https://aeon.co/ideas/are-you-just-insid...art-of-you
EXCERPT: . . . The Chief Justice probably wasn’t making a metaphysical point – but the philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers were when they argued in ‘The Extended Mind’ (1998) that technology is actually part of us. [...] Objects such as smartphones or notepads are often just as functionally essential to our cognition as the synapses firing in our heads. They augment and extend our minds by increasing our cognitive power and freeing up internal resources.
If accepted, the extended mind thesis threatens widespread cultural assumptions about the inviolate nature of thought, which sits at the heart of most legal and social norms. As the US Supreme Court declared in 1942: ‘freedom to think is absolute of its own nature; the most tyrannical government is powerless to control the inward workings of the mind.’ [...] One’s inner life thus needs protecting only when it is externalised, such as through speech. Many researchers in cognitive science still cling to this Cartesian conception – only, now, the private realm of thought coincides with activity in the brain.
But today’s legal institutions are straining against this narrow concept of the mind. They are trying to come to grips with how technology is changing what it means to be human, and to devise new normative boundaries to cope with this reality. [...] Given how our smartphones have taken over what were once functions of our brains – remembering dates, phone numbers, addresses – perhaps the data they contain should be treated on a par with the information we hold in our heads. So if the law aims to protect mental privacy, its boundaries would need to be pushed outwards to give our cyborg anatomy the same protections as our brains.
This line of reasoning leads to some potentially radical conclusions. Some philosophers have argued that when we die, our digital devices should be handled as remains: if your smartphone is a part of who you are, then perhaps it should be treated more like your corpse than your couch. Similarly, one might argue that trashing someone’s smartphone should be seen as a form of ‘extended’ assault, equivalent to a blow to the head, rather than just destruction of property. If your memories are erased because someone attacks you with a club, a court would have no trouble characterising the episode as a violent incident. So if someone breaks your smartphone and wipes its contents, perhaps the perpetrator should be punished as they would be if they had caused a head trauma.through drugs...
MORE: https://aeon.co/ideas/are-you-just-insid...art-of-you
EXCERPT: . . . The Chief Justice probably wasn’t making a metaphysical point – but the philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers were when they argued in ‘The Extended Mind’ (1998) that technology is actually part of us. [...] Objects such as smartphones or notepads are often just as functionally essential to our cognition as the synapses firing in our heads. They augment and extend our minds by increasing our cognitive power and freeing up internal resources.
If accepted, the extended mind thesis threatens widespread cultural assumptions about the inviolate nature of thought, which sits at the heart of most legal and social norms. As the US Supreme Court declared in 1942: ‘freedom to think is absolute of its own nature; the most tyrannical government is powerless to control the inward workings of the mind.’ [...] One’s inner life thus needs protecting only when it is externalised, such as through speech. Many researchers in cognitive science still cling to this Cartesian conception – only, now, the private realm of thought coincides with activity in the brain.
But today’s legal institutions are straining against this narrow concept of the mind. They are trying to come to grips with how technology is changing what it means to be human, and to devise new normative boundaries to cope with this reality. [...] Given how our smartphones have taken over what were once functions of our brains – remembering dates, phone numbers, addresses – perhaps the data they contain should be treated on a par with the information we hold in our heads. So if the law aims to protect mental privacy, its boundaries would need to be pushed outwards to give our cyborg anatomy the same protections as our brains.
This line of reasoning leads to some potentially radical conclusions. Some philosophers have argued that when we die, our digital devices should be handled as remains: if your smartphone is a part of who you are, then perhaps it should be treated more like your corpse than your couch. Similarly, one might argue that trashing someone’s smartphone should be seen as a form of ‘extended’ assault, equivalent to a blow to the head, rather than just destruction of property. If your memories are erased because someone attacks you with a club, a court would have no trouble characterising the episode as a violent incident. So if someone breaks your smartphone and wipes its contents, perhaps the perpetrator should be punished as they would be if they had caused a head trauma.through drugs...
MORE: https://aeon.co/ideas/are-you-just-insid...art-of-you