Tool use and consciousness extension
Neuroscientists have found evidence that when a monkey learns to use a tool, it treats it like another body part. Earlier research has found that brain area F5 controlled the monkey’s ability to hold and use objects. The researchers recorded the activity of 113 neurons in F5 (as well as F1, also involved in manipulation) and discovered that the same ones fired in the same order when the monkeys grasped with their hands as when they used pliers, and even when they used reverse pliers that required they open their hand to grab the food. So, it seems that the monkey brain uses the same neural net for tool use as when using its hands, thereby extending its consciousness beyond its hand.
This serves as scientific support for the theory of extended cognition, as advanced by David Chalmers and Andy Clark. Our minds have a certain plasticity that allows them to go beyond bodily parameters. When writing with a pen, we are not conscious of manipulating an object, but can write without thinking about it, unless the pen breaks, at which point we are confronted with the reality that we are using a faulty tool. This mental plasticity allows people to use robotic prosthetic appendages, as well as let blind people see and deaf hear by means of cybernetic implants. The study reinforces that we do in fact extend our minds into the tools we use, incorporating them into a kind of machinic assemblage where subject and instrument are merged into one.
Tool Use Is Just a Trick of the Mind, ScienceNow.ScienceMag.org
The Extended Mind, Andy Clark and David Chalmers, Consc.net