This book argues that thinking is bounded by neither the brain nor the skin of an organism. Cognitive systems function through integration of neural and bodily functions with the functions of representational vehicles. The integrationist position offers a fresh contribution to the emerging embodied and embedded approach to the study of mind.

Thinking posthumanly – from a post-Enlightenment, critical, new materialist perspective – things, including concepts, become more permeable and topological – they leak and stretch. Freed from limiting notions of agency, things behave. Rivers have established the same legal rights as humans in New Zealand  and India,  stones have been reported slithering across the desert floor in California,  an electrical power grid in the USA has revealed a unique agential dexterity  and walls have been spotted walking over mountains in the UK’s Lake District.  Thinking with a posthuman partiality, we begin to witness a democracy of objects rather than an anthropocentric dictatorship over inorganic materials. If agency is reworked into an ‘enactment’ as opposed to something that is ‘held’,  conceivably humans and other biological organisms are not necessary for agency (or life) to emerge as inorganic material agency erupts from unchoreographed assemblages of spacetimematter(ing). And if cognitive and dermatological boundaries are no longer organ-ised by an Enlightenment prescription, how might pedagogies perform differently and more equitably?
This article draws on the empirical materials from two psychogeographic walks that agitate lithic spaces with a posthuman affection. Part One examples a radical mobile classroom that I undertake regularly with university students where the use of it-narratives exposes the distributed agency of buildings. I explore what a posthuman gaze might do to/for performative pedagogies as my students attempt to interview a building. Part Two offers an example from my previous post-qualitative PhD inquiry which – by manipulating the practices of psychogeography and schizocartography – highlights how a shopping centre assemblage called Liverpool ONE diagnosed itself with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), thus reinforcing the notion of inorganic agential distribution. The pedagogic implications of this posthuman diagnosis are discussed.

The focus of the original argument for the Extended Mind thesis was the case of beliefs. It may be asked what other types of mental features can be extended. Andy Clark has always held that consciousness cannot be extended. This paper revisits the question of extending consciousness.

Current events in science imply that a new scientific revolution in physics is unfolding. This new revolution will be as much about mind and consciousness as it is about matter and physics. It will bring a new theory of physical reality that includes the consciousness that senses, interprets and interacts with physical reality. The new theory of consciousness will lead to explanatory models of the paranormal as well as explain how consciousness survives death. This prediction is not an optimistic 'pipe dream', but our present and future. A theory of this type has already been developed. It is based on a five-dimensional Einstein-Kaluza model of the space-time continuum. ‘Single field theory' or SOFT can easily account for paranormal phenomena and the survival of consciousness. Whatever theory finally succeeds in bridging the gap between mind and matter, indications are that it will have many of the characteristics of SOFT if it is not SOFT. Whatever the case may be, a valid theory that combines physical reality and consciousness is truly a theory to die for!

Where does the self stop and the rest of the world begin? Clark and Chalmers already paved the way for an application of the extended mind theory to the problem of selfhood and identity, when in their seminal paper they asked ‘What, finally, of the self? Does the extended mind imply an extended self? It seems so’ (2010: 39). However, how can the self persist in time if it is chiefly constituted by a series of constantly renewed couplings, enactions, and extensions? If the self does persist, what are the processes responsible for the temporal unification and synthesis of what enactivists call different ‘sensorimotor contingencies’ (O’Regan and Noë 2001)? If the self does not persist, what kind of phenomenology and new ontology underlies, or results from, this shift? This essay focuses on these questions as they relate to an extended and enactive view of the self in the space-time trajectory explored in Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way (2005) – the first volume of In Search of Lost Time. Proust’s work is regarded as the monumental literary research on temporality, self and memory. I will argue, however, that extended and enactive frameworks can provide important new insights on the key claims and findings of Proust’s literary endeavour.

To avoid molecular damage of biomolecules due to oxidation, all cells have evolved constitutive and responsive systems to mitigate and repair chemical modifications. Archaea have adapted to some of the most extreme environments known to support life, including highly oxidizing conditions. However, in comparison to bacteria and eukaryotes, relatively little is known about the biology and biochemistry of archaea in response to changing conditions and repair of oxidative damage. In this study transcriptome, proteome, and chemical reactivity analyses of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) induced oxidative stress in Sulfolobus solfataricus (P2) were conducted. Microarray analysis of mRNA expression showed that 102 transcripts were regulated by at least 1.5 fold, 30 minutes after exposure to 30 mM H 2 O 2 . Parallel proteomic analyses using two-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE), monitored more than 800 proteins 30 and 105 minutes after exposure and found that 18 had significant changes in abundance. A recently characterized ferritin-like antioxidant protein, DPSL, was the most highly regulated species of mRNA and protein, in addition to being post-translationally modified. As expected, a number of antioxidant related mRNAs and proteins were differentially regulated. Three of these, DPSL, superoxide dismutase, and peroxiredoxin were shown to interact and likely form a novel supramolecular complex for mitigating oxidative damage. A scheme for the ability of this complex to perform multi-step reactions is presented. Despite the central role played by DPSL, cells maintained a lower level of protection after disruption of the dpsl gene, indicating a level of redundancy in the oxidative stress pathways of S. solfataricus. This work provides the first ''omics'' scale assessment of the oxidative stress response for an archeal organism and together with a network analysis using data from previous studies on bacteria and eukaryotes reveals evolutionarily conserved pathways where complex and overlapping defense mechanisms protect against oxygen toxicity.

Building on arguments from G.A. Cohen and Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, I argue here that our rights in our bodies are not well explained by self-ownership – and thus that we cannot infer self-ownership from intuitions about body rights, via inference to the best explanation. I begin by arguing that self-ownership does not explain our rights in our bodies unless it is a reflexive relation, wherein for each rational adult X, X quite literally owns X – whatever X is. In the bulk of the paper, I canvas the most prominent metaphysical theories of what we are, arguing that each of these theories makes it hard to see how our self-ownership implies (much less explains) any plausible profile of claims regarding rights in bodies. I go on to sketch an alternative ownership-like theory of our rights in our bodies, on which our interests in fluent bodily functioning explain why others should respect our authority over our embodiments. Such an explanation, I argue, requires reference to social practices: our body rights are grounded, partly, in facts about actual practices, and partly, in facts about what any practices worth hoping for would require. I defend this appeal to social practices against objections, appealing to Kantian ideas about hope and faith to show why we might have reason to respect some body rights in advance of the arrival of practices that protect them.

This thesis presents work on analytical reasoning with external representations (ERs) using problems similar to those used in the US GRE college-entrance examination. The work investigates the factors associated with effective ER use in situations where subjects select, construct and reason with their own ERs. Practically all previous work has tended to focus solely upon performance rather than process. In this thesis the emphasis is upon cognitive processes during the entire time-course of reasoning with ERs, from problem comprehension through to answer selection. A background to the work is provided by 2 comprehensive reviews of: 1.)  previous research on ERs and reasoning and 2.) the cognitive and semantic properties of ERs.

Results from three empirical studies are reported.  The first study examined a large corpus of `workscratchings' produced by subjects as they solved paper and pencil-based analytical reasoning problems under test conditions.  The workscratching ERs showed great diversity between and within subjects and across a range of problems. They included lists, various kinds of table, set diagrams, node and arc diagrams, first-order and propositional logic, plans and natural language.  It is shown that problem-solving performance is related to the type of ER used in the solution.

The second study utilised a computer-based system (switchERI). The system administered analytical reasoning problems and provided a range of ER construction environments for the subject to choose and switch between. User-system interactions were recorded dynamically during problem solving. This methodology permitted micro-analyses of the cognitive events at each stage during the time-course of problem solving. A process account of analytical reasoning with ERs is developed in which five major stages are identified - problem comprehension, ER selection, ER construction, read-off from the ER and answer selection/responding. A range of common slips and misconceptions are identified at each stage.  The results show, inter alia, that subjects whose responses are consistent with their ERs perform better than subjects whose responses are inconsistent with their ERs \textit{even if the ER is partially incorrect\/}.

The data from the workscratching analysis and {switchERI study informed the design of switchERII, a second system. SwitchERII incorporates a representation of the semantics of Euler's Circles, dynamically parses the user's representation and provides feedback and advice. A third study was conducted with the switchERII system.

Few, if any, studies to date have attempted to relate subjects' prior knowledge of ER formalisms to their reasoning performance.  Subjects' prior knowledge of ER formalisms was assessed in both switchER studies. It was observed that subjects' performance on representation interpretation tasks does not necessarily predict their performance in conditions where they select and construct their own representations. The reasons for the decoupling are discussed.

Data from all three studies show that subjects often utilise multiple representations in their solutions, either concurrently or serially via ER switching.  Two distinctly different types of switching were observed.  One kind (`thrashing') is associated with poorer performance and reflects less comprehensive prior knowledge, inability to select an appropriate ER and hazy problem comprehension.  Judicious switching, on the other hand, is associated with high levels of problem comprehension and skilled matching of the ERs' properties to changing task demands.

It is claimed that effective reasoning with ERs involves complex interactions between at least three factors: (a.)  within-subject variables such as the subject's representational repertoire (prior knowledge) and representational modality preferences (cognitive style); (b.) skill at overcoming a variety of barriers to comprehension and an ability to discern the salient attributes and characteristics of different problem types and (c.) an understanding of the semantic and cognitive properties of graphical and non-graphical ERs coupled with an ability to match those properties to the problem's task demands.  It is suggested that the role of externalisation in reasoning with ERs may be to facilitate the swapping of information between cognitive subsystems. A mechanism by which the use of diagrammatic ERs may facilitate self-explanation is also proposed.

The thesis concludes with an argument in favour of a domain-independent
`ER curriculum' . It is suggested that direct instruction in the use of a range of ERs might equip students with wider representational repertoires and hence allow them more scope to indulge their representational preferences. Finally, several directions for future work are proposed. These include extending the representational semantics of switchERII, evaluating various types of system feedback and implementing a mechanism for checking for slips during read-off from ERs.

Extended Mind is usually understood to be a claim about cognitive extension, that is, it is usually understood to be the claim that the boundaries of the mind can occasionally extend to include objects in the environment. This chapter will argue that understanding Extended Mind in this way helps zero in on how this claim should be defended. For example,
Clark and Chalmers’ (1998) Parity Principle (PP) states that if bodily external objects play roles functionally equivalent to processes
inside the head, and those in-the-head processes are regarded as cognitive, then those bodily external objects should be regarded as playing cognitive roles as well. If Clark and Chalmers are correct, then PP can be used to
defend Extended Mind. As this chapter will show, the pivotal role PP plays becomes apparent when we consider what happens when PP is either minimized, as is the case with second wave Extended Mind, or removed altogether, as is the case with third wave Extended Mind, since it can be doubted that either of these two readings are in fact readings of Extended
Mind. Third wave, in particular, may need to be understood in entirely different terms. This suggests that if Extended Mind is understood
to be a claim about cognitive extension, then PP should be regarded as key to defending that claim.

Jak jsme širocí? -k pojmu kultury v současné kognitivní antropologii Vít Pokorný, FHS UK, FF UJEP Resumé: Tento text je zamyšlením nad možnostmi interakce mezi kulturní antropologií a kognitivními vědami a nad důsledky této spolupráce pro konceptualizaci kultury. Nejprve reflektuje stav diskuze o pojmu kultury vzhledem k ambivalentnímu hodnocení či dokonce odmítání tohoto pojmu některými antropology. Nemožnost formulovat jednoznačný pojem kultury je dána především tím, že vše kulturní je utvářeno konkrétním jednáním aktérů v určitém kontextu, a kultura proto není dána apriori, nýbrž je vždy znovu konstituována v každodenním jednání svých členů. Tuto nemožnost však nepovažujeme za nedostatek, ale spíše za nadějnou možnost pro vznik otevřené transdisciplinární perspektivy ve vědách o člověku. Příkladem podobného přístupu může být právě kognitivní antropologie, jež se pokouší skloubit rozdílné metodologické a teoretické předpoklady obou disciplín v mezioborovém dialogu. V současné době dospěl tento dialog k rozvinutí tří různých přístupů založených na třech odlišných kognitivních paradigmatech. Antropologické teorie spojené s tzv. komputační paradigmatem se od 60. let dvacátého století zaměřují na problematiku mentálních map, lidových taxonomií a teorií. Konekcionistické nebo též neurální paradigma vedlo v 80. a 90. letech ke zkoumání kulturních schémat. Enakční a interakční paradigma prosazující se v kognitivních vědách přibližně od 90. let pak přináší do kognitivní antropologie téma vtělenosti, situovanosti v prostředí, hermeneutické a systémově dynamické povahy kultury.

In a fascinating recent paper, Matthias Braun considers how digital twins might represent a patient. He claims, among other things, that we can view a digital twin as an extension of a patient's body. I discuss this idea, and suggest that it should be compared with Clark and Chalmers' well-known extended mind thesis.

This edited volume of 13 new essays aims to turn past discussions of natural kinds on their head. Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of kinds based largely on an unempirical vantage point, it pursues questions of kindedness which take the use of kinds and activities of kinding in practice as significant in the articulation of them as kinds. It brings philosophical study of current and historical episodes and case studies from various scientific disciplines to bear on natural kinds as traditionally conceived of within metaphysics. Focusing on these practices reveals the different knowledge-producing activities of kinding and processes involved in natural kind use, generation, and discovery.
An esteemed group of contributors who are specialists in their field use diverse empirically responsive approaches to explore the nature of kindhood using detailed case studies that exemplify kinding in use. Each chapter is written specifically for this volume and engages with the activities of kinding across a variety of disciplines. Chapters address the nature of kinds, kindhood, kinding, and kind-making in linguistics, chemical classification, neuroscience, gene and protein classification, colour theory in applied mathematics, homology in comparative biology, sex and gender identity theory, memory research, race, extended cognition, symbolic algebra, cartography, and geographic information science.
The volume seeks to open up an as-yet unexplored area within the emerging field of philosophy of science in practice, and constitutes a valuable addition to the philosophy and history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Contributions from a diverse group of established and junior scholars in the fields of Philosophy and History and Philosophy of Science including Hasok Chang, Jordi Cat, Sally Haslanger, Joyce C. Havstad Catherine Kendig, Bernhard Nickel, Josipa Petrunic, Samuli Pöyhönen, Thomas A. C. Reydon Quayshawn Spencer, Jackie Sullivan, Michael Wheeler, and Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther. Preface by John Dupré .

Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be reduced to a state of or function of the brain. They assume, however, that the contents of consciousness are separate from the external physical world as-perceived. According to the present paper this assumption has no foundation either in everyday experience or in science. Drawing on evidence for perceptual projection in both interoceptive and exteroceptive sense modalities, the case is made that the physical world as-perceived is a construct of perceptual processing and, therefore, part of the contents of consciousness. A finding which requires a Reflexive rather than a Dualist or Reductionist model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. The physical world as-perceived may, in turn be thought of as a biologically useful model of the world as described by physics. Redrawing the boundaries of consciousness to include the physical world as-perceived undermines the conventional separation of the 'mental' from the physical', and with it the very foundation of the Dualist-Reductionist debate. The alternative Reflexive model departs radically from current conventions, with consequences for many aspects of consciousness theory and research. Some of the consequences which bear on the internal consistency and intuitive plausibility of the model are explored, e.g. the causal sequence in perception, representationalism, a suggested resolution of the Realism versus Idealism debate, and the way manifest differences between physical events as-perceived and other conscious events (images, dreams, etc.) are to be construed.

During the last few decades, phenomenology became the main philosophical op- tion to account for the complexity and, at the same time, the extreme simplicity of consciousness. This paper, in the first place, aims at exposing the specificity of the transcendental method of phenomenology, as opposed to the naturalistic assump- tions of the neurocognitive sciences, and then it will expose the reasons that made desirable an operative integration of phenomenology and neuroscience. In spite of their alleged incommensurability, it will detail the influential theoretical results obtained by the hybrid research style called «neurophenomenology». In the second place, the paper will consider two different reasons of perplexity that motivated, among both phenomenologists and cognitive scientists, the resistance against this integration. To dissolve these perplexities, the paper will highlight how the key no- tions of body, interaction, and experience constitute an anti-metaphysical ground that is shared by both disciplines.
Keywords: cognitive science, neuropsychology, mind, consciousness, experience, phenonemenology, embodiment, interdisciplinarity, constructivism, emergentism, transcendentalism.

L'animale non umano, per Marx, «è immediatamente una cosa sola con la sua attività vitale. Non si distingue da essa. È quella stessa [attività vitale]» 2 . Prendiamo un esempio determinato, un castoro. Per esplicare la sua 'attività vitale', ad esempio il costruire dighe sul corso dei fi umi, un castoro si basa essenzialmente su abilità innate, abilità appunto che non deve imparare, che non sono fuori di lui. Essere un castoro signifi ca appunto nascere con un insieme di aspettative e abilità innate. In questo senso se il costruire dighe è una attività che distingue il castoro dalle altre specie animali, se questa è la sua essenza animale, allora questa stessa essenza è presente in modo implicito dentro di lui già alla nascita: l'essenza del castoro è dentro il castoro, come un chilo di rigatoni sta dentro la scatola di cartone che lo contiene. Questo non signifi ca che non sia importante anche l'esperienza né che tutto il comportamento animale sia innato; il punto è che ciò che l'animale può imparare è vincolato in modo più o meno rigido dalla sua costituzione biologica innata. Per l'animale non umano, allora, non vale la frase di Marx dei Manoscritti economico-fi losofi ci del 1844 che abbiamo scelto come titolo, al contrario, qui l'individuo coincide con l'essere individuale, cioè l'essenza è dentro ogni singolo animale non umano. Espresso in altro modo, ogni castoro è ogni altro castoro, nel senso che dovunque ci sia un castoro troveremo più o meno le stesse attività, la stessa forma di vita, le stesse esperienze.

La question de l'attention est devenue au cours des dernières années l'objet d'une écologie spécifique (Y. Citton) interrogeant les transformations induites par le développement d'un milieu numérique, d'une économie de plus en plus fondée sur les dispositifs de capture et d'enrégimentement de l'attention, d'une civilisation où l'impératif d'ubiquité et d'immédiateté redessinent les processus de la synaptogénèse, et plus globalement d'individuation, modifiant ou compromettant, selon les perspectives, la dimension transinvididuelle (pour reprendre le terme introduit par Simondon) des sociétés humaines. Menaçante pour ceux qui, tels B. Stiegler, voient dans les processus de fixation et de stabilisation qui sont à la base des capacités attentionnelles la base de cette transindividuation, prometteuse pour les apôtres d'une sortie de la civilisation de l'écrit et de l'ordre des livres (R. Chartier) vers, par exemple, une nouvelle oralité (McLuhan), l'évolution actuelle appelle cependant également une enquête philosophique approfondie sur la nature de l'attention.

Podstawowy problem książki to pytanie, jaką koncepcję podmiotu poznania przyjąć, aby właściwie rozumieć tezy formułowane w obrębie teorii komunikacji społecznej z Toronto. Celem prowadzonych tu analiz jest wskazanie takiego narzędzia analitycznego, które może posłużyć reinterpretacji i doprecyzowaniu podstawowych tez teorii komunikacji społecznej z Toronto. Cel pracy zostanie osiągnięty, jeśli, używając pojęcia umysłu rozszerzonego, uda się wykazać, że podstawowe tezy szkoły z Toronto można sformułować w sposób na tyle precyzyjny, aby uniknąć zarzutu wieloznaczności, a z drugiej strony – by tezy te mogły obronić się przed oskarżeniami o determinizm technologiczny. U podstaw tak sformułowanego celu leży przekonanie, iż część krytyki formułowanej pod adresem teorii komunikacji z Toronto (szczególnie oskarżenia o determinizm technologiczny) wynikają z niejasności dotyczącej stosowanego w jej obrębie pojęcia „podmiot poznania”. Wydaje się, że szkoła z Toronto może uniknąć powtarzających się oskarżeń o determinizm technologiczny, jeśli zostanie jasno określone, jak należy rozumieć kategorię podmiotowości. Zamierzam więc uzasadnić tezę, iż w celu podania teoretycznie płodnej interpretacji szkoły z Toronto w punkcie wyjścia należałoby przyjąć koncepcję umysłu (podmiotu) rozszerzonego

Our whole-body structure is in rhythmical breath motion. Each breath stimulates an electromagnetic field across the upper body, which modulates the transfer of signals that continually communicate up and down the intricate spinal column. The central nervous system and the body's cellular structure are sensitive to internally-generated and external electromagnetic signals. The living cells are detectors of weak, periodic electric fields. Earth and solar-system extremely low frequencies (ELF) are absorbed within the cell's structure and supply the energy to do the work of the cellular functioning. Your breath rate sets the body rhythm; the music of the Earth seems to control this biologic functioning. The heart muscles resonate at a fundamental node frequency within the spectrum associated with the planetary circumference. The heart muscle crystals serve as sensory receivers and energy transducers. The blood acts as an important carrier of bio-information throughout the body. We move and live within a vast spectrum of electromagnetic vibrations which continually communicate with our life structure. All of the planets and most of their moons have fundamental frequencies which align exactly within our spectrum of prominent brainwave rhythms.

In the field of Science of Religion and associated fields of the Human Sciences revisions about the limits of reality have begun, in response both to intercultural encounters as well as to a rising awareness of research on the complexity of reality in the natural sciences. These have elicited proposals that the perspectives of the "religious" and the "para-normal" should be distinguished. This resonates with traditions of empirical and theoretical research often marginalized by the prevailing Positivist ideology and by Cognitivism. It also resonates with suppressed cultural traditions. A cautious movement towards a wider and differentiated assessment of reality and of phenomena, to be approached in these two perspectives, can however be observed in scholarship of religion, and even in the fold of Cognitivist Psychology.
This presentation, held at the conference of the German Association for Science of Religion / DVRW in Potsdam in 2018 explores the field and argues for the validity and heuristic power of this distinction.

In this paper, I propose to sketch the main lines of some recent theoretical accounts of numerical cognition and evaluate their ability to explain the development of mathematically viable concepts of number (Dehaene 2011; Carey 2009; DeCruz 2008). I will try to show that, despite their differences, these all share a critical flaw in that they explain the development of number concepts by relying in part on numerical symbols. I will argue that explaining how number concepts develop in the brain by relying on the presence of mathematical symbols in the environment is akin to putting the cart before the ox, since such symbols cannot emerge without there being number concepts beforehand.

Join me today in a brief glance at who we are as seen through the magic eyes of scientific measurement and calculation. Notice as we take a long slow inhalation, hold, and then a long slow exhalation; observe that our whole body structure is in rhythmical motion. Let's watch this breathing motion once again and place our attention on its process.

Personal AI assistants are now nearly ubiquitous. Every leading smartphone operating system comes with a personal AI assistant that promises to help you with basic cognitive tasks: searching, planning, messaging, scheduling and so on. Usage of such devices is effectively a form of algorithmic outsourcing: getting a smart algorithm to do something on your behalf. Many have expressed concerns about this algorithmic outsourcing. They claim that it is dehumanising, leads to cognitive degeneration, and robs us of our freedom and autonomy. Some people have a more subtle view, arguing that it is problematic in those cases where its use may degrade important interpersonal virtues. In this article, I assess these objections to the use of AI assistants. I will argue that the ethics of their use is complex. There are no quick fixes or knockdown objections to the practice, but there are some legitimate concerns. By carefully analysing and evaluating the objections that have been lodged to date, we can begin to articulate an ethics of personal AI use that navigates those concerns. In the process, we can locate some paradoxes in our thinking about outsourcing and technological dependence, and we can think more clearly about what it means to live a good life in the age of smart machines.

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and edited them to bring them up to date (2017). The copyright page has the date of the edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds  within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality.  As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes.  If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., of human ecology and psychology to actually give them some control over themselves), maybe civilization would have a chance.  As things are however the leaders of society have no more grasp of things than their constituents and so collapse into anarchy is inevitable.

The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions. In the next three groups I comment on three of the principal delusions preventing a sustainable world— technology, religion and politics (cooperative groups). Certainly each has much of value, but as currently implemented, they are all band aids on the cancer of selfishness and stupidity, and as handmaidens of selfish genetics lead straight to Hell on Earth.

It is critical to understand why we behave as we do and so the first section presents articles that try to describe (not explain as Wittgenstein insisted) behavior.  I start with a brief review of the logical structure of rationality, which provides some heuristics for the description of language (mind, rationality, personality) and gives some suggestions as to how this relates to the evolution of social behavior.  This centers around the two writers I have found the most important in this regard, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion.

The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell On Earth.  As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see.  We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is the source of the universal blindness described by Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides’ Standard Social Science Model.

The next section describes the digital delusions, which confuse the language games of System 2 with the automatisms of System one, and so cannot distinguish biological machines (i.e., people) from other kinds of machines (i.e., computers).  The ‘reductionist’ claim is that one can ‘explain’ behavior at a ‘lower’ level, but what actually happens is that one does not explain human behavior but a ‘stand in’ for it.  Hence the title of Searle’s classic review of Dennett’s book (“Consciousness Explained”)— “Consciousness Explained Away”.  In most contexts ‘reduction’ of higher level emergent behavior to brain functions, biochemistry, or physics is incoherent. Even for ‘reduction’ of chemistry or physics, the path is blocked by chaos and uncertainty.  Anything can be ‘represented’ by equations, but when they ‘represent’ higher order behavior, it is not clear (and cannot be made clear) what the ‘results’ mean.  Reductionist metaphysics is a joke, but most scientists and philosophers lack the appropriate sense of humor.

Other digital delusions are that we will be saved from the pure evil (selfishness) of System 1 by computers/AI/robotics/ nanotech/genetic engineering created by System 2.  The No Free Lunch principal tells us there will be serious and possibly fatal consequences.  The adventurous may regard this principle as a higher order emergent expression of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Hi-tech enthusiasts hugely underestimate the problems resulting from unrestrained motherhood, and of course it is neither profitable nor politically correct (and now with third world supremacism dominant, not even possible) to be honest about it.

The last section describes The One Big Happy Family Delusion , i.e., that we are selected for cooperation with everyone, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality  will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics).  Again, the No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces it. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant’s heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems.

I describe versions of this delusion (i.e., that we are basically ‘friendly’ if just given a chance) as it appears in some recent books on sociology/biology/economics. I end with an essay on the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of our evolved psychology manifested as the inexorable machinations of System 1.  Our psychology, eminently adaptive and eugenic on the plains of Africa from ca. 6 million years ago, when we split from chimpanzees, to ca. 50,000 years ago, when many of our ancestors left Africa (i.e., in the EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation), is now maladaptive and dysgenic and the source of our Suicidal Utopian Delusions. So, like all discussions of behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, politics, law, literature, history, economics, soccer strategies, business meetings, etc.), this book is about evolutionary strategies, selfish genes and inclusive fitness (kin selection).
The great mystic Osho said that the separation of God and Heaven from Earth and Humankind was the most evil idea that ever entered the Human mind.  In the 20th century an even more evil notion arose—that humans are born with rights, rather than having to earn privileges.  Thus every day the population increases by 200,000, who must be provided with resources to grow and space to live, and who soon produce another 200,000 etc.  And one almost never hears it noted that what they receive must be taken from those already alive. Their lives diminish those already here in both major obvious and countless subtle ways.  Every new baby destroys the earth from the moment of conception. There cannot be human rights without human wrongs.  It cannot be more obvious, but one will never see the streets full of protesters with banners protesting motherhood.

America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies.  Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system.  Hence my concluding essay “Suicide by Democracy”.

In Reading in the Brain, Stanislas Dehaene presents a compelling account of how the brain learns to read. Central to this account is his neuronal recycling hypothesis: neural circuitry is capable of being ‘recycled’ or converted to a different function that is cultural in nature. The original function of the circuitry is not entirely lost and
constrains what the brain can learn. It is argued that the neural niche co-evolves with the environmental niche in a way that does not undermine the core ideas of neuronal recycling, but which is quite different from the models of cognitive and cultural evolution
provided by evolutionary psychology and epidemiology. Dehaene contrasts neuronal recycling with a naïve model of the brain as a general learning device that is unconstrained in what it can learn. Consequently a tension develops in Dehaene’s account of the role of plasticity in the acquisition of language. It is argued that the functional and structural changes in the brain that Dehaene documents in great detail are driven by learning and that this learning-driven plasticity does not commit us to a naïve model of the brain.

Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? In their famous 1998 paper “The Extended Mind,” philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers posed this question and answered it provocatively: cognitive processes are not all in the head. The environment has an active role in driving cognition; cognition is sometimes made up of neural, bodily, and environmental processes. Their argument excited a vigorous debate among philosophers, both supporters and detractors. This volume brings together for the first time the best responses to Clark and Chalmers’ bold proposal. These responses, together with the original paper by Clark and Chalmers, offer a valuable overview of the latest research on the extended mind thesis.

  The contributors first discuss (and answer) objections raised to Clark and Chalmers’s thesis. Andy Clark himself responds to critics in a paper that uses the movie Memento’s amnesia-aiding notes and tattoos to illustrate  the workings of the extended mind. Contributors then consider the different directions in which the extended mind project might be taken, including the need for an approach that focuses on cognitive activity and practice.



Contributors

Fred Adams, Ken Aizawa, David Chalmers, Andy Clark, Stephen Cowley, Susan Hurley, James Ladyman, Richard Menary, John Preston, Don Ross, Mark Rowlands, Robert D. Rupert, David Spurrett, John Sutton, Michael Wheeler, Rob A. Wilson



Richard Menary is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Wollongong. He is the author of Cognitive Integration and the Philosophy of Cognition.

IT'S RAINING IN THE AMAZON HEAVY FOR DAYS, IN AREAS WHERE THERE HAS BEEN NO RAIN FOR 3 YEARS!!!!  AND THIS IS THE AMAZON DRY SEASON WHEN IT NEVER RAINS, UNTIL NOW!!!

DITTO SIBERIA, THE CONGO AND AUSTRALIA!!!!  MILLIONS OF TONS OF WATER. FOR ABOUT A MONTH SINCE WE SENT EUPHORIA TO THE AREAS  -  EUPHORIA WILL ALWAYS WIN.

Defenderé que la tesis de la mente extendida no es un argumento a favor de la posibilidad del transhumanismo. Si la tesis es cierta, el que nuestra mente se extienda en el mundo no es algo que se da exclusivamente por las nuevas tecnologías, sino que es una característica que poseemos desde hace miles de años. La inscripción de signos en las cavernas sólo difiere en grado de los implantes tecnológicos de un cyborg. Argumentaré lo anterior mostrando que, aunque los cyborgs pueden obtener cierta información que un cuerpo humano normal puede no tener, esta diferencia no es cualitativa. El qualia de la experiencia humana tendría que variar radicalmente para que sea posible afirmar que el cyborg es algo distinto y superior. En últimas, quizás los seres humanos siempre hemos sido cyborgs.

The Hand, an Organ of the Mind, edited by Zdravko Radman, consists of seventeen essays by an impressive array of philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists, as well as a foreword by Jesse Prinz and a postscript by haptic artist Rosalyn Driscoll.

In Europe and United States the spread of fake news and of the discredit thrown over scientific authority is reaching a worrying level, with serious consequences on the political and social realms. The magnitude of the phenomenon, which was essential for the victory of populist parties in United States (Trump), UK (Brexit), and Italy (Salvini's Lega and the Five Star Movement), revels an issue that goes beyond the politics to call in an understanding of how the mind works from the cognitive viewpoint, what is changing as our mind is more and more intertwined with the digital ecosystem, especially with social networks.
In this paper I try to contribute to the understanding of the specific vulnerability of the mind that people exhibit today. I start in 1. The Culturally-Extended Mind by reporting on the extended mind theory to stress that the mind is “lazy” i.e. it tends to save as much energy as possible, therefore tit routinely outsources as much of cognition job as possible to the tools available in the subject's anthropological surrounding. Since these tools are, from the functional viewpoint, part and parcel of the extended mind (yet not part of the brain), then the cultural environment is itself part of the mind and, therefore, its characteristics deter­mine that of the mind (as discussed in 2. The Culturally-Shaped Mind).
What are the characteristics of contemporary anthropology? In 3. Liquid Anthropology I focus on the digital ecosystem, consisting in the web of devices, GPS systems, and the internet, to address the issue of the relationship between mind and its cultural sur­rounding. Because of the unprecedentedly powerful capabili­ty of the digital ecosystem to take over cognitive processes, the brain delegates an unprecedented amount of cognitive work to the external system, with the result of becoming weaker and weaker in its internal ability to process information. The consequence is a paradoxical one: in fact, the digitally-extended mind is becoming both cognitively stronger and weaker as com­pared to the past culture-brain couplings—it becomes stronger as far as its cultural extension is concerned, and weaker as far as the brain is concerned in its own. This is the condition of the “liquid mind,” highly-performing thanks to its cognitive digital extensions, yet increasingly unable to run high-quality cognitive processes such as that of deep analysis and critical thinking.
As a matter of fact, not only does the mind become “shallow” in its management style of information and knowledge; as it relates more and more with other minds through social networks, it also becomes ever less able to have social relations in a mature way. This topic is discussed in 4. The Socially-Networked Mind, where I underline how the mind—which exhibits now symptoms of functional illiteracy—gets trapped in its own echo chamber and becomes dangerously vulnerable to fake news, which are crafted to fuel this vulnerability. As a consequence, an “epistemic entropy” rises that makes ever more difficult for the average user (and voter) to tell the truth from falsehood.