Offloading Cognition onto Cognitive Technology

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Description/Abstract

"Cognizing" (i.e., thinking, understanding, knowing, and having the capacity to do what cognizers can do) is a mental state. Systems without mental states, such as cognitive technology, can sometimes also do some of what cognizers can do, but that does not make them cognizers. Cognitive technology allows cognizers to offload some of the functions they would otherwise have had to execute with their own brains and bodies alone; it also extends cognizers' performance powers beyond those of brains and bodies alone. Language itself is a form of cognitive technology that allows cognizers to offload some of their brain functions onto the brains of other cognizers. Language also extends cognizers' individual and joint performance powers, distributing the load through interactive and collaborative cognition. Reading, writing, print, telecommunications and computing further extend cognizers' capacities. And now the web, with its distributed network of cognizers, digital databases and sofware agents, has become the Cognitive Commons in which cognizers and cognitive technology can interact globally with a speed, scope and degree of interactivity that yield performance powers inconceivable with unaided individual cognition alone.