The cognitive anthropologist Ed Hutchins, in his book Cognition In The Wild depicts the general role of cognitive technologies in similar terms, suggesting that "[Such tools] permit the [users] to do the tasks that need to be done while doing the kinds of things people are good at: recognizing patterns, modeling simple dynamics of the world, and manipulating objects in the environment." This description nicely captures what is best about good examples of cognitive technology: recent word-processing packages, web browsers, mouse and icon systems, etc. (It also suggests, of course, what is wrong with many of our first attempts at creating such tools: the skills needed to use those environments (early VCR's, word-processors, etc.) were precisely those that biological brains find hardest to support, such as the recall and execution of long, essentially arbitrary, sequences of operations.
The
conjecture,
then,
is
that
one
large
jump
or
discontinuity
in
human
cognitive
evolution
involves
the
distinctive
way
human
brains
repeatedly
create
and
exploit
various
species
of
cognitive
technology
so
as
to
expand
and
reshape
the
space
of
human
reason.
We,
more
than
any
other
creature
on
the
planet,
deploy
non-biological
elements
(instruments,
media,
notations)
to
complement
(but
not,
typically,
to
replicate)
our
basic
biological
modes
of
processing,
creating
extended
cognitive
systems
whose
computational
and
problem-solving
profiles
are
quire
different
from
those
of
the
naked
brain.
Human
brains
maintain
an
intricate
cognitive
dance
with
an
ecologically
novel,
and
immensely
empowering,
environment:
the
world
of
symbols,
media,
formalisms,
texts,
speech,
instruments
and
culture.
The
computational
circuitry
of
human
cognition
thus
flows
both
within
and
beyond
the
head. Such a point is not new, and has been well-made by a variety of theorists working in many different traditions. I believe, however, that the idea of human cognition as subsisting in a hybrid, extended architecture (one which includes aspects of the brain and of the cognitive technological envelope in which our brains develop and operate) remains vastly underappreciated. We simply cannot hope to understand what is special and distinctively powerful about human thought and reason by merely paying lip-service to the importance of this web of surrounding technologies.
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