Abstract
This paper demonstrates the value that cognitive concepts can bring to agnotology applied to the study of digital media. Agnotology, the study of the cultural production of ignorance, can be hastily identified with one of its themes: unjustified prejudices against advanced technologies. Advanced digital techniques have been with us for a long time, for better or worse. However, technophilic enthusiasm obscures the other side. Philosophers of cognitive science are sometimes too hasty in defining digital media as our cognitive extensions. With great caution, one should consider the possibility that ordinary technology users are also cognitively limited. In the “best” case, they are the individuals from whom AI learns. In other cases, they are the cognitive and executive extensions of socio-technical systems (for the benefit of commercial, political, or other interests). Although agnology identifies social networks of cognitive limitations, studying the mechanisms responsible for these limitations requires cognitive science. I argue that the concept of distributed cognition (DCog) and the predictive processing perspective (PP) provide such possibilities. DCog analyzes human-technological interaction systems as distributed cognitive systems. In these systems, humans are not always cognitive centers, but rather components, alongside artifacts, with which they process internal and external cognitive representations. PP treats the brain as a predictive machine that strives to minimize cognitive uncertainty through two types of reasoning: perceptual and active, which sometimes results in cognitive limitations. Using the example of the conspiracy theories supported be digital media, I demonstrate the usefulness of both approaches.
Presenters
Witold WachowskiAssistant Professor, Department of Logic and Cognitive Science, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lubelskie, Poland
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Distributed Cognition, Predictive Processing, Agnotology, Cognitive Extension, Cognitive Limination, Media
