Extended Minds and Instrumentality
On_Culture March 5, 2026 Julian Asbaeck
This contribution takes a literary approach to extended cognition, using fictional journal entries to explore how interactions with nonhuman instruments shape cognitive development. The narrative tracks the emergence of novel cognitive structures following the introduction of a communication device, offering a genealogy of a communal shift in thought. A subsequent scholarly reflection rejects the idea that cognition is confined to the head, elaborating hybrid alliances between humans and nonhumans. It applies the extended mind hypothesis to artificial intelligence, asking how computational architectures that adapt to behavioral patterns modify critical assessment of the instrument relation.