Embodied and Extended Cognition

Embodied cognition: cognitive processes taking place in the body but outside the brain. Example: octopus arms have their own neurons

the body codes the workings of the mind (deprivileging the mind/intellect)

[The mind is] not a kind of software being run on the logical-processesing unit of the brain. The body and mind are inseparable. We distinguish between them, but the reality is they are one and the same.

Extended cognition: cognitive processes taking place through external apparati. Example: spiderwebs taking in/storing information through vibrations. (technology??)

the spiderwebs piece reminds me of the Adrian Tchaikovsky novel, Children of Time, which includes an advanced race of spiders who communicate, think, and do basically everything with their webs. Guess that’s where he got it from!
is language an instance of extended cognition, or is it only a tool we use to extend our cognition?
the connection to Marx’s theory that “we only become conscious in and through the world and its history” is tenuous imo. Like how are products of labor (that do, I agree, reflect our conscious) related to extended cognition?
- these objects are expression, not cognition. although perhaps i’m limiting myself in my conception of objects
  
  And the world of inert objects might think too, in slow and strange ways which we can only borrow for a moment, and which disappear again into what sounds like silence. Hmmm… Equal parts physics and randomness? It seems the author casts a wide net when it comes to cognition — more like autonomous/self-ordered systems than things that can “think.”

Ref: Kriss, “You Think With the World, Not Just Your Brain.”

Case study: spiderwebs as extended cognition apparati

HOT TAKE: spiderwebs are an instance of extended cognition. ie webs are cognitive apparati that serve as sensory organs, of a sort, for the spider.

Animal cognition strategies
- embodied (octopus)
- specialized senses (UV vision)
- structures outside neural system (spiders?)
  - ❓ are there examples of non-neuronal info processing in other species? I feel like it can’t be that rare…
  - is, say, the cane used by a vision-impaired person an example?

❓ What is the difference between a tool and an extended cognition apparatus?

According to Japyassú, cognition = acquiring, manipulating, and storing info. Critics say cognition must also include interpretation of that information into an “abstract, meaningful representation of the world.”
- smells like centering of the intellect to me, boss
- do more research on theories of cognition?

Niche construction: animals making specialized structures like nests, dams etc.

interplay with structure and environment ultimately causes changes in the organism, therebyy changing the structure…. (extended phenotype)

“It is conceivable for cognition to be a property of a system with integrated nonbiological components,” Cross and Jackson write. “That seems to be where Homo sapiens is headed.”

Ref: Quanta, “Does a Spider Use Its Web Like You Use Your Smartphone?”