Andy Clark

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Andy Clark was director of the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University in Bloomington. Before this he taught at Washington University at St. Louis and Sussex University in England. He is now a Professor of Philosophy and chair in Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Professor Clark’s papers and books deal with the philosophy of mind and is considered a leading scientist in mind extension.

Clark’s mind extension theories revolve around the notion of cognitive hybridization, a tendency of the human brain to integrate closely with the technology in its environment unlike that of any other species, eventually becoming dependent upon it. Because of this, Clark draws parallels between modern humans and the science fiction notion of cyborgs. To Clark, a person using a calculator is as much a cyborg as is RoboCop.

Clark studies artificial intelligence and neural networks to find parallels with the function of the human mind. Clark forsees the development of cognitive prosthetics, or electronic brain enhancements, as only the next logical step in the human mind’s natural integration with technology. Clark’s research interests also include wetwiring and other human-electronic integration experiments, as well as technological advances in immediate human communication and their utilization in society.

[edit] Bibliography

Books by Andy Clark:

Microcognition: Philosophy, Cognitive Science and Parallel Distributed Processing
Associative Engines: Connectionism, Concepts and Representational Change (1993)
Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again
Natural Born Cyborgs
Mindware: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science (2001)

Clark is also on the editing boards of the following scientific journals: