ABSTRACT

What is the role of the environment, and of the information it provides, in cognition? More specifically, may there be a role for certain artefacts to play in this context? These are questions that motivate "4E" theories of cognition (as being embodied, embedded, extended, enactive). In his take on that family of views, Hajo Greif first defends and refines a concept of information as primarily natural, environmentally embedded in character, which had been eclipsed by information-processing views of cognition. He continues with an inquiry into the cognitive bearing of some artefacts that are sometimes referred to as 'intelligent environments'. Without necessarily having much to do with Artificial Intelligence, such artefacts may ultimately modify our informational environments.

With respect to human cognition, the most notable effect of digital computers is not that they might be able, or become able, to think but that they alter the way we perceive, think and act.

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has been made available under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence

chapter 1|11 pages

Preliminaries

Ants and robots, parlour games and steam drills
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part I|94 pages

Informational environments

chapter 2|19 pages

Resurrecting Dretskean information

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chapter 3|22 pages

Varieties of perception

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chapter 4|20 pages

The domains of natural information

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chapter 5|16 pages

Making an environment

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chapter 6|15 pages

What is an informational environment?

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part II|88 pages

Environments of intelligence

chapter 7|21 pages

The extension of the extended mind

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chapter 8|19 pages

The nature of cognitive artefacts

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chapter 9|31 pages

The intelligence of environments

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