The Internet is an important focus of attention for the philosophy of mind and cognitive science communities. This is partly because the Internet serves as an important part of the material environment in which a broad array of human cognitive and epistemic activities are situated. The Internet can thus be seen as an important part of the ‘cognitive ecology’ that helps to shape, support and realize aspects of human cognizing. Much of the previous philosophical work in this area has sought (...) to analyze the cognitive significance of the Internet from the perspective of human cognition. There has, as such, been little effort to assess the cognitive significance of the Internet from the perspective of ‘machine cognition’. This is unfortunate, because the Internet is likely to exert a significant influence on the shape of machine intelligence. The present paper attempts to evaluate the extent to which the Internet serves as a form of cognitive ecology for synthetic forms of intelligence. In particular, the phenomenon of Internet-situated machine intelligence is analyzed from the perspective of a number of approaches that are typically subsumed under the heading of situated cognition. These include extended, embedded, scaffolded and embodied approaches to cognition. For each of these approaches, the Internet is shown to be of potential relevance to the development and operation of machine-based cognitive capabilities. Such insights help us to appreciate the role of the Internet in advancing the current state-of-the-art in machine intelligence. (shrink)

Sex toys promote a new consumptive ethos whose significance may be adequately outlined by attending to the institutional implications of this product category’s consumption. By drawing on Foucault’s theory of sexuality and the technologies of the self that materialize with the aid of discursive formations about sexuality, as well as on relevant sociological and ethnographic insights, I undertake a qualitative content analysis on a corpus of 100 sex toys’ product reviews from popular magazines and web sites in order to identify (...) how the discourse about sex toys is articulated in terms of three dominant categories of sexual scripts (Simon and Gagnon 2007, Sexual scripts. In Richard Parker & Peter Aggleton (eds.), Culture, society, and sexuality: A reader, 29–38. London: Routledge), namely, cultural scenarios, interpersonal and intrapsychic scripts. By opening up the discussion to a broader cultural terrain, I outline how the consumption experience of sex toys, as articulated in the reviews’ discursive formations, facilitates the emergence of new consumer trends, particularly with reference to orgasm-on-the-go and no-touch-orgasm, while redefining existing ones. (shrink)

Recent achievements in rehabilitative robotics modify essential parameters of the human body, such as motility. Exoskeletons used for persons with neurological impairments like spinal cord injury and stroke enter this category by rehabilitating and assisting damaged motor patterns, achievements thought impossible until not long ago. Unlike other examples leading to similar dysfunctions, such as diseases or tumors, the experience of an accident causing a spinal cord injury or the occurrence of a cerebrovascular accident is sudden and perceived as a radical (...) event. This often leads to deep consequences for one’s own body capacities. Exoskeletons attempt to alter this condition, contributing to forge a temporary abled body, although this currently happens in the restricted space of a clinic or a lab and under very controlled conditions for the predominance of users. Using qualitative empirical material from an ongoing study in sociology, including expert and narrative interviews as well as ethnographic visits in labs and centers that design and test exoskeletons, this article addresses the challenges and gains that people with stroke and spinal cord injury experience during their training with exoskeletons. The discussed cases contribute to reassess categories from the phenomenological paradigm, disability studies, and the role medical technologies play in contemporary body worlds. (shrink)

Motility impairments resulting from spinal cord injuries and cerebrovascular accidents are increasingly prevalent in society, leading to the growing development of rehabilitative robotic technologies, among them exoskeletons. This article outlines how bodies with neurological conditions such as spinal cord injury and stroke engage in processes of re-appropriation while using exoskeletons and some of the challenges they face. The main task of exoskeletons in rehabilitative environments is either to rehabilitate or ameliorate anatomic functions of impaired bodies. In these complex processes, they (...) also play a crucial role in recasting specific corporeal phenomenologies. For the accomplishment of these forms of corporeal re-appropriation, the role of experts is crucial. This article explores how categories such as bodily resistance, techno-inter-corporeal co-production of bodies and machines, as well as body work mark the landscape of these contemporary forms of impaired corporeality. While defending corporeal extension rather than incorporation, I argue against the figure of the ‘cyborg’ and posit the idea of ‘residual subjectivity’. (shrink)