Robert Clowes

Contemporary mobile internet technology as embodied in our smart phones and apps appears to easily meet the original criteria set out for an artefact to count as part of an agent´s Extended Mind (Chalmers, 2007; Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Indeed, it appears to make it too easy, the original “trust & glue” conditions now incorporating a raft of technology which threatens a reductio ad absurdum. Are our minds destined to seem ever more bloated? Sterelny´s (2010) ideas about entrenchment and personalisation might be one way of staving off cognitive bloat. However I will introduce a new thought experiment involving “Cloud Otto” that casts doubt on this. Finally I will review ideas that an agent´s epistemic character can also be extended by technology and artefacts (Pritchard, 2010) and look at whether this might give us new insights into the idea of the extended mind and its practical implications.

• Chalmers, D. (2007). Forward to Supersizing the Mind Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action and Cognitive Extension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The Extended Mind. Analysis, 58, 10-23.  Retrieved fromhttp://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/extended.html
• Pritchard, D. (2010). Cognitive ability and the extended cognition thesis. Synthese, 175(1), 133-151.
• Sterelny, K. (2010). Minds: extended or scaffolded? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 465-481.