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Extending the Extended Mind from Cognition to Consciousness

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Extending the Extended Mind from Cognition to Consciousness View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto Department of Philosophy, History and Art Studies Faculty of Arts University of Helsinki Finland Extending the Extended Mind From Cognition to Consciousness Pii Telakivi DOCTORAL DISSERTATION to be presented for public discussion with the permission of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Helsinki, in lecture room 107, Athena (Siltavuorenpenger 3 A), on the 5th of September, 2020 at 12 o’clock. Filosofisia tutkimuksia Helsingin yliopistosta Filosofiska Studier från Helsingfors universitet Philosophical Studies from the University of Helsinki Publishers: Theoretical Philosophy Philosophy (in Swedish) Social and Moral Philosophy P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40A) 00014 University of Helsinki Finland Editors: Samuli Reijula Michiru Nagatsu Thomas Wallgren ISBN 978-951-51-6436-0 (pbk.) ISBN 978-951-51-6437-7 (PDF) ISSN 1458-8331 (series) http://ethesis.helsinki.fi Unigrafia, Helsinki 2020 Cover: Mirko Varano Abstract Where does conscious experience stop and the rest of the world begin? Is the material basis of consciousness confined to the brain, or can it be extended to include other parts of the body and environmental elements? This study proposes an extended account: when all the requirements are fulfilled, an external tool may become part of the realising basis for certain experiential processes. Andy Clark and David Chalmers argued famously that the material basis of cognitive states sometimes extends out of the barriers of skin and skull to external objects such as notebooks and other everyday tools. However, they draw the line there: only cognition, but not consciousness can have an extended base. The central argument of this study is that their constraint is not legitimate. If one is accepted, the other one follows. Many externalist philosophers tend to dismiss this and assume that the experiential side can be ruled out, or rather, left in (the head). This study makes explicit the reasons why conscious experience extends as well. The first chapter lays an overview of the theoretical background of externalism and the 4E-theories in present-day philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. It also examines the central concepts, accounts and methodological questions that will be used and further developed in later chapters. The second chapter presents three arguments for the position defended in this thesis, namely the hypothesis of extended conscious mind. The third chapter analyses the ongoing debate in the interface of philosophy of mind and philosophy of science about the causal–constitution distinction, and argues that rather than in mechanist terms, the causal–constitution distinction should be interpreted in diachronic terms when dealing with mental phenomena. When depicted that way, the extension relation in the hypothesis of extended conscious mind counts as constitutive. The fourth chapter distinguishes between several different levels of extension, from mere short-term extension to more robust functional incorporation, where the external tool has become part of the transparent bodily point of view of the subject. Based on the notion of functional incorporation, a set of demarcation criteria for the hypothesis of extended conscious mind will be developed. The chapter closes by discussing sensory substitution as a concrete example of functional incorporation. Finally, the fifth chapter introduces the most influential counter-arguments that have been set forth against the hypothesis of extended conscious mind. The critiques will be examined and answered. 1 Abstrakti Missä tietoinen kokemus loppuu ja muu maailma alkaa? Rajoittuuko tietoisuuden materiaalinen pohja aivotoimintaan vai voiko se laajentua myös muuhun ruumiiseen ja vuorovaikutukseen ympäristön kanssa? Tämä tutkimus puolustaa laajentunutta kantaa: kun tietyt ennakkoehdot on täytetty, ruumiin ulkopuolinen apuväline voi tulla osaksi tietoisten kokemusten materiaalista toteutuspohjaa. Andy Clark ja David Chalmers esittivät kuuluisassa artikkelissaan, että ulkomaailman apuvälineet – kuten muistikirjat tai tietokoneet – voivat olla kognitiivisten prosessien muodostamisessa mukana siinä missä biologiset ruumiinosatkin. Clark ja Chalmers kuitenkin rajoittivat laajentumisen tähän: heidän mukaansa pelkästään kognitiivisilla prosesseilla voi olla laajentunut perusta, mutta tietoinen kokemus rajoittuu pään sisään. Tämän tutkimuksen ydinargumentti on, että itse asiassa tällaista rajanvetoa ei ole mahdollista tehdä johdonmukaisesti. Jos hyväksymme kognitiivisten tilojen laajentumisen, tietoinen kokemus seuraa usein mukana. Tämän tutkimuksen uusi avaus ja keskeisin tavoite on osoittaa, että tietoiset kokemukset voivat laajentua siinä missä kognitiiviset prosessitkin. Ensimmäinen luku kartoittaa eksternalistisen mielenfilosofian taustaa sekä asettaa tutkimuksen niin kutsuttujen 4E-teorioiden kontekstiin (embodied, embedded, enacted, extended). Toinen luku esittelee kolme argumenttia laajentuneen tietoisen kokemuksen puolesta. Kolmas luku analysoi tieteenfilosofian ja mielenfilosofian rajapinnalla olevaa kysymystä siitä, onko mielen toimintojen laajentumisessa kyse kausaalisesta vai konstitutiivisesta suhteesta. Neljäs luku erottelee laajentumisen tasoja tai asteita, aina lyhytkestoisesta laajentumisesta (esim. kynän ja paperin käyttö) syvempään ”funktionaaliseen inkorporaatioon” (esim. sokeankepin tai aistikorvaavuuslaite- teknologian käyttö). Viides luku esittelee keskeisimmät vasta-argumentit, joita laajentuneen tietoisuuden teoriaa vastaan on esitetty (esim. unien ja hallusinaatioiden olemassaolo ja skeptinen ajatuskoe aivoista altaassa) sekä vastaa niihin. 2 Acknowledgements In philosophy, questions about the human mind have always intrigued me the most. Although in some respects a lonely journey, writing a PhD also involves sharing the path with many people. This work has seen daylight because of the help, support, encouragement, wise words, laughs, sympathy, practical advice and patience from the research community around me. Minds have been extended throughout the writing process. First of all, I am extremely grateful to my supervisors Professor Gabriel Sandu and Docent Valtteri Arstila, without whom this project would not have been possible. Gabriel has supported me all the way from the beginning and has helped me take my place in the theoretical philosophy community in Helsinki. An especially beautiful memory with Gabriel is from a sunny spring day in Bucharest with our PhD-Net, where he showed us around his beautiful old hometown. I am also grateful to him for serving as the Custos in the thesis defence. I had the greatest fortune to find Valtteri as my second supervisor. During these years, he also became a mentor and a friend. Turku turned out to be the most important extension for the extended mind project. I especially feel gratitude for the enormous amount of help Valtteri offered me during the last four months of intensive writing. I still think of Friday middays as the time when Valtteri calls and checks up on how my writing is going. I am deeply grateful to the pre-examiners, Professor Erik Myin and Doctor Julian Kiverstein. This thesis benefited a great deal from their sharp, insightful comments, which helped me to finalise the manuscript. Furthermore, some of them will lead me onward in my future work. Their own philosophical work has also been a source of inspiration to me during my years in the field of 4E-cognition. I am very happy and honoured that Professor Myin agreed to serve as my discussant in the defence – I wish to thank him warmly for that. During the doctoral education, the most important community for me has been the Helsinki Network for Philosophy of Psychiatry: Tuomas Vesterinen, Anna Ovaska, Ferdinand Garoff, Sanna Tirkkonen and Laura Oulanne. Thanks to our philosophy of psychiatry group, my PhD years have been amongst the best times of my life. Our summery retreats in Hanko, wintery moonshine drive to Kellokoski and organising events from conferences to tinfoil hat workshops has built a unique friendship. Joy is perhaps the most accurate description of the feeling I have experienced with this group. I especially want to thank Tuomas Vesterinen and Anna Ovaska. Tuomas invited me into the group in the first place and he has been one of my closest colleagues at the philosophy department during these years. We have travelled near and far – from Bologna to Benin. Tuomas has also been the best companion in inventing excuses for supervisors for why we were late with our PhD deadlines. Anna has always been the one I could ask for advice, be it about an academic matter, or anything else in life. Once she taught me how to drink negronis (that required a one-week training period in Rome). She was the one who invited me to be an editor for the philosophical magazine niin & näin, which has since been like 3 a second family to me. Another important group partly entangled with the psychiatry group has been our interdisciplinary enactivism reading group. Besides Anna and Laura, especially Merja Polvinen, Saara Moisio, Elise Nykänen and Kaisa Kortekallio have helped in making sense of sense-making. Yet another important group has been the European PhD-Network in Philosophy. During a three-year period, we formed an international peer group and shared extraordinary moments in Helsinki, Bologna, Bucharest, Uppsala, Bergen and Bielefeld. My thesis greatly benefited from the comments I received from the other members and
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