by Daniel Hutto, Shaun Gallagher, Jesus Ilundain and Ines Hipolito

Advancing a radically enactive account of cognition, we provide arguments in favour of the possibility that cultural factors permeate rather than penetrate cognition, such that cognition extensively and transactionally incorporates cultural factors rather than there being any question of cultural factors having to break into the restricted confines of cognition. The paper reviews the limitations of two classical cognitivist, modularist accounts of cognition and a revisionary, new order variant of cognitivism – a Predictive Processing account of Cognition, or PPC. It argues that the cognitivist interpretation of PPC is conservatively and problematically attached to the idea of inner models and stored knowledge. In abandoning that way of understanding PPC, it offers a radically enactive alternative account of how cultural factors matter to cognition – one that abandons all vestiges of the idea that cultural factors might contentfully communicate with basic forms of cognition. In place of that idea, the possibility that culture permeates cognition is promoted.

Full paper available for download here.

​Abstract
There are two fundamental models to understanding the phenomenon of natural life. One is the computational model, which is based on the symbolic thinking paradigm. The other is the biological organism model. The common difficulty attributed to these paradigms is that their reductive tools allow the phenomenological aspects of experience to remain hidden behind yes/no responses (behavioral tests), or brain ‘pictures’ (neuroimaging). Hence, one of the problems regards how to overcome methodological difficulties towards a non-reductive investigation of conscious experience. It is our aim in this paper to show how cooperation between Eastern and Western traditions may shed light for a non-reductive study of mind and life. This study focuses on the first-person experience associated with cognitive and mental events. We studied phenomenal data as a crucial fact for the domain of living beings, which, we expect, can provide the ground for a subsequent third-person study. The intervention with Jhana meditation, and its qualitative assessment, provided us with experiential profiles based upon subjects' evaluations of their own conscious experiences. The overall results should move towards an integrated or global perspective on mind where neither experience nor external mechanisms have the final word.

The Mind-Technology Problem - Investigating Minds, Selves and 21st Century Artifacts
 
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 (http://mindandcognition.weebly.com/mind-selves-and-technology.html), 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. 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) 
Richard Heersmink (Macquarie University) 
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. 
 
We especially encourage researchers who are women and/or underrepresented minorities to submit
 
For further questions please contact the editors: Robert W. Clowes (robert.clowes@gmail.com), Klaus Gärtner (klga@gmx.de), or Inês Hipólito (hipolito.ines@gmail.com) 
 
Please send your contributions to hipolito.ines@gmail.com. 
 
Deadline: 31st of January, 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. 

Nova Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA)
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon  (FCSH/NOVA)
Scientific Organization: Nuno Venturinha

6-7 June 2017

Invited speakers include:
Marco Brusotti (Technical University of Berlin / University of Salento)
Michel Le Du (University of Strasbourg)
Andrew Lugg (University of Ottawa)
Sofia Miguens (University of Porto)
Constantine Sandis (University of Hertfordshire)
Vicente Sanfélix (University of Valencia)
Genia Schönbaumsfeld (University of Southampton)

We are looking for up to 2 papers to round off the edited collection “Methodological Advances in Experimental Philosophy” in preparation for publication in the
Advances in Experimental Philosophy series (Bloomsbury, series editor: James Beebe): http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/advances-in-experimental-philosophy/
 
The volume aims to familiarise experimental philosophers (professional academics, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates) with empirical methods that go beyond questionnaire-based surveys and experiments, and to explore the contribution these methods can make to current and traditional debates in philosophy. Methods of interest include, but are not limited to, methods from cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience (e.g., fMRI), psycholinguistics (e.g. eye tracking, ERP), computational linguistics and the digital humanities more widely (data mining, etc.), as well as behavioural economics. Contributions should illustrate the use of a particular method or set of methods in experimental philosophy either by reporting a fresh study, or by reference to recent studies run by the author(s) and others, or ideally by a combination of the two. Studies that combine such ‘alternative’ methods with more familiar questionnaire-based approaches are welcome.
 
Contributions should provide accessible explanations of the ‘alternative’ methods used, with discussion of their strengths and limitations. Each chapter should combine presentation, demonstration, and discussion of a chosen (set of) method(s) with an explanation and assessment of the contribution made to traditional philosophical concerns or ongoing philosophical debates. Contributions to any area of philosophy are welcome, provided the concerns or debates at issue are of reasonably general interest. Contributions to the Concept Project (studying concepts and folk theories) and Warrant Project (studying the evidentiary value of intuitions) would be particularly welcome.
 
Confirmed contributors include Shaun Nichols, Mark Alfano, Arianna Betti, Cailin O’Connor, Eugen Fischer, Matthew Inglis, Jonathan Livengood, Eric Schwitzgebel, Justin Sytsma, and Jen Cole Wright.
 
The default word limit for submitted papers is 10,000 words.
 
If potentially interested in contributing, please contact the volume editor: Eugen Fischer,
 
Deadlines:  500-word abstracts to be submitted to the volume editor before July 1st, 2017.
Chapters will be due by January 31, 2018.