Mind-Technology Problem

Robert W. Clowes is Senior Researcher and Coordinator of the Lisbon Mind and Reasoning Group at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. His research interests span a range of topics in philosophy and cognitive science, including the philosophy of technology, memory, agency, skills, and the implications of embodiment and cognitive extension for our understanding of the mind and conscious experience. He is particularly interested in the philosophical and cognitive scientific significance of new technologies, especially those involving the Internet and Artificial Intelligence and how these interact with human agency. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including TOPOI, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, AI & Society, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, Philosophy and Technology, and the Journal of Consciousness Studies. He received his Ph.D at the University of Sussex. Klaus Gärtner studied Philosophy at the University of Regensburg. He obtained his PhD at the Instituto de Filosofia da Nova (Universidade Nova de Lisboa). Currently, he is a Researcher at the Departamento de História e Filosofia das Ciências and member of the Centro de Filosofia das Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa in the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. He is also a founding member of the Lisbon Mind and Reasoning Group. His research interests include Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Science, Epistemology and Metaphysics. Inês Hipólito is a Postdoctoral fellow and a lecturer at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), and an affiliated member to the Neurobiology group at the Wellcome centre for Human Neuroimaging (University College London). She works on the intersection between philosophy of cognition and computational neuroscience. More precisely, Hipólito applies tools of conceptual modelling to answer philosophical questions of cognition that are compatible with the formalisms of dynamical systems theory. Hipólito has co-edited special issues for Philosophical Transactions, Consciousness and Cognition, and the Mind and Brain Studies (Springer). She has published work in edited books (Routledge, CUP) and journals (Australasian Philosophical Review, Physics of Life Reviews, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Synthese, Network Neuroscience). Hipólito’s work has been honoured with international prizes and awards, including the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Higher Education; the University of Oxford; the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies; and an award by the British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience.

“The Mind-Technology Problem: Investigating Minds, Selves, and twenty-first century artefacts edited by Clowes et al. (2021) covers a wide range of issues related to the development of technologies that emulate parts or even the whole of our mind. … Mapping out ways to live well and ethically with smart technologies … is a crucial task for science in the twenty-first century (Vuong 2018). Clowes et al. (2021)’s edited volume will equip the readers with in-depth knowledge … .” (Manh‑Tung Ho, AI & SOCIETY, Vol. 39 (2), 2024)

• Part 1. Extended Mind, Extended Cognition, Distributed self.- Chapter 1. The Distributed Self (Richard Heersmink).- Chapter 2. Slow, Continuous Uploading: Super-selves and Alternative Routes to Personal Immortality (Robert Clowes).- Part 2. Metaphysics of the Mind.- Chapter 3. Machine Consciousness: Moving beyond “Is it Possible?” (Ron Chrisley).- Chapter 4. Is the Mind Software? Is it Physical? Metaphysics of Mind for the 21st Century (Susan Schneider).- Part 3. Radical Brain Enhancement and Uploading.- Chapter 5. The Myth of Mind Uploading (Gualtiero Piccinini).- Chapter 6. Predicting Me, Experiencing Us: Predictive Processing, Big Data and the Mind of Society (Paul Smart, Kieron O'Hara and Wendy Hall).