About this episode

The episode explores the concept of extended cognition and participatory sense-making with psychologist Rebecca Todd, discussing the impact of technology and nature on our cognitive processes.

How separate is the cognition in our heads from cognition with our bodies, our tools, our communities and our ecosystems? What is participatory sense making and why is our world becoming less and less disposed to doing it? What does connecting cognitively with the world beyond our own bodies do for our sense making, and so for the future of our species? In this episode we have the intriguing topic of extended cognition to explore, and in particular the field of participatory sense-making. So we get into the extended component of the 5E’s model of embodied cognition; how our technologies, including AI, are much more influential on our cognition than mere tools that we set aside after use; we talk about our co-dependence on the natural world, and what happens to cognition and our society when our sense of “kinship” with it is lost; And we get into detail on the crucial process of participatory sense making, and how important it is to arrive to consensus rather than getting bogged down in polarisation, which in turn allows us to decide on urgent solutions as a species. Fortunately these are the exact specialisations of our guest, psychologist, cognitive scientist and philosopher at…

People in this episode

Host: Freddy Drabble

Guest: Rebecca Todd

Topics covered

• extended cognition
• participatory sense-making
• embodied cognition
• cognition and technology
• kinship with nature
• polarization and consensus

Keywords

• extended cognition
• participatory sense-making
• embodied cognition
• cognition
• technology
• kinship
• polarization
• consensus

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of British Columbia

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