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Extended computation: wide computationalism in reverse

Extended computation: wide computationalism in reverse
Extended computation: wide computationalism in reverse

Arguments for extended cognition and the extended mind are typically directed at human-centred forms of cognitive extension-forms of cognitive extension in which the cognitive/mental states and processes of a given human individual are subject to a form of extended or wide realization. The same is true of debates and discussions pertaining to the possibility of Web-extended minds and Internet-based forms of cognitive extension. In this case, the focus of attention concerns the extent to which the informational and technological elements of the online environment form part of the machinery of the (individual) human mind. In this paper, we direct attention to a somewhat different form of cognitive extension. In particular, we suggest that the Web allows human individuals to be incorporated into the computational/cognitive routines of online systems. These forms of computational/cognitive extension highlight the potential of the Web and Internet to support bidirectional forms of computational/cognitive incorporation. The analysis of such bidirectional forms of incorporation broadens the scope of philosophical debates in this area, with potentially important implications for our understanding of the foundational notions of extended cognition and the extended mind.

Distributed Cognition, Extended Cognition, Extended Mind, Human Computation, Mechanisms, Socio-Technical Systems, World Wide Web
76–79
Association for Computing Machinery
Smart, Paul
cd8a3dbf-d963-4009-80fb-76ecc93579df
Hall, Wendy
11f7f8db-854c-4481-b1ae-721a51d8790c
Boniface, Michael
f30bfd7d-20ed-451b-b405-34e3e22fdfba
Seneviratne, Oshani
Singh, Vivek
Freire, Ana
Luo, Jar-Der
Smart, Paul
cd8a3dbf-d963-4009-80fb-76ecc93579df
Hall, Wendy
11f7f8db-854c-4481-b1ae-721a51d8790c
Boniface, Michael
f30bfd7d-20ed-451b-b405-34e3e22fdfba
Seneviratne, Oshani
Singh, Vivek
Freire, Ana
Luo, Jar-Der

Smart, Paul, Hall, Wendy and Boniface, Michael (2021) Extended computation: wide computationalism in reverse. Seneviratne, Oshani, Singh, Vivek, Freire, Ana and Luo, Jar-Der (eds.) In WebSci 2021 - Proceedings of the 13th ACM Web Science Conference (Companion Volume). Association for Computing Machinery. 76–79 . (doi:10.1145/3462741.3466810).

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Arguments for extended cognition and the extended mind are typically directed at human-centred forms of cognitive extension-forms of cognitive extension in which the cognitive/mental states and processes of a given human individual are subject to a form of extended or wide realization. The same is true of debates and discussions pertaining to the possibility of Web-extended minds and Internet-based forms of cognitive extension. In this case, the focus of attention concerns the extent to which the informational and technological elements of the online environment form part of the machinery of the (individual) human mind. In this paper, we direct attention to a somewhat different form of cognitive extension. In particular, we suggest that the Web allows human individuals to be incorporated into the computational/cognitive routines of online systems. These forms of computational/cognitive extension highlight the potential of the Web and Internet to support bidirectional forms of computational/cognitive incorporation. The analysis of such bidirectional forms of incorporation broadens the scope of philosophical debates in this area, with potentially important implications for our understanding of the foundational notions of extended cognition and the extended mind.

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Published date: 21 June 2021
Additional Information: Funding Information: This work is supported by the UK EPSRC as part of the PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity under Grant Number EP/S035362/1 (https://petras-iot.org//). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Owner/Author.
Keywords: Distributed Cognition, Extended Cognition, Extended Mind, Human Computation, Mechanisms, Socio-Technical Systems, World Wide Web

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 449855
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/449855
PURE UUID: 07f5e798-f77d-4cd0-b349-48abff7daaf8
ORCID for Paul Smart: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9989-5307
ORCID for Wendy Hall: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4327-7811
ORCID for Michael Boniface: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9281-6095

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Date deposited: 23 Jun 2021 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 02:56

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Contributors

Author: Paul Smart ORCID iD
Author: Wendy Hall ORCID iD
Editor: Oshani Seneviratne
Editor: Vivek Singh
Editor: Ana Freire
Editor: Jar-Der Luo

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