WEBVTT 00:00:14.158 --> 00:00:15.655 Hi, everyone! 00:00:16.495 --> 00:00:20.839 I want to talk to you about a new way of looking at the mind. 00:00:21.414 --> 00:00:25.915 What I call the extended mind is the idea 00:00:25.915 --> 00:00:31.788 that the technology we use becomes part of our minds, 00:00:32.925 --> 00:00:39.853 extending our minds and indeed ourselves into the world. 00:00:40.139 --> 00:00:43.777 We'll start with something that might be a little bit more familiar: 00:00:44.410 --> 00:00:47.086 the extended body. 00:00:47.886 --> 00:00:50.950 We are used to the idea that we can extend our bodies 00:00:50.950 --> 00:00:52.913 with technology. 00:00:53.053 --> 00:00:55.051 We know about prosthetic limbs. 00:00:55.501 --> 00:00:58.511 Here is the athlete Oscar Pistorius 00:00:58.511 --> 00:01:02.611 running on his prosthetic legs. 00:01:02.611 --> 00:01:06.811 You don't need prosthetic limbs to extend your body. 00:01:08.462 --> 00:01:15.453 Blind people say that their canes serve as an extension of their body. 00:01:16.173 --> 00:01:19.059 You know, it feels exactly like a body from the inside, 00:01:19.059 --> 00:01:22.169 or in more mundane everyday experience, 00:01:22.169 --> 00:01:25.990 a car can feel like an extension of your body, 00:01:25.990 --> 00:01:30.782 a bike, or indeed, a musical instrument. 00:01:30.782 --> 00:01:33.398 You saw a great illustration of that a few minutes ago 00:01:33.398 --> 00:01:38.300 with Tjupurru with his didjeribone, a real extension of his body. 00:01:38.300 --> 00:01:44.193 Well, so it is with the body, so it is for the extended mind, 00:01:44.203 --> 00:01:49.105 where technology gets incorporated into our human minds. 00:01:49.105 --> 00:01:53.382 You might think that to incorporate technology into your mind 00:01:53.382 --> 00:01:56.112 you'd have to turn yourself into a cyborg. 00:01:56.482 --> 00:01:58.467 Something like that! 00:01:58.467 --> 00:02:02.933 A whole bunch of, you know, of pipes and tubes inside your head, 00:02:02.933 --> 00:02:07.049 or at least you need a whole bunch of fancy technology 00:02:07.049 --> 00:02:09.480 like this on your head, 00:02:09.480 --> 00:02:14.752 but I actually think there's a more ordinary kind of mind extension, 00:02:14.752 --> 00:02:19.099 which is happening to us right now, all the time, 00:02:19.099 --> 00:02:21.859 as we move into the technological future. 00:02:21.859 --> 00:02:25.184 So take our friend the iPhone. 00:02:26.594 --> 00:02:30.762 I've had one of these now for maybe three or four years, 00:02:31.122 --> 00:02:33.959 and it's basically started taking over 00:02:33.959 --> 00:02:36.554 a whole bunch of the functions of my brain. 00:02:36.554 --> 00:02:37.859 (Laughter) 00:02:37.859 --> 00:02:41.757 Things my brain used to do are now done by my iPhone. 00:02:41.757 --> 00:02:43.441 I mean, there's a million examples, 00:02:43.441 --> 00:02:44.781 take memory: 00:02:45.961 --> 00:02:49.370 How many people use their brains to remember phone numbers anymore? 00:02:49.370 --> 00:02:50.380 Not me! 00:02:50.380 --> 00:02:52.917 You know, my iPhone does all the work. 00:02:52.917 --> 00:02:56.164 It used to be, the biological memory used to carry the load, 00:02:56.164 --> 00:02:58.643 now the iPhone is carrying the load for me, 00:02:58.643 --> 00:03:00.660 acting as my memory. 00:03:00.660 --> 00:03:03.050 The iPhone serves to control 00:03:03.050 --> 00:03:06.136 planning functions that my brain used to do. 00:03:06.136 --> 00:03:08.136 Spatial navigation, 00:03:08.136 --> 00:03:11.072 offloaded from my brain into Google Maps. 00:03:11.282 --> 00:03:15.840 The iPhone even stores as the repository of my desires. 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:19.101 I've got a program on the iPhone 00:03:19.101 --> 00:03:23.231 that tells me my favorite dishes at the local restaurant. 00:03:23.231 --> 00:03:26.022 I go there and just look it up and say this, this, this. 00:03:26.022 --> 00:03:29.154 The iPhone is controlling my desires for me. 00:03:29.454 --> 00:03:31.640 It even makes decisions for me. 00:03:31.662 --> 00:03:34.562 Here's the executive decision maker. 00:03:34.562 --> 00:03:36.852 Am I going to go speak at that TED conference? 00:03:36.852 --> 00:03:39.093 Oh, definitely! 00:03:40.963 --> 00:03:44.081 You might say, "Okay, well, this is all a big metaphor, 00:03:44.081 --> 00:03:46.681 and it's a little bit like a mind in someways." 00:03:46.681 --> 00:03:48.410 But I think there's actually 00:03:48.410 --> 00:03:52.610 an interesting philosophical thesis here that I want to defend, 00:03:52.610 --> 00:03:57.500 that in some sense the iPhone is literally becoming part of your mind. 00:03:57.500 --> 00:04:00.049 Your mind is extending from your brain into the world, 00:04:00.049 --> 00:04:03.355 so the iPhone is actually part of it. 00:04:03.355 --> 00:04:06.174 The iPhone hasn't been implanted into your mind, 00:04:06.174 --> 00:04:08.354 but you might think it's as if it were in. 00:04:08.354 --> 00:04:11.164 Here's an iPhone implanted into your mind, 00:04:11.164 --> 00:04:14.129 it's as if it was implanted into your mind, 00:04:14.129 --> 00:04:17.039 although it's actually out there in the world. 00:04:17.078 --> 00:04:19.210 That's the extended mind thesis. 00:04:19.210 --> 00:04:22.791 So the iPhone's memory is basically my memory. 00:04:22.791 --> 00:04:24.681 The iPhone’s planning or navigation 00:04:24.681 --> 00:04:29.490 is basically my planning and navigation as if it had happened inside the brain. 00:04:29.870 --> 00:04:33.163 Now for me as a philosopher, this is really interesting 00:04:33.163 --> 00:04:37.054 because one of the central philosophical problems about the mind, 00:04:37.054 --> 00:04:40.924 maybe the central philosophical problem about the mind, 00:04:40.930 --> 00:04:43.662 is what we call the mind-brain problem. 00:04:43.662 --> 00:04:48.876 How does the mind - your thinking and your feeling - relate to your brain, 00:04:49.080 --> 00:04:53.513 this bunch of mushy neurons you have inside your head? 00:04:53.534 --> 00:04:55.813 Is it something more or is it something less? 00:04:55.813 --> 00:04:57.972 If you ask most people, "Where is your mind?" 00:04:57.972 --> 00:05:00.972 they'd point and say, "Well, it's somewhere in there." 00:05:01.052 --> 00:05:03.139 This extended mind thesis, 00:05:03.139 --> 00:05:06.169 I think it's some transformed vision of the mind, 00:05:06.246 --> 00:05:08.296 but the mind is not just in the brain, 00:05:08.296 --> 00:05:10.625 it's partly in the world around us, 00:05:10.625 --> 00:05:14.251 in the environment that we interact with. 00:05:14.841 --> 00:05:15.951 Now, I don't know. 00:05:15.951 --> 00:05:20.128 You might think this is kind of crazy or even totally mad. 00:05:21.339 --> 00:05:25.667 When my collaborator, Andy Clark, and I 00:05:25.667 --> 00:05:30.387 first put this thesis forward back in the mid 1990s, 00:05:30.387 --> 00:05:32.865 we came across a bit of resistance then; 00:05:32.865 --> 00:05:36.162 a lot of people made objections. 00:05:36.162 --> 00:05:38.754 Back then, we didn't have iPhones. 00:05:38.754 --> 00:05:42.304 Our central example was a notebook. 00:05:42.304 --> 00:05:44.274 People writing stuff down in the notebook 00:05:44.274 --> 00:05:46.054 and using that as a memory. 00:05:46.054 --> 00:05:48.421 And indeed, you don't need high-tech 00:05:48.421 --> 00:05:52.764 to get the idea of the extended mind going. 00:05:52.764 --> 00:05:56.024 The very first time somebody counted on their fingers, 00:05:56.661 --> 00:05:59.051 that was a kind of mind extension. 00:05:59.051 --> 00:06:02.119 A kind of addition that could have been taking place in your head 00:06:02.119 --> 00:06:05.249 is happening on your fingers, but technology really amplifies 00:06:05.249 --> 00:06:07.461 this extension of our mind. 00:06:07.461 --> 00:06:12.201 And I think it's made the thesis ring true for more people as well, 00:06:12.201 --> 00:06:15.703 because we experience this actually happening to us. 00:06:15.703 --> 00:06:18.995 But still you might object in various ways. 00:06:18.995 --> 00:06:22.731 This iPhone is just a tool, it's not really part your mind. 00:06:22.731 --> 00:06:26.862 For it really to become part of your mind, you'd have to implant it like this. 00:06:26.862 --> 00:06:29.763 To be in your mind it's got to be on the inside of your skull. 00:06:29.763 --> 00:06:31.781 Or maybe, it can't be part of your mind: 00:06:31.781 --> 00:06:32.911 it's metal. 00:06:32.911 --> 00:06:34.781 Minds are biological. 00:06:34.781 --> 00:06:37.311 They involve a soul or something. 00:06:37.311 --> 00:06:39.151 Now, I think it's a tricky issue, 00:06:39.151 --> 00:06:41.422 but I think this kind of reaction which you get 00:06:41.422 --> 00:06:46.960 involves a kind of a brain chauvinism. 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:51.581 It's like a gender chauvinism, or race chauvinism, or species chauvinism. 00:06:51.591 --> 00:06:53.754 What's so special about the brain? 00:06:53.754 --> 00:06:56.392 What's so special about the inside of the brain, 00:06:56.392 --> 00:06:58.492 compared to the outside? 00:06:58.501 --> 00:07:00.061 For a start, it's like, 00:07:00.061 --> 00:07:03.023 if you've got stuff that's going on on the inside of the brain, 00:07:03.023 --> 00:07:06.814 the same stuff could in principle go on on the outside of the brain. 00:07:06.814 --> 00:07:09.862 We want to say [there's] no difference in principle 00:07:09.944 --> 00:07:13.234 as long as it's driving the processes inside the brain, 00:07:13.250 --> 00:07:14.861 the action, the consciousness, 00:07:14.861 --> 00:07:17.461 in the same way that would happen otherwise. 00:07:17.461 --> 00:07:20.196 There's no principle barrier about the skull; 00:07:20.212 --> 00:07:21.699 that would be skull chauvinism. 00:07:21.699 --> 00:07:25.867 Likewise, metal versus biology. 00:07:25.867 --> 00:07:29.217 If the metal does the same job the biology is doing, 00:07:29.217 --> 00:07:31.578 that would also count as part of the mind. 00:07:31.578 --> 00:07:35.321 Otherwise it would be biology, DNA chauvinism. 00:07:35.669 --> 00:07:40.243 So I think that objection can be rejected. 00:07:40.403 --> 00:07:43.482 You might think that - 00:07:44.772 --> 00:07:47.561 Somehow consciousness is at the very center of the mind, 00:07:47.561 --> 00:07:50.310 and I've got some sympathy with this. 00:07:50.310 --> 00:07:54.560 Consciousness is this deeply internal state. 00:07:54.579 --> 00:07:57.089 But I think what we're thinking, what we're feeling 00:07:57.089 --> 00:07:59.716 right in the present moment is at the core of the mind, 00:07:59.734 --> 00:08:02.414 but there's always a whole lot to our minds 00:08:02.414 --> 00:08:05.334 which is outside our consciousness. 00:08:05.334 --> 00:08:10.760 What we think, our innermost desires, our hopes, our fears, 00:08:10.760 --> 00:08:12.116 our personality traits, 00:08:12.116 --> 00:08:15.263 most of this is not passing through your mind at any given moment. 00:08:15.263 --> 00:08:17.501 Any given moment is just a tiny little snapshot. 00:08:17.501 --> 00:08:19.701 What makes you you is a whole bunch of stuff 00:08:19.701 --> 00:08:22.771 which is outside your consciousness available to affect us. 00:08:22.771 --> 00:08:25.993 So your memories are mostly outside your consciousness. 00:08:25.993 --> 00:08:27.641 The view here is it doesn't matter 00:08:27.641 --> 00:08:31.201 whether it's stored somewhere deep in your brain or out there in the world. 00:08:31.201 --> 00:08:35.170 If it's out there, accessible to you, driving your state, 00:08:35.170 --> 00:08:39.250 then it counts as part of your mind. 00:08:39.250 --> 00:08:41.510 There is still a brain at the core of all this. 00:08:41.510 --> 00:08:43.551 I'm not saying the iPhone is itself a mind. 00:08:43.551 --> 00:08:47.022 You are still the mind with your brain and your consciousness at the core. 00:08:47.022 --> 00:08:49.453 But the iPhone is part of it. 00:08:49.453 --> 00:08:52.489 It's kind of an extension, if you like. 00:08:52.489 --> 00:08:53.646 What was that? 00:08:53.646 --> 00:08:55.529 That's right, my iPhone begs to differ. 00:08:55.529 --> 00:08:57.809 It thinks it's the mind and I'm the extension. 00:08:57.809 --> 00:09:00.038 (Laughter) 00:09:01.628 --> 00:09:05.502 So this thesis I think is not just - it's a new way of looking at the world, 00:09:05.502 --> 00:09:07.608 a new way of looking at the mind. 00:09:07.608 --> 00:09:13.031 But I think it actually makes a difference to some of our practices. 00:09:15.084 --> 00:09:17.061 In Alzheimer's disease, 00:09:17.061 --> 00:09:20.599 when people describe themselves as losing their minds. 00:09:20.619 --> 00:09:23.696 And one thing we found works really well 00:09:23.696 --> 00:09:27.669 in handling people with Alzheimer and slowing the decline 00:09:27.669 --> 00:09:31.112 is the use of mind extension technology. 00:09:31.112 --> 00:09:33.692 People use notes in the environment, for example, 00:09:33.692 --> 00:09:37.162 to act as a kind of memory, external memory, with labels everywhere. 00:09:37.165 --> 00:09:42.098 This really serves to slow down the loss of mental function, 00:09:42.098 --> 00:09:47.271 keeping some aspect of their minds out there in the world. 00:09:47.273 --> 00:09:49.060 There are issues about - 00:09:49.060 --> 00:09:51.339 It makes a difference to education. 00:09:51.339 --> 00:09:55.296 There are debates about open book examinations 00:09:55.296 --> 00:09:57.084 and the use of calculators in exams. 00:09:57.084 --> 00:09:59.222 Well, if you take the extended mind thesis, 00:09:59.222 --> 00:10:02.086 you ought to be testing the whole extended self. 00:10:02.086 --> 00:10:04.700 If a calculator or a computer is going to be with you, 00:10:04.700 --> 00:10:08.005 coupled with you, reliably available in the future, 00:10:08.005 --> 00:10:09.914 it is part of your extended self, 00:10:09.914 --> 00:10:13.871 and you ought to be testing the whole extended self. 00:10:14.661 --> 00:10:18.135 Here's a case of extended perception. 00:10:18.975 --> 00:10:24.986 A blind person who starts using his iPhone as a vision tool. 00:10:24.986 --> 00:10:27.756 This is the color identification program, 00:10:27.756 --> 00:10:28.975 Color ID. 00:10:28.975 --> 00:10:30.708 You can download it. 00:10:30.708 --> 00:10:32.258 It basically reads out colors. 00:10:32.258 --> 00:10:34.439 You point it at something and it reads it out. 00:10:34.439 --> 00:10:38.910 He said he used this to see a sunset for the first time. 00:10:38.910 --> 00:10:44.422 He held it up and it said, "Red, orange, yellow, azure, crimson." 00:10:44.422 --> 00:10:45.886 He was moved to tears. 00:10:45.886 --> 00:10:48.517 It felt like he was seeing the sunset for the first time 00:10:48.517 --> 00:10:50.527 using this as an extended vision mechanism, 00:10:50.527 --> 00:10:52.071 extended perception mechanism. 00:10:52.071 --> 00:10:56.301 And as wearable computing becomes more and more ubiquitous in our lives, 00:10:56.301 --> 00:10:59.233 this is just going, I think, to become more and more common. 00:10:59.233 --> 00:11:03.754 Here we've got glasses that compute stuff for us through extended perception. 00:11:03.754 --> 00:11:07.695 There's also the socially extended mind. 00:11:07.695 --> 00:11:11.753 We all know when other people become extensions of your mind. 00:11:11.753 --> 00:11:13.796 We all know long-term couples 00:11:13.796 --> 00:11:18.721 where one person acts as another person's memory. 00:11:19.461 --> 00:11:21.833 You know, reminding them things at the right time, 00:11:21.833 --> 00:11:24.150 or when they finish each other's sentences 00:11:24.150 --> 00:11:28.754 or speak as a single individual in a conversation. 00:11:28.754 --> 00:11:31.509 In effect, what's happening now is one person is becoming 00:11:31.509 --> 00:11:36.103 part of, an extension of another person's mind or vice versa. 00:11:36.524 --> 00:11:38.280 I'll be in my mind if - 00:11:38.650 --> 00:11:40.810 I'll be in your mind if you'll be in mine. 00:11:40.810 --> 00:11:43.074 I think Bob Dylan said that. 00:11:43.884 --> 00:11:49.821 Also, social networking is really amplifying this. 00:11:50.361 --> 00:11:55.884 So, when I was preparing this talk about a month ago, 00:11:55.884 --> 00:11:59.588 I sent a note out to Facebook. 00:12:00.198 --> 00:12:03.930 "I've got to give a 15 minute TED Talk in Sydney next month, 00:12:03.930 --> 00:12:05.731 on the extended mind. 00:12:05.892 --> 00:12:08.937 Any ideas on how to approach it?" 00:12:08.937 --> 00:12:10.919 And I got a whole lot of responses, 00:12:10.919 --> 00:12:13.955 some pretty useful responses from this social network, 00:12:13.955 --> 00:12:16.945 which is kind of surrounding us, becoming part of our extended mind. 00:12:16.945 --> 00:12:20.222 There were more, and there were more, and there were more, 00:12:20.222 --> 00:12:21.232 (Laughter) 00:12:21.232 --> 00:12:24.796 including of a whole bunch of useful suggestions, I stole a bunch of them. 00:12:25.383 --> 00:12:26.738 Not least of them, this one, 00:12:26.738 --> 00:12:28.848 "Exciting, maybe you could work Facebook in?" 00:12:28.848 --> 00:12:29.860 (Laughter) 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:34.324 Or, "Well you could start by mentioning you crowdsourced the whole talk ..." 00:12:34.324 --> 00:12:37.413 Thanks guys, that was handy. 00:12:37.413 --> 00:12:43.701 Now there are some downsides and dangers to this whole extended mind thesis. 00:12:43.701 --> 00:12:46.043 And one is that as our minds move into the world, 00:12:46.043 --> 00:12:48.373 we become more vulnerable to their loss 00:12:48.373 --> 00:12:50.996 than when they are protected on the inside of the skull. 00:12:50.996 --> 00:12:57.670 This is already something familiar from things like the floods in Queensland 00:12:57.670 --> 00:13:00.613 or there are bushfires in Victoria. 00:13:00.613 --> 00:13:04.850 We often talk about the greatest tragedy being that people lose their memories. 00:13:06.390 --> 00:13:08.655 Their houses and their possessions and so on 00:13:08.655 --> 00:13:10.334 have basically become part of them. 00:13:10.334 --> 00:13:14.344 The loss of them really feels like the loss of one's self. 00:13:14.344 --> 00:13:17.785 And as more of one's mind gets extended, the more there is vulnerability. 00:13:17.785 --> 00:13:20.442 Just say somebody steals my iPhone. 00:13:20.442 --> 00:13:23.212 [IF YOU CAN READ THIS, SOMEBODY STOLE MY iPHONE] 00:13:23.212 --> 00:13:26.532 (Laughter) 00:13:26.532 --> 00:13:32.278 You might think that's a form of theft and they should be punished for this. 00:13:32.278 --> 00:13:34.916 But if I'm right, that should actually be reconceived 00:13:34.916 --> 00:13:37.562 as a really vicious form of assault. 00:13:37.562 --> 00:13:41.999 Like getting into my brain and messing with my neurons. 00:13:41.999 --> 00:13:46.156 And that really does kind of capture the attitude I have to my iPhone. 00:13:47.396 --> 00:13:50.002 You might worry this is going to turn us into robots. 00:13:50.002 --> 00:13:52.918 Remember the guy from Lost in Space? 00:13:52.918 --> 00:13:55.228 "Danger," Will Robinson! 00:13:55.228 --> 00:13:56.718 But I think we have to remember 00:13:56.718 --> 00:14:00.101 we still always have consciousness at the middle of this, and judgement, 00:14:00.101 --> 00:14:05.608 and the extension of our minds doesn't abrogate us from using our judgement. 00:14:05.608 --> 00:14:09.010 With better and better technology, which becomes more and more flexible, 00:14:09.010 --> 00:14:13.222 there's the hope that the interplay of judgement and technology 00:14:13.222 --> 00:14:15.221 might move us forward in interesting ways. 00:14:15.221 --> 00:14:17.590 So, I actually think then, to conclude, 00:14:17.590 --> 00:14:22.503 this extended mind thesis offers us some hope of an optimistic worldview. 00:14:23.090 --> 00:14:25.114 People say, "Is Google making us stupid?" 00:14:25.114 --> 00:14:28.060 This is a debate which has been out there in the media. 00:14:28.060 --> 00:14:31.024 Well, if I'm right about the extended mind thesis, 00:14:31.024 --> 00:14:34.595 there's a sense in which Google is actually making us smarter. 00:14:34.595 --> 00:14:36.495 Google is getting inside our minds. 00:14:36.495 --> 00:14:39.110 And I don't know about you, but I heard someone saying, 00:14:39.110 --> 00:14:42.220 "When I sit down and Google, I feel like my IQ goes up 30 points." 00:14:42.220 --> 00:14:43.303 (Laughter) 00:14:43.303 --> 00:14:48.693 It's like all that knowledge - and they say knowledge is power of a kind, 00:14:48.693 --> 00:14:52.354 so it leads to a kind of potential democratization, too, 00:14:52.354 --> 00:14:54.421 of the powers of the mind. 00:14:54.421 --> 00:14:58.194 As technology becomes cheaper and available to more, and more advanced, 00:14:58.194 --> 00:14:59.500 it's going to spread. 00:14:59.500 --> 00:15:01.690 Phones are already spreading. 00:15:01.690 --> 00:15:02.866 Google is spreading. 00:15:02.866 --> 00:15:05.004 With time, this becomes available to everyone. 00:15:05.004 --> 00:15:06.777 In a way I think what's going on here 00:15:06.777 --> 00:15:09.102 is a trend which is in the very early stages 00:15:09.102 --> 00:15:12.256 of turning us into superheroes of the mind. 00:15:12.256 --> 00:15:15.732 Technology is gradually giving us these superpowers, 00:15:15.732 --> 00:15:19.423 turning us into cognitive super geniuses, if you like, 00:15:19.423 --> 00:15:22.206 and it is going to go more and more this way in the future. 00:15:22.206 --> 00:15:27.928 The question is, will we use these powers for good or for evil? 00:15:28.338 --> 00:15:34.676 That's the gift of the extended mind and the challenge it presents 00:15:34.676 --> 00:15:37.158 as we move into our extended future. 00:15:37.158 --> 00:15:38.648 Thank you very much. 00:15:38.648 --> 00:15:42.278 (Applause)