Abstract
By examining the contingent alliance that has emerged between the computational theory of mind and cyborg theory, we discern some questionable ways in which the literalization of technological metaphors and the over-extension of the “computational” have functioned, not only to influence conceptions of cognition, but also by becoming normative perspectives on how minds and bodies should be transformed, such that they can capitalize on technology’s capacity to enhance cognition and thus amend our sense of what it is to be “human”. We consider “a moratorium on cyborg discourse” as a way of focusing the conceptual and social–political problems posed by this alliance.
Notes
We accept the view that the concepts one chooses are already part of the process by which evaluation is facilitated; that acts of description are already—as Rorty continually argues–ways of taking a position on matters of cultural concern. Likewise, our analysis here presumes that cyborg-talk is not culturally neutral concerning ontology. Rather, it is already aligned with a context, with a program that slants ontological description in specific ways (see Rorty 2007).
To minimize potential confusion, it should be noted that by foregrounding “metaphor” in this way we are not treating CTM as a false (or true) theory that is to be judged by reference to an independent set of “empirically accurate” (or inaccurate) referents. Rather, we are making the meta-epistemological point that it does nothing extra to compliment a descriptive and explanatory vocabulary in terms of “accuracy” in the first place. In a Kuhnian sense, CTM is a normal vocabulary that makes representational claims, but such claims are always bounded by the operative vocabulary itself; as with all human constructed theoretical frameworks, the possibility of capturing the “mental phenomena themselves” is foreclosed from the start. Thus, when we say that an epistemic alliance “is made in metaphor,” we are not directly contributing to the existing literatures that question the empirical “evidence” for CTM. Rather, our claim is that the vocabularies by which empirical work is facilitated are sustained (or abandoned) only in relation to their perceived superiority to rival vocabularies. Thus, if we appear to be taking a substantive stand by appealing to “metaphor,” it is because we are affirming pluralism: CTM may be quite useful for accomplishing some purposes—for mapping, modeling, predicting, controlling, for aligning digital technologies as tools with diagnostic or therapeutic procedures of a certain type, say—and not for accomplishing others. The critical point, then, is that vocabularies are purposeful, and that the metaphorical alliances between vocabularies are ways in which some of these purposes become shared and mutually reinforcing. The metaphorical alliance we have in mind suggests a larger constellation of forces—a worldview, if you will—is at play, one that is ultimately interpretative in nature, and not reducible to a specific empirical claim.
We concentrate more extensively on Clark’s work in Selinger and Engström 2007.
References
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Acknowledgements
We’re grateful to the following people for their assistance with this essay: Shaun Gallagher, Jesus Aguilar, Eric Dietrich, and Art Berman. Andy Clark was an especially generous interlocutor, and we deeply appreciate all of the correspondences that occurred.
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Selinger, E., Engström, T. A moratorium on cyborgs: Computation, cognition, and commerce. Phenom Cogn Sci 7, 327–341 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-008-9104-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-008-9104-4