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Full Idea
Beliefs are partly constituted by features of the environment. ....a notebook plays for one person the same role that memory plays for another. ...The information is reliably there, available to consciousness, and to guide action, just as belief is.
Gist of Idea
A notebook counts as memory, if is available to consciousness and guides our actions
Source
A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §4)
Book Ref
-: 'Analysis' [-], p.5
A Reaction
This is the modern externalist approach to beliefs (along with broad content and external cognition systems). Not quite what we used to mean by beliefs, but we'll get used to it. I believe Plato wrote what it said in his books. Is memory just a role?
| 6176 | A mechanism can count as 'cognitive' whether it is in the brain or outside it [Clark/Chalmers, by Rowlands] |
| 19741 | If something in the world could equally have been a mental process, it is part of our cognition [Clark/Chalmers] |
| 19742 | Consciousness may not extend beyond the head, but cognition need not be conscious [Clark/Chalmers] |
| 19743 | A notebook counts as memory, if is available to consciousness and guides our actions [Clark/Chalmers] |
| 19744 | If a person relies on their notes, those notes are parted of the extended system which is the person [Clark/Chalmers] |