “must be discriminated on the basis of underlying causal processes”. The analogies are Bacon on heat and neo-Lamarckians confusing inheritance with infection.

Applied (LIT-438 §3.1). Otto’s notes have “merely derived content”, so they “do not … constitute beliefs or memories”. Tetris blocks on a screen “are not representations at all … they are the blocks to be fit together”. Otto’s retrieval uses motor and visual processing that Inga’s lacks. Cognition is like muscle contraction, which stays in the arm when shears are used, and unlike some digestion, which is transcorporeal in spiders.

Against convention as a source of mental content (LIT-455). A mental image of Euler circles need not get its content by convention; the dependence on a prior convention is historical, like a mental image of a car depending on the car’s invention. A convention needs access to “the would-be syntactic item” it gives meaning to, and “we have no way to identify particular tokens of brain states qua syntactic items”.

No science of tool use (LIT-438 §4; LIT-455). “There are no laws covering humans and their tool use over and above the laws of intracranial human cognition and the laws of the physical tools.” Tools are artifacts, an open-ended set, so a brain-tool science would have to cover “a motley”, not “a multiplicity”.

What could have come out otherwise. An external store could have been shown to carry content not fixed by convention, or a regularity over human-plus-tool systems could have been named. The authors cite no study either way.

What this does not say

  • That cognition cannot extend. Transcranial cognition is “logically and perhaps nomologically possible”; the claim is a “boring contingent empirical fact” that there is none.
  • That the marks are established. Both are assumed, and the authors say little about what non-derived content is (NOTE-368, Limitations). They concede (LIT-438 p. 50) that it is unclear how much of each cognitive state must involve non-derived content, and Clark’s reply (LIT-403) uses that concession against them.
  • That the processing differences are measured. The 2001 paper cites no experiment on external memory, and the 2010 contrast rests on consumer electronics (NOTE-380, C5). Rupert (LIT-422) supplies the empirical version (THEORY-528).
  • That there will be no science of tool use. “Slim to none, we speculate”: a bet (NOTE-368, C8).
  • Anything about consciousness or groups. Consciousness is set aside “without argument” (p. 48). The motley argument concerns artifacts, and organisms are not artifacts, so it does not by itself count against a nation as a cognitive system (NOTE-380, Bearing on the record).

Connections

  • What it presupposes. The coupling point (THEORY-582) is why a mark is needed at all. This account supplies one candidate.
  • Rival. Chalmers’s sensorimotor statement (THEORY-512) counts Otto’s notebook into his standing beliefs. LIT-415 §2 answers the derived-content objection in one line: biological memory’s content is derived from conscious states too.
  • Neighbour, not ally on this premise. Rupert’s embedded cognition (THEORY-528) agrees that internal and external processes differ in cognitively relevant ways, and rejects the derived-content argument as question-begging (LIT-422, n. 87).
  • Clark’s 2005 reply (LIT-403) and his book (LIT-412, unread) are the answers on the other side.

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