Raymond Tallis - What is Extended Mind?

What does it mean to claim that the mind extends beyond the brain in some meaningful way? Can objects in the external environment, such as a computer or even a notebook, combine with the traditional mind to create a cognitive "coupled system"?

[xWolbachiax]

Glad to see Lord Davos is also a neuroscientist

[grail.squire]

Yes, I love this. A procative and erudite conversation.

[salmanCCIE]

This is the only YouTube channel whose videos I never miss to watch.

[chrisdancy]

"Minds have always been outside of themselves." "A mind is something that is aware of something other than itself"

[richdorset]

This is as clear as mud. But I do believe in concept of extended mind.

[lesliecunliffe]

Tallis is just giving the standard Wittgensteinian view of mind in this interview, which is much better polished in Peter Hacker's and Max Bennett's (2003) book, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Blackwell, Oxford

[sstancioff]

is someone practicing their free throws in the background??? what is that sound and why are they recording in a gym?

[MrAndrew]

There are consistent failure points when "academics" discuss the subject of mind. the first being clarity of definition. The second point is the fact that there are far too many assumptions that "mind" is necessarily present both within an individual being observed and the observer. Finally, that all behavior is the product of mind and that mind and brain are one and the same thing.

It has been my contention, for many decades that mind and brain are distinctly different phenomena and functions with their own unique and mutually exclusive existential imperatives. In that respect, brain is exclusively concerned with physiological survival and reproduction, whereas the imperatives associated with mind (if present) are exclusively concerned with elevating its existential cognitive state.

Understanding the above distinctions allows one to determine quite precisely and with a high degree of certainty those individuals in whom mind is present and those in whom it is not, which is always reflected in pathological behavior associated with each phenomenon respectively, some characteristics of which can be seen in this very video. The characteristics I refer to in this instance are body affectations such as the selection and combination of attire one chooses. What one chooses to wear seems innocuous enough, but it is nonetheless and unavoidably, the same psychology which governs choices of clothing and music within pop culture references, such as beard trimming, hairstyle fashions of the day and indeed body dysmorphia.

Within the entirety of both the human species and no less, academia, the emergence of mind is an extremely exotic occurrence. As such, I have absolutely no reason, even to speculate that the two individuals featured in this discussion actually possess"mind", because there is no basis upon which I could possibly make such an objective or rational speculation.

The bottom line here is that the looser the definition of "mind" the more people can be said to be in possession of it. And it is the loosest definitions upon which this discussion is based, both within this video and within the entirity of academia..

[ed]

this is a fantastic channel! interesting guests with an engaging host who challenges them with pointed questions.

[beaconterraoneonline]

Geez, find a quiet place to talk. Very distracting to listen to this with all the other noise going on.

[rdmanth]

It sounds like someone is playing table tennis out of shot. Very distracting.

[myothersoul]

I'm sure the concept of an extended mind is good enough for philosophers but is it good enough for science? Can it be used to make more precise or different predictions that the ordinary concept of mind? Or is it just fun to talk about?

[Haveawildguess]

Great!
Interview: neuroscientists Robert Spaloslky, David Eagleman and Sam Harris! Would love to see you arguing with them about such issues, as well as, to say very broadly, consciousness, extensialism and morality

[ddandrews]

Raymond's "extended mind" does not appear anymore than a 'new' way of philosophical insight into the mind in action, but not necessarily the what the mind(or consciousness as loosely used) is. The first problem is that it is now that 'new' to look into it in that philosophical view point. The other is that it describes the realm(extension) of mind than the mind itself. In other words, Raymond put forwards an existing very old view point as a new one, which is not, then again it doesn't explain the mind, rather the extensions of the mind.

[perceivingacting]

Andy Clarke ripped off JJ Gibson back in the 80s. I spoke to him about it. He's rode that wagon ever since.

[atthehops]

Toward the end of the discussion, the subject of a prosthesis comes up. I would have liked for them to explore the idea of the rubber hand illusion where the subjects real hand is disassociated in favor of the rubber hand.

[jamesthomas]

Mental masturbation.
Just as the thought of a tree is not a tree, no thought is reality.
But lets ignore that and keep trying to think our way to truth.

[theophilus]

I think the Mediaeval pre-Cartesian philosophers would have found Tallis's view here sympathetic. We need, in any case, just as much to shuffle off the paltry view of mind as mechanism (as identical with brain functioning) as we do the Cartesian view of mind as disembodied, non-physical stuff. We badly need to know that these are not the only two alternatives and that they seem so only because of Descartes 'internalisation' of the mind.

[chrisdancy]

5:35 "I would still have my same sense of self" 

Here is the problem. Right here. he is IDENTIFYING with his SENSE of self. That behavior, that SENSE of self, is a time based narrative that will corrupt everything it touches. It is the root to all suffering in the world.

[kareszt]

, again argument falls back to a common form of communication.
and _this extends into the realm of the atomic.
but t, is always ill definded.

I may say hello today, but a thousand year later my decedancy may interprete that completely differently.
The competition is compation and encapsulation.

Computation is tech personal, but that too can be distributed and encapsulated amongst members, as a new entity.