Embodiment, Cognition and the World Wide Web

Smart, Paul R.

doi:10.4324/9781315775845.ch31

Cited by 11 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Web science is a fast emerging field (Berners-Lee et al, 2006), which, just as any other nascent discipline, is permeated by philosophical discourse (Kuhn 1962). On one hand, computer scientists have made several attempts to explore the relevance of contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science to the understanding of the nature and future of the Web (Halpin et al, 2010;Halpin, 2013;Smart, 2012;Smart and Shadbolt, 2014;Smart, 2014; forthcoming). On the other hand, philosophers have already started discussing some of the challenges that the expansion of the Web may pose.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 Looking at today's Web, it is apparent that Berners-Lee's vision has had a strong impact on it. At its 25 th anniversary, the Web has grown into what is known as Web 2.0, characterized by "greater levels of user participation in the creation, maintenance and editing of online "content" (Smart 2014). In return, increased user participation has led individuals to share information and interact in new and previously unimagined ways, giving rise to a distinguishing feature of Web 2.0, namely the 'Social Web': A suite of applications, services, technologies, formats, protocols and other resources, all united in their attempt to both foster and support social interaction" (Smart, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social machines: a philosophical engineering

Palermos

2016

Phenom Cogn Sci

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In Weaving the Web (2000), Berners-Lee defines Social Machines as biotechnologically hybrid Web-processes on the basis of which, "high-level activities, which have occurred just within one human's brain, will occur among even larger more interconnected groups of people acting as if the shared a larger intuitive brain" (201-202). The analysis and design of Social Machines has already started attracting considerable attention both within the industry and academia. Web science, however, is still missing a clear definition of what a Social Machine is, which has in turn resulted in several calls for a "philosophical engineering" (Halpin 2013; Hendler & Berners-Lee, 2010; Halpin et al., 2010). This paper is a first attempt to respond to this call, by combining contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science with epistemology. The idea of philosophical engineering implies that a sufficiently good conception of Social Machines should be of both theoretical and practical advantage. To demonstrate how the present approach can satisfy both objectives it will be used in order to address one of Wikipedia's (the most famous Social Machine to date) most worrying concerns-i.e., the current and ongoing decline in the number of its active contributors (Halfacker et al., 2012).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social machines: a philosophical engineering

Palermos

2016

Phenom Cogn Sci

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“…The use of online data assets also helps to free us of the otherwise restrictive notion that all cognitively relevant information in the online realm needs to appear in textual form. Data-oriented representations thus enable information (sometimes the same information) to be presented in a variety of different ways, for example, as verbal prompts, graphical cues, and augmented reality overlays (see Smart 2014).…”

Section: Accessibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Extended Cognition and the Internet

Smart

2017

Philos. Technol.

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The Internet is an important focus of attention for those concerned with issues of extended cognition. In particular, the application of active externalist theorizing to the Internet gives rise to the notion of Internet-extended cognition: the idea that the Internet can (on occasion) form part of an integrated nexus of material elements that serves as the realization base for human mental states and processes. The current review attempts to survey a range of issues and controversies that arise in respect of the notion of Internet-extended cognition. These include the issue of whether the Internet, as a technological system, is able to support real-world cases of cognitive extension. It also includes issues concerning the cognitive and epistemic impacts of the Internet. Finally, the review highlights a range of issues and concerns that have not been the focus of previous philosophical attention. These include issues of 'network-extended cognitive bloat', 'conjoined minds', and an entirely new form of cognitive extension that goes under the heading of 'human-extended machine cognition'. Together, these issues serve to highlight the value and importance of Internet-extended cognition to contemporary philosophical debates about the extended mind. In particular, the notion of Internet-extended cognition has the potential to highlight points of philosophical progress that are not easily revealed by the kind of technologically low-grade cases that tend to animate the majority of philosophical discussions in this area.

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“…growing body of work in philosophy and cognitive science (Staley 2014;Halpin 2013;Halpin et al 2010;Smart 2012Smart , 2013Smart , 2014Clowes 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Situating Machine Intelligence Within the Cognitive Ecology of the Internet

Smart

2017

Minds & Machines

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The Internet is an important focus of attention for the philosophy of mind and cognitive science communities. This is partly because the Internet serves as an important part of the material environment in which a broad array of human cognitive and epistemic activities are situated. The Internet can thus be seen as an important part of the 'cognitive ecology' that helps to shape, support and (on occasion) realize aspects of human cognizing. Much of the previous philosophical work in this area has sought to analyze the cognitive significance of the Internet from the perspective of human cognition. There has, as such, been little effort to assess the cognitive significance of the Internet from the perspective of 'machine cognition'. This is unfortunate, because the Internet is likely to exert a significant influence on the shape of machine intelligence. The present paper attempts to evaluate the extent to which the Internet serves as a form of cognitive ecology for synthetic (machine-based) forms of intelligence. In particular, the phenomenon of Internet-situated machine intelligence is analyzed from the perspective of a number of approaches that are typically subsumed under the heading of situated cognition. These include extended, embedded, scaffolded and embodied approaches to cognition. For each of these approaches, the Internet is shown to be of potential relevance to the development and operation of machine-based cognitive capabilities. Such insights help us to appreciate the role of the Internet in advancing the current state-of-the-art in machine intelligence.

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Embodiment, Cognition and the World Wide Web

Cited by 11 publications

References 27 publications

Social machines: a philosophical engineering

Social machines: a philosophical engineering

Extended Cognition and the Internet

Situating Machine Intelligence Within the Cognitive Ecology of the Internet

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