From the Editors January 31, 2011 Issue

‘Where is my mind?’

The Editors

That question began a recent New York Times blog post by Andy Clark, an author and professor of logic and metaphysics at Edinburgh University in Scotland (“Out of Our Brains,” The Stone, December 12, 2010). Clark is a leader in the study of mind extension, or extended cognition. This asserts that our minds may not exist solely within the boundaries of biological construction, but extend beyond us into our environment. “Is it possible,” he also asks, “that, sometimes at least, some of the activity that enables us to be the thinking, knowing, agents that we are occurs outside the brain?”

Those questions relate to the study and practice of Christian Science. No, this blog wasn’t theological in nature. And it didn’t go so far as to claim that intelligence is something other than fundamentally neurologically based. Yet Clark did conclude, “Really understanding the mind, if the theorists of embodied and extended cognition are right, will require a lot more than just understanding the brain.”

Note that discussions such as this one are happening beyond just classrooms and laboratories. The comments on this blog involved a lively exchange of opinions that ran the gamut. “The key point is that our minds are in our physical beings,” proclaimed one reader. “The mind and the brain are not the same thing,” countered another. “Some people get it, some don’t.”

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