A growing controversy at the interface of philosophy and cognitive science concerns the question of where cognition is located. In the paper “The Extended Mind” (1998), the book Supersizing the Mind (2008) and many other publications, Andy Clark contends that cognitive processes do not only occur in the head but also physically extend into the environment. In contrast and critical response to Clark, Adams/Aizawa (2008) and Rupert (forthcoming) hold that cognition is an entirely brain-bound affair. In the present thesis, I will argue that Clark’s extended cognition hypothesis as well as Adams/Aizawa’s and Rupert’s brain-bound accounts should be rejected because they lack plausibility and are cognitive-scientifically gratuitous. However, even though I dismiss Adams/Aizawa’s and Rupert’s specific brain-bound views, I will reach a conclusion similar to theirs: contra Clark, cognition remains an internal phenomenon.

To incorporate bioremedial functions into the performance of buildings and to balance generative architecture's dominant focus on computational programming and digital fabrication, this thesis first hybridizes theories of autopoiesis into extended cognition in order to research biological domains that include synthetic biology and biocomputation. Under the rubric of living technology I survey multidisciplinary fields to gather perspective for student design of bioremedial and/or metabolic components in generative architecture where generative not only denotes the use of computation but also includes biochemical, biomechanical, and metabolic functions. I trace computation and digital simulations back to Alan Turing's early 1950s Morphogenetic drawings, reaction-diffusion algorithms, and pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) in order to establish generative architecture's point of origin. I ask provocatively: Can buildings think? as a question echoing Turing's own "Can machines think?" Thereafter, I anticipate not only future bioperformative materials but also theories capable of underpinning strains of metabolic intelligences made possible via AI, synthetic biology, and living technology. I do not imply that metabolic architectural intelligence will be like human cognition. I suggest, rather, that new research and pedagogies involving the intelligence of bacteria, plants, synthetic biology, and algorithms define approaches that generative architecture should take in order to source new forms of autonomous life that will be deployable as corrective environmental interfaces. I call the research protocol autopoietic-extended design, theorizing it as an operating system (OS), a research methodology, and an app schematic for design studios and distance learning that makes use of in-field, e-, and m-learning technologies. A quest of this complexity requires scaffolding for coordinating theory-driven teaching with practice-oriented learning. Accordingly, I fuse Maturana and Varela's biological autopoiesis and its definitions of minimal biological life with Andy Clark's hypothesis of extended cognition and its cognition-to-environment linkages. I articulate a generative design strategy and student research method explained via architectural history interpreted from Louis Sullivan's 1924 pedagogical drawing system, Le Corbusier's Modernist pronouncements, and Greg Lynn's Animate Form. Thus, autopoietic-extended design organizes thinking about the generation of ideas for design prior to computational production and fabrication, necessitating a fresh relationship between nature/science/technology and design cognition. To systematize such a program requires the avoidance of simple binaries (mind/body, mind/nature) as well as the stationing of tool making, technology, and architecture within the ream of nature. Hence, I argue, in relation to extended phenotypes, plant-neurobiology, and recent genetic research: < Architecture = Nature > Consequently, autopoietic-extended design advances design protocols grounded in morphology, anatomy, cognition, biology, and technology in order to appropriate metabolic and intelligent properties for sensory/response duty in buildings. At m-learning levels smartphones, social media, and design apps source data from nature for students to mediate on-site research by extending 3D pedagogical reach into new university design programs. I intend the creation of a dialectical investigation of animal/human architecture and computational history augmented by theory relevant to current algorithmic design and fablab production. The autopoietic-extended design dialectic sets out ways to articulate opposition/differences outside the Cartesian either/or philosophy in order to prototype metabolic architecture, while dialectically maintaining: Buildings can think.

The central argument of this dissertation is that virtue ethics is overly individualistic. In response, I develop and defend a more relational, ecological account - what I call extended virtues. First, following Andy Clark, Kim Sterelny, and others, I argue that cognition and emotion can be embedded in, scaffolded by, or even extended to include various environmental resources. These arguments undermine default internalism about cognitive and affective processes. Next, I show how recent work in social and personality psychology similarly undermines individualism about the bearers of these cognitive and affective processes. Taken together, these arguments have significant but heretofore underappreciated implications for virtue ethics. After reviewing the literature which attempts to spell out the ethical implications of embedded, scaffolded, and extended cognition, I conclude that a more substantive engagement with virtue ethics is needed. I then show how plausible, mainstream theories of virtue assume default internalism and individualism, and are thus subject to charges of empirical inadequacy. Finally, I formulate my account of extended virtues in response to these shortcomings. I begin by making three explicit arguments for why an account of extended virtues is needed. I then develop two further arguments - the process argument and the bearer argument - which yield the conclusion that the processes relevant to, and the bearers of, moral and intellectual virtues can be embedded, scaffolded, or extended. After providing examples and filling in details about the hypotheses of embedded, scaffolded, and extended virtue, I propose that virtues are less like dispositions and more like relations. I conclude by suggesting that ecological metaphors such as stewardship are more fitting than traditional views of morality as inner strength.

Memetics is a Darwinian approach to evolution of culture proposed in late 1970s. This thesis proposes an approach to Memetics, which is an effort to overcome some of the problems involved. It is argued in this thesis that units of cultural evolution are functional abstraction of physical reality and are realized within the boundaries of our cognitive processes. The boundaries of human cognitive processes are defined by Clark and Chalmers (1998) in their extended cognition hypothesis according to which, human cognition is understood as a part of the cultural environment. Therefore human cognition and cultural environment can best be understood by studying them together. As for identifying these units, an extended functionalist approach has been proposed and an empirical cultural transmission study has been conducted and explored in the thesis.

In the last forty years, significant developments in neuroscience, psychology, and robotic technology have been cause for major trend changes in the philosophy of mind. One such shift has been the reallocation of focus from entirely brain-centered theories of mind to more embodied, embedded, and even extended answers to the questions, what are cognitive processes and where do we find such phenomena? Given that hypotheses such as Clark and Chalmers‘ (1998) Extended Mind or Hutto‘s (2006) Radical Enactivism, systematically undermine the organism-bound, internal, and static pictures of minds and allow instead for the distribution of cognitive processes among brains, bodies, and worlds, a worry that arises is that the very subject of cognitive science, the ‗cognizer‘ will be hopelessly opaque, its mind leaking out into the world all over the place, thereby making it impossible to rein in and properly study. A seemingly unrelated and yet parallel trend has also taken place in feminist theorizing about the body over the last forty years. Whereas feminism of the 1970s and early 1980s tended to view ‗the body‘ as the site and matter of biological sex, while gender was a more fluid and socially constituted mode of existence, more recent feminist theory has questioned the givenness of bodies themselves. In other words, rather than seeing gender categories as manifestations of the already given sexed body, thinkers such as Butler (2000) and Lorber (1992) argue that the very notion of a body is often a product of scientific inquiry, which is itself a product of the power structures aiming to maintain a rigid binary between feminine and masculine gender roles. If the world at large plays such a constitutive role in determining who we are, then this implies that the tools we use, the language we speak, and the power relationships in which we are enmeshed are components of what it means to be embodied in any genuine sense. For thinkers like Haraway (1988) the image of the cyborg is most fitting for this new understanding of embodied subjects, as the cyborg is a coupling of machine and human. Gender and even biological sex will always be a technologically hybridized ‗monster‘ consisting of matter, machine, and mind. The overall aim of my project is thus to bring the two concurrent developments in theorizing about embodied subjects into discourse. As the cyborg features largely in recent feminist thought about embodiment, so too has it been a prominent metaphor in philosophy of mind, ever since Clark (2003) claimed that we ought to think of our ‗selves‘ more appropriately as Natural-Born Cyborgs. I therefore focus on this imagery as I go on to make the argument that this distributed account of cognition as well as of sexual identity is more fruitful for making progress in understanding ‗the human‘ more generally. Likewise, I argue that bringing the discussion of sex and gender into the arena of an otherwise asexual philosophy of mind, will shed light on some important facets of embodiment that have been overlooked but that ought to be addressed if we are to have an adequate account of ‗the proper subject of cognitive science.‘ My chapters include 1) a survey of the discourse between science and philosophy of mind leading to these embodied and extended approaches, 2) a first attempt at defending the extended mind thesis, 3) a discussion of how even the supposed resolution to the objections raised against extended cognition fails to properly take into account just how problematic subjectivity is, regardless of its being defined entirely organismic or not, as organisms themselves are highly malleable and socially constituted, 4) an explanation concerning how the same problematization of embodied subjectivity is ongoing in feminist theory, especially considering the phenomenology of transgendered embodiment, intersex, and technologically mediated bodies, 5) further elaboration on technologically enhanced bodies, exposing what I see as a continuum between bodies modified by ‗hard‘ technologies, such as implants, prostheses or surgeries, and those modified by ‗soft‘ technologies, such as gender norms, the social gaze, and technologically mediated metacognition, and last, 6) an argument for the image of the cyborg to replace ‗organism‘ in cognitive science, along with the corollary argument that cyborgs ought to represent not just embodied minds, but should also be the metaphor in attempting to understand ‗embodiment‘ more generally, which must, at its roots, be underpinned by gender and sexual identity. I argue that the imagery is fitting for the proper study of cognitive subjects as well as sexed and gendered bodies, but moreover, that just as the cyborg suggests a blending and hybridizing of seemingly unrelated elements, so too should the two areas of inquiry, philosophy of mind and feminist theory, pay heed to one another‘s use of this imagery and themselves begin to be more integrative in their approaches.

The Direction Orientation Test (DOT) on the current version of the Aviation Selection Test Battery has seen ceiling effects in recent years necessitating a need for a change in how the Navy assesses spatial reasoning, and in part due to techniques which had been taught to examinees prior to their taking the exam. This exam impacts the selection of 1,000 naval aviators across the Marine Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard. As new tests were placed into developmental stages, questions arose whether it was the test that mattered or the techniques, including the ability to extend cognition by utilizing available tools in the environment. This study aims to investigate whether the extension of cognition, or the integration of affordances and techniques improves human performance on the TOT. The study intended to provide metrics for the extension of cognition and compare performance in accuracy and questions attempted. The study included 144 Sailors and Marines participating in one of three conditions: Control, Experimental Condition 1 (EC1), and Experimental Condition 2 (EC2). EC1 participants conducted the trial with the allowance to use paper or pencil (as tools to extend their cognition). EC2 allowed the participants the same utilization as EC1, while integrating spatial reasoning methods taught during the trial. The results showed that the extension of cognition alone, EC1, did not outperform the other groups in accuracy, or questions attempted but yielded the shortest response time. EC2 outperformed the groups in accuracy and questions attempted but yielded the longest response time. These results demonstrate that when seeking overall effectiveness with a new training tool or method that considerations must be given to how the human in the loop will interact with the tools and techniques, and their basic understanding of the intended utilization will show performance improvements. This approach applies to many designers and developers across the modeling and simulation space to drive at improved efficiencies in transitioning innovations.

This study mainly focuses on the emergence and utilization of communication systems in the context of joint action where collective cognitive activity is required. Dyads are given an instant messaging medium of communication where only a limited number of characters and symbols can be used for information exchange in order to collaborate on common tasks of finding objects, in a network-based interactive virtual environment (ActiveWorlds), a 3D, multi-agent, virtual reality platform. The restrictions on communication and the requirement of collaboration facilitated the creation of a lexical inventory and a minimalistic communication system, a compressed version of dyads&rsquo / shared Natural Languages (NLs). Across eight experimental sessions, two manipulations are made in order to study their effects on parameters on 4 levels of analysis: (1) Quantitative, (2) Syntactic Complexity, (3) Lexical Category and (4) Speech Act Category. The two interventions are (1) increasing the number of targets from one to two after the first three experiments, and (2) administering a two months break between the 6th and 7th-8th experiments. Increased number of target objects influenced the quantitative parameters that are related to the amount of communication as well as the use scores of lexical, syntactic, and speech act categories / however, the use ratios of several parameters were resilient under this manipulation and rather showed different trends of change characterizing the development of the system towards a more mature state in accordance with the demands of the task structure. The opposing trends of increasing use ratio of Assertive and decreasing use ratio of Directive Speech Acts and decreasing use ratios of the Type/Token Number of Lexical Items in a session, the Number of New Lexical Items in a session and increasing ratio of Turn Success are also characteristics of this maturation. The break administered between the 6th and 7th experimental session did not cause any decay in the acquired skills of using the emerged communication system. The previously negotiated strategies and acquired skills of communication as well as the trends of the use ratios of parameters were resilient. The qualitative analysis of the developing communication system revealed several strategies, including compression of NL words into new lexical items, exploiting the redundancy of characters of written words, and iconicity and indexicality of given symbols. The main drivers of the development of the new communication system appeared to be the processes of integration of communicative with behavioral action. The cognitive capacities enabling this integration and the comprehension of the utterances in the new system is explained by the Cognitive and Communicative Principles of Relevance that are attributed to a comprehension sub-module of a mind-reading module of the human cognitive system.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This dissertation has as its object the concept of creativity, as applied on entertainment products, more specifically on video games. Since this is a concept that has been used as an analysis category for researches within the CiberCog Research Lab, we want to problematize and redefine its parameters for future investigations. Thus our goal is to revise the concept of creativity, seeking to uncover how this category shall be used to study cognitive abilities that are required (and/or stimulated) for the fruition of entertainment products, most specially video games. The selected games for this study were divided into two groups (according to their genre): (1) action/adventure games, and (2) platform games. In the first group, we have Assassins Creed III (Ubisoft 2012); in the second, we have Rayman Origins (Ubisoft 2011). For the implementation of the research, there is a Cartographic-inspired method which stimulated the writing of collected data

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This dissertation has as its object the concept of creativity, as applied on entertainment products, more specifically on video games. Since this is a concept that has been used as an analysis category for researches within the CiberCog Research Lab, we want to problematize and redefine its parameters for future investigations. Thus our goal is to revise the concept of creativity, seeking to uncover how this category shall be used to study cognitive abilities that are required (and/or stimulated) for the fruition of entertainment products, most specially video games. The selected games for this study were divided into two groups (according to their genre): (1) action/adventure games, and (2) platform games. In the first group, we have Assassins Creed III (Ubisoft 2012); in the second, we have Rayman Origins (Ubisoft 2011). For the implementation of the research, there is a Cartographic-inspired method which stimulated the writing of collected data

Shepard and Metzler (1971) argued that mental rotation is analogous to the real world in that people imagine the rotation of an object as if it were being physically rotated. This study tested this assertion by exposing participants to physical shapes that increased in size and weight. Participants interacted with blocks designed after Shepard and Metzler mental rotation size that differed in size and weight then performed subsequent mental rotation. We found no difference in reaction time but found that increased size reduced accuracy. We discuss the implications of this study as they pertain to embodied cognition.