extended mind thesis

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the philosophical proposal by Andy Clark and David Chalmers that the mind extends beyond the boundaries of brain and skull to incorporate external tools, devices, and environmental structures that play a functional role equivalent to internal cognitive processes; if a notebook functions as a memory system in the same way internal memory does, they argue, there is no principled reason to locate the mind exclusively within the biological body; the extended mind thesis challenges the assumption that cognition is necessarily internal, raises questions about the moral and legal status of external cognitive scaffolding, and has implications for how we understand personal identity, cognitive disability, and the ethics of technology use