Mr. Estrada argues that my basic position requires a strong differentiation between the technological and cultural. This is, however, not what I have intended to convey. My paper rather concerns an argument for the comparison of the plausibility of Vernor Vinge’s AI (artificial intelligence) and IA (intelligence amplification) hypotheses. In other words, I do agree with much that Mr. Estrada writes. We are, in many senses, “tools all the way down”. As what comes to the nature of the mind, it is in a very profound sense extended to begin with. If an AI were forthcoming, it would in many senses contribute as an extended resource to the human mind.

My claim in the paper is not so much intended as the comparison of the intrinsic nature of a biological mind to a simulated mind (which, as I think Mr. Estrada rightly points out, cannot justly be separated), but rather the plausibility of whether an IA or AI explosion will take place sooner: in other words, where the focal point of the intelligence explosion will be: in the network itself (IA), or in identifiable components of it (AI).

The problem with the plausibility of the AI hypothesis is not that it would be impossible or somehow IA-incompatible. It is rather that we are not very likely to reach it before an IA explosion takes place. In addition to the complexity of the nervous system that can be postulated on the grounds of the Stanford experiment, the integration of nervous and extended processes is of a far higher order than in a simple sensory coupling or a feedback loop. The nervous system is dynamic to a far greater degree than any known computational system as is demonstrated by the massive literature on neuroplasticity. The nervous system does not compute – synaptic connections grow and shrink. The brain is not a machine. It is a garden.

In the light of what we now know about brain function, in the nervous system the hardware and the software are intrinsically intertwined. In other words, the brain is not a static processing and memory system where information is stored, but rather a dynamic feedback mechanism that *produces* information by creating complex enough connections. Once you add to this the ability to augment these connections by using the environment, there is a very profound sense in which human intelligence differs dramatically from what has been postulated as machine intelligence. Using Searle as an example was simply to show that there are some dramatic difficulties in attributing intelligence to a machine (whereas attributing intelligence to a human-machine coupling is by no means problematic).

Incidentally, this is not to say there could not be an intelligent machine. I do not subscribe to the fundamental Searlean assumption that this would be philosophically impossible. Quite the opposite: if a machine is constructed that for all purposes acts like an intelligent agent, it should be treated as an intelligent agent, even if this behavior came about in the way of complex enough computation. But this is not at all the point I am trying to make in the paper.

What I am arguing is that while an AI explosion may as well be on the way, it is not very likely to happen very soon. But once real-time networking of human beings is achieved (which should happen in a few years now), the IA explosion will take place. I have no doubts that this will also contribute to the AI explosion as well, whatever that will mean then, which will in turn augment the capacity of the IA system and so on and so forth.

To sum up, none of this is to say either that human intelligence and machine intelligence should be intrinsically separated, or even that the simulation of intelligence were impossible. It is just to say that the intelligence explosion that involves real-time networking of existing nervous systems of human beings is somewhat likelier to happen sooner than a significant enough advance in computing technology.

Stiegler simply describes mnemotechnics as the externalisation of our memory. However, mnemotechnology more specifically relates to our growing dependence on technological forms for memory. One of my friends (let’s call him Steven) was recently perusing Facebook when he came across the internet meme ‘Sudden Clarity Clarence’. Just to clarify, an internet meme is a virally-transmitted social idea or concept that is propagated via the World Wide Web. These memes usually feature a photograph accompanied by a witty/appropriate caption. When Steven discovered this particular meme he noticed that the male in the background kissing the blonde female looked suspiciously like him. He then realised that the main figure in the foreground (Sudden Clarity Clarence) had a striking resemblance to his friend ‘Louis’. Upon doing some research into the background of the meme, Steven realised that the photograph had been taken on the first night of the 2009 Schoolies festival held in Queensland. Steven, Louis and their friend ‘Nathan’ (who is partially visible in the top right corner) had all been in attendance at this event, thus confirming that it was them in the photograph.

An example from the 'Sudden Clarity Clarence' internet meme series. The photograph originally accompanied a newspaper article about the 2009 Schoolies festival in Queensland's Gold Coast.

This realisation highlights the heightened role media technology plays in manipulating one’s memory and sense of self. Steven has no recollection of his intimate experience with the young lady in the photograph, presumably as a result of typical Schoolies alcohol and recreational drug abuse. However, as a result of photographic and online media the moment has been captured and broadcasted to a mass audience.  This meme caused the subjects in the photograph to reconsider their own perception and memory of the Schoolies event, something that they had previously taken for granted. Steven and Louis also experienced an identity crisis as they struggled to consolidate the ‘selves’ in the photographs with the ‘selves’ they are familiar with.

In ‘Mind Games’ Pamoukaghlian discusses how mind control has developed since its origins in early Communist China.  Meanwhile, Dalton’s video ‘e sense’ illustrates the idea of the ‘extended mind’ by showcasing a brain-computer interface experiment. Both of these sources reminded me of the ‘mind ball’ game I participated in at Bodies: The Exhibition in New York last year. As can be seen in video below, the two players are required to wear a headband with electrodes, which are connected to a table top. The electrodes have been wired up to a biosensor system, so the winner must maintain a calm sense of mind to move a ball to the opposite end of the table via Electroencephalogram waveforms.

In correlation with my own experiences, these readings demonstrate that a mutually influential relationship exists between human thought/memory/experience/sense of self and technological forms. Technology like online media can have a prominent impact upon an individual’s recollection of events and perception of themselves. At the same time, the scientific phenomena of thought control enables brain activity to make its mark upon technology.

References

Dalton, S. (n.d.) ‘e sense’ <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHTtri5jGDc>

Pamoukaghlian, Veronica (2011) ‘Mind Games: Science’s Attempts at Thought Control’, Brainblogger.com, December 28 <http://brainblogger.com/2011/12/28/mind-games-sciences-attempts-at-thought-control/>

Stiegler, Bernard (n.d.) ‘Anamnesis and Hypomnesis: Plato as the first thinker of the proletarianisation’ <http://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis>

Image and video

Sudden Clarity Clarence (2001) <http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/263433-sudden-clarity-clarence&#62;

Mindball on ABC (2007) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dJwvjq6eik&#62;

In an interview with philosopher Alva Noe in 2008,  an explanation between the traditional understanding of how we think and perceive was contrasted against a modern, contemporary and new understanding. He stated:

“The traditional thought is that we perceive in order to act; when we act, we do it to perceive…[In contrast] the ability to move is at the very core of what it means to be a conscious perceiving agent…” (Noe, 2008)

What Noe was exploring was they way in which we understand the relationship between perception and sensation, thinking and feeling. The question this poses is: “Does thinking happen solely in the brain, or is the process of thinking something that extends beyond the muscle, beyond the organ in our head?”.

The notion of the ‘Extended Mind’, in which Clark and Chalmers identify an interrelating system between the body, mind and environment as opposed to notions of these entities being separate, is one way to approach  questions of how humans think and perceive. Furthermore, we need to “go out of our heads and look at the way we are embodied and also bound to and embedded in the world around us” (Noe, 2010).

Embodiment & Experience

Folders and university writing books with countless written notes and mind maps created during my last two years of study, along with my HSC studies, are shelved and organised around my room, either placed nicely in my shelves and bookcase, or stacked in a large plastic container and yet to be put away properly after having moved home weeks prior to the start of 2012.

Within these physical archives lay countless personal knowledge –  wriiten essays, notes and mindmaps dedicated to studies of journalism/media practice and theory, canonical English literature, the poetry of the 18th & 19th century English Romantics, and many more areas of study.

In line with the ‘extended mind’ theory, these archives of notes and essays are an extension of my mind; my extended memory. As Steigler (n. d) explains: “

“To write a manuscript is to organise thought by consigning it outside in the form of traces, that is, symbols, whereby thought can reflect on itself, actually constituting itself, making itself repeatable and transmissible: it becomes knowledge”.

Unfortunately, while I retain some knowledge of the aforementioned topics, it is ambitious to say that my internal memory contains all that information within it to this day. The common motif of a student in contemporary society – a society where the flow of information is rapid and almost instantaenous due to new media technology, and thus drawing our attention from one thing to another - is that “I remember studying/reading that, but I’ve forgotten what I know”.

As such, my mind, has been extended onto those written notes and essays, those physical forms, and they are, in reality, my knowledge externalised beyond the boundaries of the mind. My understanding of how I think and perceive is no longer that of tradtitional, which separates the mind, body and environment, but an understandig that recognises how these work together as a system.

Stiegler (n. d) writes that “Human memory is originarily exteriorized, and that means that it is technical from the start”, giving rise to Chalmer and Kent’s notion of ‘active externalism’ (Wikimedia, 2012). In understanding mnemotechnics – the art of thinking – it is clear that thinking correlates with experience – and experience is, according to Noe (2008) “always necessarily embodied, environmentally situated, and spread out in time”.

Thinking is not only internal, but external; both mental and physical.

Industrialising Memory

The negative side of mnemotechnology – technology which we place our thinking in – is that memory becomes industrialised. As Steigler puts it:

” [the] more we delegate the execution of series of small tasks that make up the warp and woof of our lives to the apparatuses and services of modern industry, the more vain we become: the more we lose not only our know-how but our know-how-to-live-well”.

The analogy Steigler provides, that the more improved a car gets, such as with the addition of GPS, the less we know how to drive a car, because all the knowledge takes away the opportunity for us to engage with it using our memory, is worrying.

Yet essentially, the notion of an “external mind” for me relates to notion that the media is an externalisation of the mind, and that has both positive and negative consequences as a result of the interlation between media, cultural and social change.

References

Chalmers, David (2009) ‘The Extended Mind Revisited [1/5], at Hong Kong, 2009’, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S149IVHhmc> (about 9 minutes)

Dalton, S. (n.d.) ‘e sense’ <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHTtri5jGDc>

Stiegler, Bernard (n.d.) ‘Anamnesis and Hypomnesis: Plato as the first thinker of the proletarianisation’ <http://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis>

Noë, Alva (2010) ‘Does thinking happen in the brain?’, 13:7 Cosmos and Culture <http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/12/10/131945848/does-thinking-happen-in-the-brain>

Noë, Alva and Solano, Marlon Barrios (2008) ‘dance as a way of knowing: interview with Alva Noë’, <http://www.dance-tech.net/video/1462368:Video:19594>

Wikimedia 2012,

‘The Art Of Memory’, Wikipedia, last updated 6 December 2011, last accessed 18 March 2012, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_memory>

‘The Extended Mind’, Wikipedia, last updated 22 Friday 2012, last accessed 16 March 2012, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Mind>

‘Mnemonic’, Wikipedia, last updated 8 March 2012, last accessed 18 March 2012, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic>

As the technology of memorializing dialogue (in stone, no less) came into vogue, Socrates famously admonished Phaedrus his protegé Plato on its dangers: if people are able to write everything down, their ability to remember what was said will diminish. Plato, being an early version of an early adopter, memorialized the debate, and that is why the apocryphal story is with us today. But even without a grounding in modern neurobiology, Socrates had a valid point: the plasticity of our brains are such that the less we use them for a given function, the more our ability to carry out that function is impaired.

This becomes a tricky issue when thinking about the world in which we live today. In a thoughtful essay over at The Atlantic, Evan Selinger reviews a number of arguments for and against the use of ‘apps’ to make us, as he puts it in his title, a better person. What Evan is particularly concerned with are digital willpower enhancements: the suite of technologies that have been developed to help us do everything from not being distracted by a tweet to refrain from eating more than we would like.

On the one hand, a fairly good argument can be made for the fact that many of us are a bit weak in one or more of these arenas. So, the argument goes, it is better to outsource the work rather than to succumb. After all, apps are really just manifestations of the extended mind, and there is nothing particularly novel or problematic about that. I am pretty partial to that argument, especially insofar as I accept the need for the occasional nudge to help me, and others, achieve goals that are consistent with my second order desires.

Of course, when there is a paragraph that begins ‘on the one hand’, there is always an alternative point of view. In this case, it goes something like this: as Socrates warned us, if we don’t use a particular cognitive domain often enough, it will atrophy. One particularly vexing example is GPS, the ubiquitous navigation system that now populates cars, smartphones, and more. In a worrying set of studies, Veronique Bohbot and her colleagues at McGill have obtained preliminary data indicating that excessive use of a GPS unit may lead to atrophy of the hippocampus, an area of the brain critically involved in both spatial navigation and short-term memory. The inverse of Bohbot’s observations are the well-documented observation that London taxicab drivers who learn “over four years, the complex layout of London’s streets while training to become licensed taxi drivers. In those who qualified, acquisition of an internal spatial representation of London was associated with a selective increase in gray matter (GM) volume in their posterior hippocampi and concomitant changes to their memory profile.”

In many ways, the discussion reprises one facet of the debate over cognitive enhancement, in particular the admonishment regarding the inauthenticity of the achievements one obtains using artificial means. The Calvinist intuition that there is something inherently wrong about getting help to achieve one’s goals may be correct for reasons that were opaque to the Puritans: it is not so much that the effort inherent in character building exorcises our brains as much as it exercises them.

Use it or lose it.

Image credit: Kyle Pitt