This chapter discusses the flaws of Clark’s extended mind hypothesis. Clark’s hypothesis assumes that the nature of the processes internal to an object has nothing to do with whether that object carries out cognitive processing. The only condition required is that the object is coupled with a cognitive agent and interacts with it in a certain way. In making this tenuous connection, Clark commits the most common mistake extended mind theorists make; alleging that an object becomes cognitive once it is connected to a cognitive agent is a “coupling-constitution fallacy.” From this fallacy, many hastily proceed to the conclusion that the object or process constitutes part of the agent’s cognitive apparatus or cognitive processing.

This chapter sketches an intellectual portrait of W. Ross Ashby’s thought from his earliest work on the mechanisms of intelligence in 1940 through the birth of what is now called artificial intelligence (AI), around 1956, and to the end of his career in 1972. It begins by examining his earliest published works on adaptation and equilibrium, and the conceptual structure of his notions of the mechanisms of control in biological systems. In particular, it assesses his conceptions of mechanism, equilibrium, stability, and the role of breakdown in achieving equilibrium. It then proceeds to his work on refining the concept of “intelligence,” on the possibility of the mechanical augmentation and amplification of human intelligence, and on how machines might be built that surpass human understanding in their capabilities. Finally, the chapter considers the significance of his philosophy and its role in cybernetic thought.

Key words: artificial intelligence, machine intelligence, equilibrium, human intelligence, cybernetic thought

Conflicting claims have been made about whether introspection can be reliable at all. Lots of objections have been formulated against it in classical and modern literature. We thus list these objections and outline some replies, in addition to some theoretical rebuttals based on contemporary philosophy of science. We further point out that these objections target an abstract image of introspection rather than introspection per se. Accordingly, we describe one of the currently available methods that we ourselves practice: the elicitation (or micro-phenomenological) interview method. Our aim is to show that, irrespective of its alleged theoretical impossibility”, introspection is made real by this kind of method which incorporates replies to most standard objections.

Excerpt: In what follows, we shall argue that the defiantly nonrepresentational conception of ground-level intelligence developed and defended by Dreyfus himself, and by others who share his general approach, is ultimately unable to do justice to the distinctive dynamics of background, precisely because that conception, at least partly as a consequence of its representation-shunning character, fails to encompass the particular, transformative, background-involving embodied capacity so strikingly illustrated by the King’s routine.