Philosophical research at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences has fed into the establishment of the theory of “the extended mind” – that we do not think exclusively within our brains, but offload, store, and subsequently draw upon information in external tools - such as mobile phones, computers, and notebooks - in order to think and make decisions.
This research has identified that the process of “distributed cognition” has supported human thinking for centuries. Contemporary art frequently draws upon the concept of the extended mind, and this has been reflected in a major exhibition of leading international artists hosted at Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery in 2019 / 2020.
In this video, we explore research into the concept of the Extended Mind, and how this resulted in a ground-breaking art exhibition exploring the fact that information governing our thought processes is not always exclusively contained within our heads.
Additional Related Resources
The Extended Mind exhibition website and catalogue - https://www.trg.ed.ac.uk/exhibition/extended-mind
Further information on Dr Mark Sprevak’s research –
https://marksprevak.com/
Information on Talbot Rice Gallery –
https://www.trg.ed.ac.uk/
Information on the School of Psychology, Philosophy, and Language Sciences, the University of Edinburgh –
https://www.ed.ac.uk/PPLS
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