[SydPhil] The Mind-Technology Problem - Investigating Minds, Selves and 21st Century Artifacts CFP – extended deadline
Inês Hipolito
hipolito.ines at gmail.com
Wed Feb 14 19:15:12 AEDT 2018
*The Mind-Technology Problem - Investigating Minds, Selves and 21st Century
Artifacts*
*CFP – extended deadline*
We invite chapter contributions for the volume “The Mind-Technology Problem
– Investigating Minds, Selves and 21st Century Artifacts” forthcoming in
the book series *Studies in Brain and Mind *(Springer). This book explores
the relation between philosophy of mind and emerging technologies.
Technologies that only recently seemed to be science fiction are becoming
part of everyday life. Our life is increasingly saturated with 'smart'
artifacts. The ubiquitous and mobile Internet amounts to a radically new
epistemic and cognitive environment which we already inhabit. This smart
environment is saturated with artificial intelligence systems that not only
guide us to information on the Internet, but are transforming the way we
inhabit the non-virtual realm: the home, the urban environment and beyond.
In the process, these technologies may be viewed as a form of rapidly
evolving cognitive enhancement (Schneider, 2016, Heersmink, 2015). They may
also be radically changing the human cognitive profile (Schneider and
Mandik, 2016, Clowes, 2015; Clark, 2007) including the possibility of mind
uploading (Corabi and Schneider, 2012). Some see these trends as deeply
worrying, undermining a raft of our cognitive and social capacities (Carr,
2010; Turkle, 2011). Others see the relationship as a more of a continuum
with the long history of artifactually led, cognitive evolution of human
beings (Malafouris, 2013; Clark, 2003).
These technologies appear to have important implications for the human
mind, sense of identity and even perhaps what we think human beings are.
Other technological tendencies may stretch our ideas further toward
super-intelligence, (within the skin) cognitive enhancements, and more
distantly perhaps, machine consciousness. Yet while ideas of artificial
general intelligence, cognitive enhancements and a smart environment are
widely commented on, a serious analysis of their philosophical implications
is only now getting started.
In this edited volume, we seek the best philosophical analysis of what
current and near future 21st technology means for the metaphysics of mind.
Some of the questions still open include: Should the adoption or
incorporation of current technologies, such as smart phones or wearable
gadgets be viewed as enhancements or diminishments of the human mind? Or is
such a framework too restricted? Might they transform the sorts of
self-knowledge available to us, or what self-knowledge is? Might the use of
such gadgetry force us to rethink the boundary between human beings and
technology, or indeed enduring philosophical questions such as personal
identity or what the self is? According to various theories of personal
identity, are radical cognitive enhancements even compatible with personal
survival?
In thinking about minds, there is a common tendency to define the
ontological status of the mind in terms of whatever is the latest
technology. The computational model of mind has certainly been one of the
most influential and is currently undergoing important challenges and
challenging reinventions (Schneider and Mandik, 2016). Is the notion that
the mind or self as a program, which often guides public and philosophical
discussions, metaphysically well founded? Whether or not our minds are
actually computational, our ability to interface with machines, from
virtual reality technologies such as Oculus Rift to our smart-phones and
wearable gadgetry, are undergoing a profound shift and are rapidly
reshaping the metaphors and concepts philosophers use to think about minds
and the conclusion they draw (Metzinger, 2009; Chalmers, 2007).
As a follow up of our “Minds, Selves and 21st Century Technology” meeting
in Lisbon (
https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/7eX2CwVLQmiA4k3LsV0tJm?domain=mindandcognition.weebly.com, we
seek high quality submissions that investigate the philosophical
implications of the engagement between 21st century technology, metaphysics
and the philosophy of mind. We are especially interested in submissions
that do not indulge in extensive futuristic speculation but focus on
current or near-ready technologies which are already changing the shape of
the human (and machine) cognitive landscape and our philosophical
understanding of mind. The book will be published in the Springer Series
Studies in Brain and Mind (https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/8batCxnMRvt9gDoJTvDlg7?domain=springer.com).
Research question include the following:
*Extended Mind, Extended Cognition, Distributed self*:
· How should we think of distributed and extended memory in the
context of 21st century technology?
· Can artifacts make possible new forms of extended self-knowledge?
What are the consequences of artifacts—for instance, the ubiquitous
smart-phone—for notions such as the minimal self, the narrative self, or
the distributed self?
· What is the role of cognitive artifacts in the cognitive
enhancement debate?
*Metaphysics of the mind*:
· Does the current state of the art of machine consciousness, brain
enhancement or smart ambient technology warrant predictions and
extrapolations on questions like personal identity, privacy, super
intelligence, etc. many want to make?
· Does current work in this realm tell us anything about phenomenal
consciousness? The organization of mind? The possibility of artificial
minds?
· Do hierarchical predictive processing systems support the
theoretical literature on the metaphysics of mind (mind, big data, minds
online, deep minds)?
*Radical Brain Enhancement and Uploading:*
· Would an uploaded mind be me? Is mind uploading a myth?
· Does radical brain enhancement challenge our sense of self,
personal identity and / or humanity?
*Confirmed authors*
Susan Schneider (University of Connecticut)
Gualtiero Piccinini (University of Missouri – St. Louis)
Mark Bickhard (Lehigh University)
Paul Smart (University of Southampton)
Ron Chrisley (University of Sussex)
Georg Theiner (Vilanova University)
Keith Frankish (University of Crete)
Gerald Vision (Temple University)
Papers should not exceed 8,000 words.
For further questions please contact the editors: Robert W. Clowes (
robert.clowes at gmail.com), Klaus Gärtner (klga at gmx.de), or Inês Hipólito (
hipolito.ines at gmail.com)
Please send your contributions to hipolito.ines at gmail.com.
Deadline:* 1st of March 2018*
*References*
Carr, N. (2010). *The Shallows: How the internet is changing the way we
think, read and remember*. London: Atlantic Books.
Chalmers, D. (2007). Forward to Supersizing the Mind *Supersizing the Mind:
Embodiment, Action and Cognitive Extension*. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Clark, A. (2003). *Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future
of Human Intelligence.* New York: Oxford University Press.
Clark, A. (2007). Re-inventing ourselves: The plasticity of embodiment,
sensing, and mind. *Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 32*(3), 263-282.
Clowes, R. W. (2015). Thinking in the cloud: The Cognitive Incorporation of
Cloud-Based Technology. *Philosophy and Technology, 28, Issue 2,*(2),
261-296.
Corabi, J., & Schneider, S. (2012). Metaphysics of Uploading. *Journal of
Consciousness Studies, 19 (7)*:26.
Heersmink, R. (2015). Extended mind and cognitive enhancement: moral
aspects of cognitive artifacts. *Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences*,
1-16.
Malafouris, L. (2013). *How Things Shape the Mind*: MIT Press.
Metzinger, T. (2009). *The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth
of the Self*: Basic Books.
Schneider, S. (Ed.). (2016). *Science fiction and philosophy: from time
travel to superintelligence*. John Wiley & Sons.
Schneider, S., & Mandik, P. (2016). *How philosophy of mind can shape the
future. Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries*.
London: Routledge.
Turkle, S. (2011). *Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and
Less from Each Other*. New York: Basic Books.
--
Inês Hipólito
School of Humanities and Social Inquiry
Faculty of Law, Humanities, and the Arts, 19.2064
University of Wollongong
<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/b4SYCyoNVrc0QK5NSQGeXO?domain=uowblogs.com>, NSW 2522
Australia
Phone. (+61) 04 100 176 20
*Call for Papers: The Mind-Technology Problem - Investigating Minds, Selves
and 21st Century Artifacts
<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/Hd9BCzvOWKixyEoRCKHuEB?domain=mindandcognition.weebly.com>*
Lisbon Mind and Reasoning Group <https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/aKU4CANZvPinPBA9SQ-nr_?domain=mindandcognition.weebly.com>, Nova
University of Lisbon, Portugal
Hilbert's 24th Problem,
<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/tOnsCBNZwLiMk05VI14ixd?domain=cma.fct.unl.pt>(FCT
funded project), Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal
Hipólito, I. Gonçalves, J., Pereira, J. G. (eds.) (2018) Schizophrenia and
Common Sense: explaining the relation between madness and social values.
Studies in Brain and Mind (Springer).
<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/N9UZCD1jy9tnWwlBSREHBl?domain=springer.com>
Hipólito, I., & Martins, J. (2017). Mind-life continuity: A qualitative
study of conscious experience. *Progress in Biophysics and Molecular
Biology* <http://goog_1359947910/>.
<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/fuhjCE8kz9tgzO5WuxqNGx?domain=sciencedirect.com>2017
JPBMB Focused Issue on Integral Biomathics: The Necessary Conjunction of
Western and Eastern Thought Traditions for Exploring the Nature of Mind and
Life <https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/7eCFCGvmB5i0PE5JSr-ZnQ?domain=sciencedirect.com>
www.ineshipolito.org
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