research-article

Does the web extend the mind?

Author:

Harry HalpinAuthors Info & Claims

WebSci '13: Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference

Pages 139 - 147

https://doi.org/10.1145/2464464.2479972

Published: 02 May 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Under what conditions does the Web count as a part of your own mind? We iterate the conditions upon which cognitive extension and integration can be upheld, and inspect these in light of the Web. We also argue that this ability to integrate the mind into media such as the Web is inherently social, insofar as it involves interaction. Also, there are many cases where external media like the Web are not actually cognitively integrated, but simply serve as a way to co-ordinate intelligent problem-solving via distributed cognition. Yet distributed cognition should not be underestimated, as it is precisely distributed cognition that can solve problems that an individual human may be unable to solve by themselves, and can serve as a stepping stone to a wider kind of cognitive integration: collective intelligence. Finally, we define collective intelligence as cognitive integration combined with distributed cognition.

References

[1]

Adams, F., and Aizawa, K. The bounds of cognition. Philosophical Psychology 14 (2001), 43--64.

[2]

Berners-Lee, T. IETF RFC 1630 Universal Resource Identifier (URI), 1994. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1630.txt (Last accessed on May 3rd 2008).

[3]

Berners-Lee, T. Weaving the Web. Texere Publishing, London, 2000.

[4]

Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and Masinter, L. IETF RFC 3986 Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax, January 2005. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt(Last accessed on April 2th 2008).

[5]

Berners-Lee, T., and Halpin, H. Defend the Web. In Digital Enlightenment Yearbook, J. Bus, M. Crompton, M. Hildebrandt, and G. Metakides, Eds. IOS Press, Berlin, 2012, 3--7.

[6]

Bush, V. As we may think. Atlantic Monthly 1, 176 (July 1945), 101--108.

[7]

Clark, A. Supersizing the Mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010.

[8]

Clark, A., and Chalmers, D. The Extended Mind. Analysis 58, 1 (1998), 7--19.

[9]

Dennett, D. Consciousness Explained. The Penguin Press, Allen Lane, 1991.

[10]

Halpin, H. Foundations of a philosophy of collective intelligence. In Proceedings of Convention for the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behavior (2008).

[11]

Halpin, H. Becoming digital: reconciling theories of digital representation and embodiment. In Digital Enlightenment Yearbook 2012, V. Mueller, Ed. Springer, Berlin, 2013, 199--213.

[12]

Halpin, H., Clark, A., and Wheeler, M. Towards a Philosophy of the Web: Representation, Enaction, Collective intelligence. In Proceedings of the Web Science Conference: Extending the Frontiers of Society On-Line (WebSci 2010 (Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 2010), 1--5.

[13]

Hayes, P., and Halpin, H. In defense of ambiguity. International Journal of Semantic Web and Information Systems 4, 3 (2008).

[14]

Hui, Y., and Halpin, H. Collective individuation: the future of the social web. In The Unlike Us Reader, G. Lovink and M. Rasch, Eds. Institute for Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2013, 103--116.

[15]

Hutchins, E. Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995.

[16]

Maturana, H., and Varela, F. Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. D. Reidel Publishing, Dordecht, 1973.

[17]

McNeill, D. Gesture and Thought. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005.

[18]

Piaget, J. The language and thought of the child. Routledge, London, 1959.

[19]

Rupert, R. Challenges to the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition. Journal of Philosophy 101 (2004), 389--428.

[20]

Simondon, G. L'individuation psychique et collective. Aubier, Paris, 1989.

[21]

Smart, P. The Web-Extended Mind. Metaphilosophy 43 (2012), 446--463.

[22]

Smith, B. C. On the Origin of Objects. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996.

[23]

Stiegler, B. Technics and Time: Volume 1. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, 1998. Translated by Richard Beardsworth and George Collins.

[24]

Vygotsky, L. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978.

[25]

Vygotsky, L. Thought and Language. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1986.

[26]

Watts, D., and Strogatz, S. Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks. Nature 393, 6684 (1998), 440--442.

Cited By

Ryan SPalermos SFarina M(2023)Smart EnvironmentsSocial Epistemology10.1080/02691728.2023.227723038:4(491-510)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2023.2277230
Ribeiro GOliveira KSouza R(2021)DSI Strategy Canvas: Modelling the Digital Social Innovation StrategyJournal of Social Entrepreneurship10.1080/19420676.2021.198797115:2(630-658)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2021.1987971
Smart P(2018)Situating Machine Intelligence Within the Cognitive Ecology of the InternetMinds and Machines10.1007/s11023-016-9416-z27:2(357-380)Online publication date: 24-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11023-016-9416-z
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Does the web extend the mind?
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence

Recommendations

Cognitive integration, enculturated cognition and the socially extended mind

Shaun Gallagher presents an interesting case for the social extension of mind. I argue that there is one way in which Gallagher can argue for social extension, which is continuous with an enculturated model of cognition, such as cognitive integration. ...
Extended cognition and the metaphysics of mind

This paper explores the relationship between several ideas about the mind and cognition. The hypothesis of extended cognition claims that cognitive processes can and do extend outside the head, that elements of the world around us can actually become ...
Do sensorimotor dynamics extend the conscious mind?1

According to the extended conscious mind thesis (ECM), the physical basis of consciousness is not confined exclusively to the brain, but extends beyond it via sensorimotor dynamics. ECM is enjoying growing support among philosophers inspired by ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

WebSci '13: Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference

May 2013

481 pages

ISBN:9781450318891

DOI:10.1145/2464464

Conference Chairs:
Hugh Davis
University of Southampton
,
Harry Halpin
World Wide Web Consortium
,
Alex Pentland,
Program Chairs:
Mark Bernstein,
Lada Adamic,
Harith Alani,
Alexandre Monnin,
Richard Rogers

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Sponsors

SIGWEB: ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Web

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 02 May 2013

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

WebSci '13

Sponsor:

SIGWEB

WebSci '13: Web Science 2013

May 2 - 4, 2013

Paris, France

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 245 of 933 submissions, 26%

Upcoming Conference

Websci '25

Sponsor:
sigweb

17th ACM Web Science Conference

May 20 - 24, 2025

New Brunswick , NJ , USA

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

10
Total Citations
View Citations
266
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)10
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 07 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Ryan SPalermos SFarina M(2023)Smart EnvironmentsSocial Epistemology10.1080/02691728.2023.227723038:4(491-510)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2023.2277230
Ribeiro GOliveira KSouza R(2021)DSI Strategy Canvas: Modelling the Digital Social Innovation StrategyJournal of Social Entrepreneurship10.1080/19420676.2021.198797115:2(630-658)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2021.1987971
Smart P(2018)Situating Machine Intelligence Within the Cognitive Ecology of the InternetMinds and Machines10.1007/s11023-016-9416-z27:2(357-380)Online publication date: 24-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11023-016-9416-z
Vismara MToaff JPulvirenti GSettanni CColao ELavano SCemicetti RCotugno DPerrotti GMeschesi VMontera RZepponi BRapetto UMarotta R(2017)Internet Use and Access, Behavior, Cyberbullying, and Grooming: Results of an Investigative Whole City Survey of AdolescentsInteractive Journal of Medical Research10.2196/ijmr.62316:2(e9)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2017
https://doi.org/10.2196/ijmr.6231
Smart P(2017)Extended Cognition and the InternetPhilosophy & Technology10.1007/s13347-016-0250-230:3(357-390)Online publication date: 14-Jan-2017
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0250-2
Minimair M(2017)Collaborative Computer AlgebraApplications of Computer Algebra10.1007/978-3-319-56932-1_20(289-303)Online publication date: 27-Jul-2017
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56932-1_20
Smart PHeersmink RClowes R(2017)The Cognitive Ecology of the InternetCognition Beyond the Brain10.1007/978-3-319-49115-8_13(251-282)Online publication date: 29-Mar-2017
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49115-8_13
Palermos S(2016)Social machines: a philosophical engineeringPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences10.1007/s11097-016-9489-416:5(953-978)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2016
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-016-9489-4
Heersmink R(2014)Dimensions of integration in embedded and extended cognitive systemsPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences10.1007/s11097-014-9355-114:3(577-598)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2014
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-014-9355-1
Vafopoulos M(undefined)Web Intelligence: The Tenth Type of Multiple Intelligences?SSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.2732960
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2732960

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten