An Example of a "Learning Process" Journal (using the 2 colored box format)

Book: Natural-Born Cyborgs by Andy Clark

Source: Oxford University Press 2003

Yellow highlighted passages: Introduction

• "For we shall be cyborgs not in the merely superficial sense of combining flesh and wires but in the more profound sense of being human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and nonbiological circuitry." [p. 3]
• "We see some of the 'cognitive fossil trail' of the cyborg trait in the historical procession of potent cognitive technologies that begins with speech and counting, morphs first into written text and numerals, then into early printing (without moveable typefaces), on to the revolutions of moveable typefaces and the printing press, and most recently to the digital encodings that bring text, sound, and image into a uniform and widely transmissible format." [p. 4]
• "... a cascade of 'mindware upgrades': cognitive upheavals in which the effective architecture of the human mind is altered and transformed." [p. 4]
• "The mind is just less and less in the head." [p. 4]
• "[The mind] is a structure whose virtue lies in part in its capacity to delicately gear its activities in order to collaborate with external, nonbiological sources of order to better solve the problems of survival and reproduction." [p. 5]
• "It is because we are so prone to think that the mental action is all, or nearly all, on the inside, that we have developed sciences and images of the mind that are, in a fundamental sense, inadequate ..." [p. 5]
• "For what is special about human brains, and what best explains the distinctive features of human intelligence, is precisely their ability to enter into deep and complex relationships with nonbiological constructs, props, and aids. ... The familiar theme of 'man the toolmaker' is thus taken one crucial step further. Many of our tools are not just external props and aids, but they are deep and integral parts of the problem-solving systems ... " [p. 5]
• "... the process of using pen and paper to multiply large numbers ... The brain thus dovetails its operation to the external symbolic resource. The reliable presence of such resources may become so deeply factored in that the biological brain alone is rendered unable to do the larger sums." [p. 6]
• "It is because we are natural-born cyborgs, forever ready to merge our mental activities with the operations of pen, paper, and electronics, that we are able to understand the world as we do." [p. 6]
• "Mind-expanding technologies come in a surprising variety of forms. They include the best of our old technologies: pen, paper, the pocket watch, the artist's sketchpad, and the old-time mathematician's slide rule." [p. 7]
• "cell phones ... they were buying mindware upgrades, electronic prostheses capable of extending and transforming their personal reach, thought, and vision." [p. 10]
• "...human thought and reason is born out of looping interactions between material brains, material bodies, and complex cultural and technological environments. We create these environments, but they create us too." [p. 11]

I agree with the opening quote. A preliminary example would be the use of Mathematica.

The fundamental idea that underlies all of this is that of the feedback loop, and in particular the positive (runaway) loop.

Yellow highlighted passages: Chap. 1 Cyborgs Unplugged

• "What we should really care about is not the mere fact of deep implantation or flesh-to-wire grafting, but the complex and transformative nature of the animal-machine relationships that may or may not ensue." [p. 22]
• "It is then an empirical question whether the greatest usable bandwidth and potential lies with full implant technologies or with well-designed nonpenetrative modes of personal augmentation" [p. 24]
• "Piloting a modern commercial airliner, it seems clear, is a task in which human brains and bodies act as elements in a larger, fluidly integrated, biotechnological problem-solving matrix." [p. 25]
• "My goal is ... to show how a complex matrix of brain, body, and technology can actually constitute the problem-solving machine that we should properly identify as ourselves." [p. 27]
• "... the wristwatch ... let individuals take real control of their daily schedule." [p. 28]
• "Nonpenetrative cyborg technology is all around us." [p. 28]

This is a good opening chapter. He provides many common (but rarely recognized) cyborg devices and goes on to show how they deeply affect the way we think.

April 25, 2004

I have just created a concept map for the first chapter of this book.

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