Extended Mind

also: Rozszerzony umysł · Extended Mind Thesis · Clark and Chalmers thesis

Clark and Chalmers' thesis (1998): the mind does not end at the boundary of the skull — an external resource that meets the conditions of availability and trust is part of the cognitive system.

A thesis formulated by Andy Clark and David Chalmers in the article “The Extended Mind” (Analysis 58:1, 1998).

The Inga/Otto thought experiment

Inga recalls the museum’s address from biological memory. Otto (who has Alzheimer’s) reads it from a notebook he always carries with him. Functionally — no difference: both pieces of information were waiting ready, both led to the destination. Conclusion: Otto’s notebook is part of his cognitive system.

The parity principle and the conditions

If something outside the head does exactly what, inside the head, we would without hesitation call a cognitive process — it is part of the cognitive process. Conditions: the resource must be constantly available, immediately accessible, and automatically trusted.

Line of development

1998 (“The Extended Mind”) → 2008 (Supersizing the Mind; Chalmers: “The iPhone is part of my mind already”) → the 4E cognition school → 2025 (Clark, “Extending Minds with Generative AI”, Nature Communications — generative AI as the next layer of the distributed cognitive system).

The Extended Mind is the philosophical foundation of the post-cognitive era concept: chapter 1 introduces the thesis, chapter 2 operationalizes it (the subtraction test).