Synthese

DOI 10.1007/s11229-015-0971-2

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Does functionalism entail extended mind?

Kengo Miyazono1

Received: 2 June 2015 / Accepted: 8 November 2015

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract In discussing the famous case of Otto, a patient with Alzheimer’s disease
who carries around a notebook to keep important information, Clark and Chalmers
argue that some of Otto’s beliefs are physically realized in the notebook. In other
words, some of Otto’s beliefs are extended into the environment. Their main argument
is a functionalist one. Some of Otto’s beliefs are physically realized in the notebook
because, first, some of the beliefs of Inga, a healthy person who remembers important
information in her head, are physically realized in her internal memory storage, and,
second, there is no relevant functional difference between the role of the notebook for
Otto and the role of the internal memory storage for Inga. The paper presents a new
objection to this argument. I call it “the systems reply” to the functionalist argument
since it is structurally analogous to the “the systems reply” to Searle’s Chinese room
argument. According to the systems reply to the functionalist argument, what actually
follows from their argument is not that beliefs of Otto are physically realized in the
notebook but rather that the beliefs of the hybrid system consisting of Otto and his
notebook are physically realized in the notebook. This paper also discusses Sprevak’s
claim that the functionalist argument entails radical versions of extended mental states
and shows that his argument is also vulnerable to the systems reply.

Keywords Extended mind · Functionalism · Belief · Chinese room argument ·

The systems reply

B Kengo Miyazono
kengomiyazono@gmail.com

1 Keio University, 2-15-45, Mita, Minato, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan

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1 Introduction

Clark and Chalmers (1998) present the following famous case.

Otto
Otto suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and like many Alzheimer’s patients, he
relies on information in the environment to help structure his life. Otto carries a
notebook around with him everywhere he goes. When he learns new information,
he writes it down. When he needs some old information, he looks it up. […]
Today, Otto hears about the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and decides
to go see it. He consults the notebook, which says that the museum is on 53rd
Street, so he walks to 53rd Street and goes into the museum (Clark and Chalmers
1998, pp. 12–13).
Clark and Chalmers argue that “Otto believed the museum was on 53rd Street even
before consulting his notebook” (Clark and Chalmers 1998, p. 13). The belief is not
physically realized inside his head. It is rather physically realized in his notebook. Let
us call this claim “Otto’s Extended Belief”.1
Otto’s Extended Belief (OEB)
Otto’s belief that the museum is on 53rd Street is physically realized in his
notebook.
OEB is the conjunction of two claims:
OEB1: The belief that the museum is on 53rd Street is physically realized in the
notebook.
OEB2: It is Otto who believes that the museum is on 53rd Street.
The main argument for OEB is a functionalist one. OEB is true because, first, in the
following case of Inga, Inga’s belief that the museum is on 53rd Street is physically
realized in her internal memory storage and, second, there is no relevant functional
difference between the role of the notebook for Otto and the role of the internal memory
storage for Inga; “the notebook plays for Otto the same role that memory plays for
Inga” (Clark and Chalmers 1998, p. 13).
Inga
Inga hears from a friend that there is an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art,
and decides to go see it. She thinks for a moment and recalls that the museum
is on 53rd Street, so she walks to 53rd Street and goes into the museum (Clark
and Chalmers 1998, p. 12).
The argument has invited a variety of responses. The focus of the debate in the extended
mind literature has been on OEB1. Critics are not convinced that the functionalist
argument establishes that a belief is physically realized in the notebook. For example,
Adams and Aizawa (2001) and Rupert (2004) argue that there are in fact relevant

1 This claim is committed to something more than the metaphysical possibility of extended beliefs. It is
committed to the possibility of extended beliefs with “no giant leaps of technology or technique” (Clark
2010b, p. 82). See Sect. 5 for details.

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functional differences between the notebook for Otto and the internal memory stor-
age for Inga. My focus in this paper, on the other hand, is on OEB2, which tends
to be neglected in the literature. I will question whether the functionalist argument
establishes that Otto, rather than someone else, believes that the museum is on 53rd
Street.
This paper presents a new objection to the functionalist argument for OEB. I call
it “the systems reply” (the SR) to the functionalist argument because it is analogous
to the SR to Searle’s (1980) Chinese room argument. Searle argues that what he calls
“strong AI (Artificial Intelligence)”, a version of functionalism, leads to the absurd
consequence that a person, with no experience of learning Chinese, understands Chi-
nese by entering a room and manipulating symbols in accordance with the instructions
in the book in the room. (See 3.2. for more details.) According to the SR to the Chi-
nese room argument, what actually follows from strong AI is not that the person in the
room understands Chinese but rather that the hybrid system, consisting of the person
and things in the room (such as the instruction book), understands Chinese. Similarly,
according to the SR to the functionalist argument for OEB, what actually follows from
the argument is not OEB but the following claim:
Otto-Notebook System’s Belief (ONSB)
The Otto-notebook system’s belief that the museum is on 53rd Street is physically
realized in the notebook.
ONSB is the conjunction of two claims:
ONSB1: The belief that the museum is on 53rd Street is physically realized in
the notebook.
ONSB2: It is the Otto-notebook system, rather than Otto, that believes that the
museum is on 53rd Street.
Note that ONSB1 is identical with OEB1. Thus, the difference between OEB and
ONSB consists in the difference between OEB2 (which attributes the belief to Otto)
and ONSB2 (which attributes the belief to the Otto-notebook system).
It should be noted that Clark and Chalmers expected this type of responses. Indeed,
it is part of their own claim that in cases such as Otto’s case, “human organism is
linked with an external entity in a two-way interaction, creating a coupled system
that can be seen as a cognitive system in its own right” (Clark and Chalmers 1998, p.
8). Clark and Chalmers, however, are not fully aware of the tension within their own
commitments. One the one hand, they defend OEB according to which it is Otto who
believes that the museum is on 53rd Street. On the one hand, however, they argue that
a hybrid system consisting of Otto and his notebook has been created.
My discussion proceeds as follows. Section 2 is a short introduction of the version
of functionalism that is presupposed in the functionalist argument for OEB. Section
3 discusses Sprevak’s (2009) claim that the functionalist argument entails radical
versions of extended beliefs and reveals that his argument is vulnerable to the SR.
Section 4, which is the main part of the paper, shows that the SR provides a powerful
objection not only to Sprevak but also to Clark and Chalmers.
Here are some preliminary remarks.

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First, I will discuss OEB, which is a claim about extended (dispositional) beliefs.
I will not discuss other sorts of mental or cognitive extensions, such as extended
cognitive processes or extended conscious states. However, it will not be difficult to
apply the SR to the functionalist arguments with regard to any sorts of mental or
cognitive extensions.2
Second, I will discuss the functionalist argument for OEB. I will not discuss other
arguments, for and against OEB, that are not directly related to the functionalist argu-
ment. Clark and Chalmers, for instance, argue that, by applying the notion of “belief”
to both Inga and Otto, the notion “picks out something more akin to a natural kind. The
notion becomes deeper and more unified, and is more useful in explanation” (Clark
and Chalmers 1998, p. 14). Rupert (2013) calls this “the natural kind argument” for
OEB. Adams and Aizawa (2001) argue against OEB on the ground that Otto’s note-
book lacks non-derived intentionality, which they take to be a crucial element of “the
mark of the cognitive”. This might be called “the mark of cognitive argument” against
OEB. These arguments for and against OEB will not be discussed in this paper.
Third, I will defend the SR to the functionalist argument for OEB. In doing so, I
will not assume the success of the SR to the Chinese room argument. Although the
SR to the Chinese room argument has been influential, some philosophers, including
Searle himself, are not convinced (Preston 2002; Searle 1980, 1990, 2002). As we
will see, although the SR to the functionalist argument is analogous to the SR to the
Chinese room argument, they are theoretically independent from each other in such
a way that one can coherently deny the SR to the Chinese room argument but accept
the SR to the functionalist argument.

2 CC functionalism

The functionalist argument by Clark and Chalmers presupposes a particular type of

functionalism. Let us call it “CC functionalism”. I will now explain what CC func-
tionalism is.
First, CC functionalism is a theory of beliefs rather than a general theory of mind.
Functionalism and its variants, such as dispositionalism (e.g., Schwitzgebel 2002) and
representationalist functionalism (e.g., Nichols and Stich 2003), are highly influential
in the debates on beliefs. Functionalism as a general theory of mind, on the other hand,
is highly controversial because of the difficulty it faces in accounting for phenome-
nal consciousness. Clark makes it explicit that CC functionalism “does not commit
us to any sort of functionalism about conscious mental states” (Clark 2008, p. 88).
Chalmers also writes: “I think that functionalism about consciousness is implausible,
for example, but this implausibility does not affect the arguments for the extended
mind thesis” (Chalmers 2008, p. xv).
Second, CC functionalism is not a strong form of functionalism that provides the
necessary and sufficient conditions for a person to believe something. Rather, CC
functionalism is “the very weak functionalism captured in the Parity Principle: roughly,

2 But, the functionalist argument might not be as crucial in the discussion of other sorts of mental or
cognitive extensions as in the discussion of extended beliefs. See, for example, Palermos (2014).

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if a state plays the same causal role in the cognitive network as a mental state, then
there is a presumption of mentality” (Chalmers 2008, p. xv). Let us introduce the
term “doxastic equivalence”. To say that an item X for a subject S1 and another
item Y for another subject S2 are “doxastically equivalent” is to say that S1’s belief
that P is physically realized in X if and only if S2’s belief that P is physically
realized in Y . With this terminology, the commitment of CC functionalist is that if
there are no relevant functional differences between the role of X for a subject S1
and the role of Y for another subject S2, then X for S1 and Y for S2 are doxastically
equivalent.3
Third, CC functionalism is a form of commonsense, coarse-grained functional-
ism, which individuates functional roles in terms of commonsensical, coarse-grained
descriptions rather than empirical, fine-grained descriptions. As Clark notes, “[i]t is the
coarse or common-sense functional role that, on this model (unlike that of empirical
functionalism), displays what is essential to the mental state in question” (Clark 2008,
p. 89). As Rupert (2004) points out, there are some psychological effects, such as the
negative transfer (i.e., the interference of new learning due to prior associations), that
can be observed in Inga’s internal memory storage but not in Otto’s notebook. Such
psychological effects, however, might not create a significant functional difference
between Inga’s internal memory storage and Otto’s notebook, according to CC func-
tionalism. After all, it is not part of the commonsensical, coarse-grained description of
beliefs that they exhibit such psychological effects. The effects are rather discovered
in empirical studies.4
CC functionalism is, therefore, the following claim:
CC Functionalism
If, according to the commonsensical and coarse-grained individuation of func-
tional roles, there is no relevant functional difference between the role of X for
a subject S1 and the role of Y for another subject S2, then X for S1 and Y for
S2 are doxastically equivalent.
Given CC functionalism, OEB follows from two claims. First, Inga’s belief that the
museum is on 53rd Street is physically realized in her internal memory storage. Second,
according to the commonsensical and coarse-grained individuation of functional roles,
there is no relevant functional difference between the role of the notebook for Otto
and the role of the internal memory storage for Inga. This is the functionalist argument
for OEB.

3 The claim is incompatible with content externalism when “P” in the definition of doxastic equivalence
refers to wide content. This is because, according to content externalism, functional equivalence does not
guarantee the equivalence of wide content. Thus, content externalists might want to regard “P” as referring
to narrow content rather than wide content.
4 Rupert might simply reject CC functionalism and argue that such psychological effects do create a
significant functional difference (cf., Rupert 2013). In this paper, however, I will not discuss this option.
This paper is not about whether CC functionalism is good but rather about whether CC functionalism entails
OEB.

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3 Absurd extended beliefs

3.1 Sprevak’s argument

Sprevak (2009) challenges Clark and Chalmers. Sprevak accepts that the functionalist
argument entails OEB. However, he thinks that the functionalist argument also entails
radical and absurd instances of extended beliefs. This means that there is something
wrong with the functionalist argument. In particular, CC functionalism needs to be
rejected, according to Sprevak. In this section, I will discuss Sprevak’s argument in
detail and show that the SR provides a powerful objection to it.
Before going into the details, let me clarify the agreements and disagreements
between (1) Clark and Chalmers, (2) Sprevak, and (3) me. Clark and Chalmers think
that CC functionalism is a good theory of belief and that the theory entails OEB
(or, more precisely, OEB follows from some plausible premises according to the
theory). Sprevak accepts that CC functionalism entails OEB (agreeing with Clark and
Chalmers) but denies that it is a good theory of belief (disagreeing with Clark and
Chalmers). The theory entails not just OEB but also absurd instances of extended
beliefs as well, according to Sprevak. I can accept that CC functionalism is a good
theory of belief (agreeing with Clark and Chalmers, disagreeing with Sprevak). At
least, I do not think that Sprevak’s challenge to it is plausible. But, I do not think that
CC functionalism entails OEB (disagreeing with Clark, Chalmers and Sprevak).
Sprevak’s argument involves the following imaginary case:
The Martian (Sprevak 2009)
There is a Martian whose memory, instead of being stored in patterns of neural
activity, is stored internally as a series of ink-marks. The Martian stores new
information by activating a process that would create new ink-marks in its stor-
age system and retrieves information by activating a process that would make
a mental image of ink-marks appear in its visual system. As well as acquiring
beliefs via its senses, the Martian is born with innate beliefs that it has not exam-
ined yet—a library of data that is hard-wired into the organism by developmental
processes, which the Martian has not yet had cause to employ.
Sprevak argues that this case is possible. It is possible for such a Martian to have innate
beliefs that are stored with ink-marks. At least, Clark and Chalmers do not seem to
have a reason to deny it. Suppose that one such innate belief is the one that Alpha
Centauri A is bigger than the sun.
Let us now think about another case in which a person, Mark, is looking for a book
in the library. According to Sprevak, the functionalist argument entails the absurd
consequence that Mark comes to believe everything in a book by simply picking it up
from a shelf. For instance, Mark comes to believe that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than
the sun just by picking up a book from the shelf that happens to contain the sentence
“Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun”. The belief is not physically realized in
Mark’s head. Rather, it is physically realized in the book he picks up from the shelf.

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Mark’s Extended Belief (MEB)

Mark’s belief that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun is physically realized
in the book.

MEB is the conjunction of two claims:

MEB1: The belief that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun is physically
realized in the book.
MEB2: It is Mark who believes that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun.
With CC functionalism, MEB follows from two premises. First, the Martian’s belief
that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun is physically realized in its innate storage.
Second, according to the commonsensical and coarse-grained individuation of func-
tional roles, there is no relevant functional difference between the role of the book
for Mark and the role of the innate storage for the Martian. As Sprevak points out,
the only difference between the Martian and Mark seems to be that the former “has
the ink-marks inside its head” while the latter “ha[s] the ink-marks outside” (Sprevak
2009, p. 517).
Here are some comments on the argument.
First, some philosophers have responded to the argument by rejecting the first
premise (Walter 2010; Wheeler 2010). They deny that the Martian has innate beliefs
that are stored as ink-marks. Walter, for example, suggests the idea of rejecting the
first premise on the basis of an independently motivated mark of cognitive. I will not
discuss this idea here, since the issues about the mark of cognitive go beyond the
scope of this paper. I simply grant, for the sake of argument, that the first premise is
plausible.
Second, one might think that we need to add some stipulations in the case of Mark
in order to justify the second premise (about the functional equivalence between the
book for Mark and the innate storage for the Martian). For instance, we might stipulate
that Mark is disposed to endorse the information in the book, that Mark does not have
beliefs in his head that contradict the information in the book, and so on. Let C be the
conjunction of all conditions that we need to stipulate. C might or might not contain
a lot of conditions. What is crucial for Sprevak’s argument is that the following two
claims are true about C: (1) it is possible for Mark to pick up, in the condition C, a
book from a shelf and (2) it is absurd that Mark believes that Alpha Centauri A is
bigger than the sun when, in the condition C, he picks it up from the shelf. I grant, for
the sake of argument, that such a conjunction C exists.

3.2 The SR to Sprevak

What I take to be the best reply to Sprevak’s argument comes from the SR; what the
functionalist argument actually entails is not MEB but rather the following thesis:
Mark-Book System’s Belief (MBSB)
The Mark-book system’s belief that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun is
physically realized in the book.

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MBSB is the conjunction of two claims:

MBSB1: The belief that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun is physically
realized in the book.
MBSB2: It is the Mark-book system, rather than Mark, that believes that Alpha
Centauri A is bigger than the sun.
Note that MBSB1 is identical with MEB1. Thus, the difference between MEB and
MBSB consists in the difference between MEB2 (which attributes the belief at issue
to Mark) and MBSB2 (which attribute the belief to the Mark-book system).
This response shares the basic ideas with the SR to the Chinese room argument. The
Chinese room argument aims to refute strong AI, a kind of functionalism according to
which “[a] system that implements the right program necessarily has a mind because
there isn’t anything else to having a mind” (Searle 2002, p. 52). The argument involves
an imaginary case in which a person, say, John, with no prior experience of learning
Chinese, is locked in a room with a book of instructions in English for manipulating
Chinese symbols. People outside the room send in some Chinese sentences (inputs).
John manipulates Chinese symbols according to the instruction book, which enables
him to produce some Chinese sentences (outputs) in such a way that, for people outside
the room, the outputs are perfectly reasonable responses to the inputs. Searle argues that
strong AI entails the absurd consequence that John understands Chinese. According to
strong AI, there is nothing more than implementing a right program to understanding
Chinese and, in this case, John is implementing the right program. However, according
to the SR,5 which is the most common reply to the argument, it is the John-room system,
rather than John, that is implementing the right program. Hence, what strong AI entails
is that the John-room system, rather than John, understands Chinese.
It is certainly absurd that John suddenly understands Chinese by entering a room and
manipulating symbols in accordance with the instructions in the book. But, it might not
be so absurd if it is the John-room system, rather than John, that understands Chinese.
Indeed, many philosophers do not find it absurd, which is why the SR has been the
most common response to the Chinese room argument.
The SR to Sprevak has the same structure as the SR to Searle. Sprevak’s argument
aims to refute the functionalist argument. According to Sprevak, the functionalist
argument entails MEB, which is absurd. The Martian’s belief that Alpha Centauri A
is bigger than the sun is physically realized in its innate storage. And, according to
the commonsensical and coarse-grained individuation of functional roles, there is no
relevant functional difference between the role of the book for Mark and the role of the
innate storage for the Martian. According to the SR to Sprevak, however, we see no
relevant functional difference between the role of the book for the Mark-book system
(rather than for Mark) and the role of the innate storage for the Martian. Hence, what
the functionalist argument entails is that the Mark-book system’s belief, rather than

5 Copeland (2002) distinguishes “the logical reply” from “the systems reply”. “The logical reply” is a
claim about what strong AI entails; strong AI entails that the hybrid system, rather than John, understands
Chinese. “The systems reply” is not just about what strong AI entails, but also about the truth of what is
entailed; it is true that the hybrid system, rather than John, understands Chinese. The SR in my terminology
corresponds to “the logical reply”, and not to “the systems reply”, in Copeland’s distinction. The SR in my
terminology is a claim about what strong AI entails, not about the truth of what is entailed.

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Mark’s belief, that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun is physically realized in
the book. In other words, the functionalist argument entails MBSB rather than MEB.
It is certainly absurd that Mark comes to believe that Alpha Centauri A is bigger
than the sun just by picking up a book that happens to contain the sentence “Alpha
Centauri A is bigger than the sun”. But, it might not be so absurd if it is the Mark-
book system, rather than Mark, that believes it. The idea that the John-room system
understands Chinese is not very absurd, which is why the SR has been very popular in
the Chinese room argument literature. The idea that the Mark-book system believes
that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun does not seem to be more absurd than the
idea that the John-room system understands Chinese.
I will now turn to some possible objections to the SR to Sprevak. As I have already
noted, there are some philosophers who are not convinced by the SR to Searle. For
instance, Searle himself presented three objections to it. Given the analogy between
the SR to Searle and the SR to Sprevak, one might think that Searle’s objections to the
former can be turned into the objections to the latter.
Let us first look at Searle’s objections. Note that Searle does not aim to refute the
idea that strong AI entails that the John-room system, rather than John, understands
Chinese. His objections rather aim to show that the idea that the John-room system
understands Chinese is absurd (or false) and, hence, strong AI entails an absurd (or
false) consequence anyway.
First, Searle argues that understanding Chinese is not the kind of thing that can be
achieved by combining the things that do not understand Chinese in a certain way.
The idea that “while a person doesn’t understand Chinese, somehow the conjunction
of that person and bits of paper might understand Chinese” is “so implausible to start
with” (Searle 1980, p. 419).
Second, Searle argues that even if John incorporates the system inside his head,
remembering everything in the instruction book and following the procedure entirely
in his head, he still does not understand Chinese. This shows that the John-room system
does not understand Chinese either because the system does not have anything more
than John has in this case.
Third, Searle argues that “if we accept the systems reply, then it is hard to see how
we avoid saying that stomach, heart, liver, and so on, are all understanding subsystems
since there is no principled way to distinguish the motivation for saying [the John-
room system] understands from saying that the stomach understands” (Searle 1980,
p. 420).
I will not discuss these objections themselves, since they are the objections to the
SR to Searle, which is not the main issue of this paper. Instead, I will discuss Searle-
style objections to the SR to Sprevak. In my view, Searle-style objections are not
compelling, at least in the context of Sprevak’s argument.
The first Searle-style objection is that believing that Alpha Centauri A is bigger
than the sun cannot be achieved by combining the things that do not believe it in a
certain way.
However, I do not see why this objection must be accepted. It is not implausible
that a subject or system X believes that P, but none of X ’s subsystems believes that
P. For instance, it is not implausible that I believe that Obama is the President of the
United States, but none of my cognitive mechanisms (i.e., mindreading mechanism,

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inference mechanism, long-term memory, etc.) believe that Obama is the President of
the United States.6
The second Seale-style objection is that even if Mark incorporates the system inside
his head by remembering (in the innate storage) everything in the book, still he does
not believe that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun. This shows that the Mark-
book system does not believe it either, because the system does not have anything
more than Mark has in this case.
This objection, however, is not available for Sprevak. A crucial premise of Sprevak’s
argument is that the Martian believes that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun.
(More precisely, the Martian’s belief that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun
is physically realized in its innate storage.) The argument does not work when the
premise turns out to be false. Now, as Sprevak notes, the only remarkable difference
between the Martian and Mark is that ink-marks are inside the head in the former case
and they are outside the head in the latter case. When Mark incorporates the whole
system in his head, the difference is removed and, hence, the two cases are now almost
equivalent. For the sake of consistency, then, if Sprevak does not attribute the belief
that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun to Mark when he incorporates the whole
system in his head, then he cannot attribute it to the Martian either.7 But, this means
that Sprevak rejects the crucial premise of his own argument.
The third Searle-style objection is that if we accept the idea that the Mark-book
system believes that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun, then it is hard to see
how we avoid saying that stomachs, hearts, livers, and so on, all believe that Alpha
Centauri A is bigger than the sun.
The objection does not seem to be very compelling. Certainly, CC functionalism
is a kind of coarse-grained functionalism that neglects the fine-grained functional
differences between Otto and Inga, such as the difference due to negative transfer.
But, Clark and Chalmers certainly do not expect CC functionalism to be so coarse-
grained that it neglects the functional differences between a Martian and a stomach.
This objection, however, cannot be easily dismissed. As Searle suggests, this
objection is actually related to an independent argument against functionalism.
The argument is sometimes called “the triviality argument” against functionalism
(Godfrey-Smith 2009; Putnam 1988; Searle 1990). There are different versions of the
triviality argument but the basic idea is that, for a given functional role, we can find
a very coarse-grained description, with disjunctive predicates, of an arbitrary object
with sufficient complexity, according to which the object realizes the functional role.8

6 Certainly, the belief is stored in some mechanisms or storages, such as long-term memory. But, there is a
gap between the idea that my belief that Obama is the President of the United States is stored in long-term
memory and the idea that long-term memory believes it.
7 The two cases are, strictly speaking, not completely equivalent. A difference is that retrieving the infor-
mation involves visual systems in the Martian’s case but not in Mark’s case. This could be a reason for
attributing the belief that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun to Mark but not to the Martian. (But Clark,
Chalmers, and Sprevak would disagree. See the next section for more details.) However, my claim here is
that this cannot be a reason for attributing the belief to the Martian but not to Mark.
8 Here is a toy example. Let us think about the functional role that is characterized by a simple transition
of internal states with no inputs and outputs; ABAB. Let us also think about an arbitrary object, O, that goes
through four physical states, S1–S4, during a certain time interval. Now, there is a simple way to show that the

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Examining the triviality argument goes far beyond the scope of this paper. Here
I simply say that it is perhaps unwise to appeal to the triviality argument for the
purpose of defending Sprevak’s argument. After all, the triviality argument has much
more radical consequences than Sprevak’s argument. According to Godfrey-Smith,
the triviality argument, if successful, shows that functionalism entails panpsychism
of a radical form: “[a]s complex systems would realize the functional profile of many
different intelligent agents, the position implied [by the triviality argument] would
be a doctrine of super-position of multiple divergent minds on the substrate provided
by each complex physical system” (Godfrey-Smith 2009, p. 289). Any objects with
sufficient complexity (such as a rock, a wall, a bucket with water in it, etc.) realize
functional roles of multiple agents at the same time. It is, then, not very surprising
that Mark, an extremely complex object, realizes the functional role of an agent who
believes that Alpha Centauri A is bigger than the sun.
In this section, I discussed Sprevak’s claim that the functionalist argument entails
MEB, which is absurd. In response, I argue that the functionalist argument does not
entail MEB. Rather, the argument entails MBSB, which is not very absurd. The SR to
Sprevak seems to be free from Searle-style objections. (Some more objections will be
discussed in the next section.) Although the SR, if successful, undermines Sprevak’s
challenge to Clark and Chalmers, it does not bring good news for Clark and Chalmers.
The SR will undermine not only Sprevak’s claim that the functionalist argument entails
MEB, but also Clark and Chalmers’ claim that the functionalist argument entails OEB.
I will now turn to the SR to Clark and Chalmers.

4 The SR to Clark and Chalmers

4.1 OEB or ONSB?

According to the SR to Clark and Chalmers, we see no relevant functional difference

between the role of the notebook for the Otto-notebook system (rather than for Otto)
and the role of the internal memory storage for Inga.9 Hence, what the functionalist
argument entails is that the Otto-notebook system’s belief, rather than Otto’s belief,
that the museum is on 53rd Street is physically realized in the notebook. In other
words, the functionalist argument entails ONSB rather than OEB.
But why, exactly, can’t we say that we see no relevant functional difference between
the role of the notebook for Otto (rather than for the Otto-notebook system) and the

Footnote 8 continued
object O realizes the functional role ABAB during the interval. By introducing a disjunctive physical state
P as the disjunction of S1 and S3, and another disjunctive physical state Q as the disjunction of S2 and
S4, we can say that O, in the time interval, goes through PQPQ and thereby realizes the functional role
ABAB in the sense that there is a mapping from the internal states of O to the functional role. With some
changes, this argument can be applied to much more complicated functional roles with inputs and outputs.
See Godfrey-Smith (2009) for details.
9 A similar thought was expressed by Colombetti and Roberts: “it is the joint system Otto-plus-notebook
that is functionally equivalent to (plays the same role as) Inga’s internal memory system” (Colombetti and
Roberts 2014, p. 1249).

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 Synthese

role of the internal memory storage for Inga? A good answer is provided by Clark and
Chalmers themselves.
In response to the functionalist argument by Clark and Chalmers, one might argue
that there is an obvious difference between the role of the notebook for Otto and the
role of the internal memory storage for Inga. On the one hand, Inga’s access to her
internal memory storage is introspective, while Otto’s access to his notebook is percep-
tual (Butler 1998; Gertler 2007). Unlike the functional difference due to psychological
effects, such as negative transfer, this seems to be a significant functional difference
between the notebook for Otto and the internal memory storage for Inga even from
the CC functionalist point of view. It does not seem to be part of our commonsensical
understanding of beliefs that beliefs are, or can be, accessed perceptually. As Chalmers
admits, “perhaps this is one point where the ‘common-sense functionalism’ that Clark
favors in this book, individuating mental states by the roles that commonsense psy-
chology assigns to them, counts against the extended mind thesis” (Chalmers 2008,
p. xii).
The response by Clark and Chalmers is, in short, that the access to the notebook is
perceptual for Otto but introspective for the Otto-notebook system.10
[W]e are in effect advocating a point of view on which Otto’s internal processes
and his notebook constitute a single cognitive system. From the standpoint of this
system, the flow of information between notebook and brain is not perceptual
at all; it does not involve the impact of something outside the system. It is more
akin to information flow within the brain (Clark and Chalmers 1998, p. 16).
[F]rom the EXTENDED point of view, Otto’s inner processes and the notebook
constitute a single cognitive system. Relative to this system, the flow of infor-
mation is wholly internal and functionally akin to introspection (Clark 2008,
p. 100).
This response sounds plausible to me. The problem, however, is that the response
does not support the claim that there is no relevant difference between the role of
the notebook for Otto and the role of the internal memory storage for Inga. Rather, it
supports the idea that there is no relevant difference between the role of the notebook
for the Otto-notebook system and the role of the internal memory storage for Inga.
Here is a clarification. There is a crucial difference between the SR to Clark and
Chalmers and the SR to Searle (and to Sprevak). The difference is due to the fact that
the aim of Clark and Chalmers and the aim of Searle are crucially different. Searle
aims to show that strong AI is problematic. As I have already noted, in response
to the SR, Searle concedes that strong AI entails that the John-room system, rather
than John, understands Chinese but argues that this consequence is also absurd and,
hence, strong AI has an absurd consequence anyway. The objections of this type, if
they are successful, certainly show that strong AI is problematic. In response to the

10 Chalmers (2008), however, is not fully satisfied with this answer: “[w]e consider this sort of worry briefly
in ‘The Extended Mind,’ suggesting that Otto’s access to the notebook need not be seen as perceptual. But
this is surely too quick: there is no denying that Otto sees the notebook and reads from it, just as there is
no denying that Otto reaches for the notebook and writes in it. So there is certainly perception and action
taking place here” (Chalmers 2008, p. xi).

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SR to Clark and Chalmers, however, the objections of this type (i.e., conceding that
the functionalist argument entails ONSB rather than OEB, but arguing that ONSB is
absurd) do not make sense, because Clark and Chalmers do not aim to show that the
functionalist argument is problematic. On the contrary, it is quite important for Clark
and Chalmers to make sure that the functionalist argument is a good one.

4.2 Objections

I will now discuss possible responses to the SR to Clark and Chalmers.

(1) The Otto-as-the-System Objection: The first objection is that Otto is identical
the hybrid system. The hybrid system’s belief is physically realized in the notebook
(ONSB). But this also means that Otto’s belief is physically realized in the notebook
(OEB), since Otto is identical with the hybrid system. I call this objection “the Otto-
as-the-System objection” (the OAS objection). Clark and Chalmers write:
Does the extended mind imply an extended self? It seems so. The information in
Otto’s notebook, for example, is a central part of his identity as a cognitive agent.
What this comes to is that Otto himself is best regarded as an extended system,
a coupling of biological organism and external resources (Clark and Chalmers
1998, p. 18).
In discussing a different example, Clark argues that we know the time just by wearing
a wristwatch, even before consulting it, for the same reason that Otto believes that the
museum is on 53rd Street just by carrying the notebook, even before consulting it.
Clark says:
According to one diagnosis, then, you are telling the literal truth when you
answer “yes” to the innocent-sounding question “Do you know the time?” For
you do know the time. It is just that the “you” that knows the time is no longer
the bare biological organism but the hybrid biotechnological system that now
includes the wristwatch as a proper part (Clark 2003, p. 42).
According to Clark, I know the time just by wearing a wristwatch, where “I” am the
hybrid system consisting of my wristwatch and biological me. Similarly, Clark would
argue that Otto believes that the museum is on 53rd Street just by carrying a notebook,
where “Otto” is the hybrid system consisting of the notebook and biological Otto.11
I have two responses to the OAS objection.
First, the OAS objection might make the functionalist argument circular. It should
be noted that Clark and Chalmers defend the idea of OAS (i.e., the idea that Otto is
identical with the hybrid system) as a consequence of OEB: “Does the extended mind
imply an extended self? It seems so” (Clark and Chalmers 1998, p. 18). Clark and
Chalmers do not seem to have an independent argument for OAS. The problem is that
if their justification for OAS comes from OEB, then they cannot, without circularity,

11 A terminological note: According to the OAS objection, Otto is identical to the hybrid system consisting
of the notebook and the biological subject. In the context of the OAS objection, I call the biological subject
“biological Otto” and distinguish him from “Otto” who is the hybrid subject.

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 Synthese

defend OEB on the basis of OAS. They cannot, without being circular, argue that,
on the one hand, Otto is identical with the hybrid system because Otto’s beliefs are
physically realized in the notebook and, on the other hand, Otto’s beliefs are physically
realized in the notebook because Otto is identical with the hybrid system.
(This, of course, is not a knockdown argument. Although Clark and Chalmers do
not provide an independent argument for OAS, I have not shown that such an argument
cannot be provided. Still, it would be fair to say that, although OAS is a theoretical
possibility, finding an independent argument for it is not very easy.)
Second, the distinction between Mark and the Mark-book system seems to be
relatively clear. The book is part of the Mark-book system. But it is implausible to
think that the book is part of Mark. Mark, then, cannot be identical with the Mark-book
system. According to the OAS objection, on the other hand, Otto is identical with the
Otto-notebook system. What, then, is responsible for the difference between the case
of Otto and the case of Mark? What makes it the case that Otto is identical with the
Otto-notebook system, while Mark is not identical with the Mark-book system?
Without a relevant difference between the two cases, we cannot coherently argue
that Mark is not identical with the Mark-book system but Otto is identical with the
Otto-notebook system. The problem, however, is that it is not easy to find such a
difference.
One might think that the book is not part of Mark because, unlike Otto, he has not
consciously endorsed the content of the book. But this idea is problematic. For instance,
I can easily imagine that the world will end tomorrow without believing that it will.
But, no one would argue that the cognitive resources for the act of imagination are not
part of me just because I have not consciously endorsed the content of my imagination.
The conscious endorsement does not seem to be necessary for something to be part of
someone.
Alternatively, one might think that biological Otto and the Otto-notebook system
are functionally very similar if, for example, Otto uses the notebook only for keeping
the information about the location of the museum. But I do not see why biological
Mark and the Mark-book system cannot be functionally very similar as well. It might
turn out that the book Mark picks up contains only the information about the size of
Alpha Centauri A. (And, even in the cases in which biological Mark and the Mark-
book system are functionally very similar, Mark does not seem to be identical with
the Mark-book system.)
Clark and Chalmers might appeal to the famous “glue and trust” conditions (Clark
2010b). They might argue that the book is not part of Mark because the glue and trust
conditions are not satisfied in the case of Mark. One of the conditions, for example,
is that “the [external] resource [is] reliably available and typically invoked” (Clark
2010a, p. 46).12 Perhaps the book in the case of Mark is not as reliably available and
typically invoked as the notebook in the case of Otto. The glue and trust conditions are,
however, very controversial. For instance, Sprevak (2009) points out that the cognitive
resources involved in acts of outstanding human creativity are not reliably available

12 The other conditions are “any information thus retrieved [is] more-or-less automatically endorsed” and
“information contained in the resource should be easily accessible as and when required” (Clark 2010a,
p. 46).

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or typically invoked. But no one would argue that the cognitive resources are not
part of creative individuals just because they are not reliably available or typically
invoked. Being reliably available and typically invoked does not seem to be necessary
for something to be part of someone. [For more discussions, see Rupert (2004) and
Sprevak (2009).]
(2) The No-Self Objection: The second objection is that, strictly speaking, selves
or agents do not exist. Anti-realism about selves or agents can be found in Clark’s
writings. He claims that humans are natural-born cyborgs (Clark 2003, 2004); they are
“thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological
brain and nonbiological circuitry” (Clark 2003, p. 3). The cyborg account of humans
involves:
a kind of no-self (or nearly-no-self) theory, according to which (what we ordi-
narily think of as) the self is a hastily cobbled together coalition of biological
and non-biological elements, whose membership shifts and alters over time and
between contexts (Clark 2004, p. 177).
Clark also writes:
the commonsense ideas of persons, selves, agents and moral responsibility are
all (deeply interanimated) forensic notions. That is to say, they are concepts
whose application is more a matter of habit and of practical convenience than
metaphysical necessity (Clark 2004, p. 179).
In our everyday practice, we talk about selves or agents, such as Otto, and distinguish
them from their environment and from other selves or agents. But this is a matter of
habit or practical convenience, according to Clark. Metaphysically speaking, there is no
clear distinction between Otto and his environment or between Otto and other selves or
agents.13 From this point of view, the SR rests upon a problematic assumption: there is a
clear distinction between an agent, Otto, and another agent, the Otto-notebook system.
It is asked, in the SR to Clark and Chalmers, whether it is Otto or the Otto-notebook
system that believes that the museum is on 53rd Street. The question, however, is
misguided from the point of view where the Otto and the Otto-notebook system are not
clearly distinguished. I call this objection “the No-Self objection” (the NS objection).
The problem of the NS objection is that the distinction between Otto and the Otto-
notebook seems to be necessary for the functionalist argument. The belief that the
museum is on 53rd Street is physically realized in the notebook because, according
the functionalist argument, the notebook plays the right kind of causal role. As I
have already noted, however, whether the notebook plays the right kind of causal role
crucially depends on the agents we talk about. We cannot say that the notebook plays
the right kind of causal role without specifying the agent for whom the role is. As
Clark and Chalmers admit, the notebook plays the right kind of causal role for the
Otto-notebook system, but not for Otto; the access to the notebook is introspective for

13 Sutton suggests a similar idea when he talks about “the 3rd wave of extended mind”; “[i]f there is to be a
distinct 3rd wave of EM [extended mind], it might be a deterritorialized cognitive science which deals with
the propagation of deformed and reformatted representations, and which dissolves individuals into peculiar
loci of coordination and coalescence among multiple structured media” (Sutton 2010, p. 213).

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the Otto-notebook system but it is perceptual for Otto. According to the NS objection,
however, there is no clear distinction between Otto and the Otto-notebook system. If
this is correct, however, there is no clear answer as to whether the notebook plays the
right kind of causal role and, hence, there is no clear answer as to whether a belief is
physically realized in the notebook either.
(3) Embracing the SR: Clark and Chalmers might simply embrace the SR. It does
not matter whether it is Otto (OEB2) or the Otto-notebook system (ONSB2) who
believes that the museum is on 53rd Street. Even if it is the Otto-notebook, rather
than Otto, who believes it, it is still the case that a belief is physically realized in the
notebook (OEB1, ONSB1). Perhaps this claim is remarkable enough. Although Clark
and Chalmers argue that it is Otto who believes that the museum is on 53rd Street,
they are not always explicitly committed to the idea that extended mental states are
attributed to human agents like Otto:
[B]eliefs can be constituted by features of the environment, when those features
play the right sort of role in driving cognitive processes. If so, the mind extends
into the world (Clark and Chalmers 1998, p. 12).

[T]hinking and cognizing may (at times) depend directly and noninstrumentally
upon the ongoing work of the body and/or the extraorganismic environment.
[…] [T]he actual local operations that realize certain forms of human cognizing
include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward, and feed-around loops:
loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body, and world.
The local mechanisms of mind, if this is correct, are not all in the head. Cognition
leaks out into body and world (Clark 2008, p. xxviii).
Perhaps it is true that Clark and Chalmers are not very serious about the idea that
extended mental states are attributed to human agents like Otto. In the quotes above,
however, Clark and Chalmers do seem to be serious about the idea that extended mental
states are physically realized in environmental items. A worry is that the strategy of
embracing the SR seems to be incompatible not only with the idea that extended mental
states are attributed to human agents, but also with the idea that extended mental
states are physically realized in environmental items. The notebook is certainly an
environmental item from the point of view of Otto, but it is not from the point of view
of the Otto-notebook system. For the same reason that Inga’s internal memory storage
is an internal, non-environmental item from the point of view of Inga, the notebook
is an internal, non-environmental item from the point of view of the Otto-notebook
system. As Clark himself points out: “From the standpoint of this system, the flow of
information between notebook and brain […] does not involve the impact of something
outside the system. It is more akin to information flow within the brain” (Clark and
Chalmers 1998, p. 16). Thus, when accepting that it is the Otto-notebook system,
rather than Otto, that believes that the museum is on 53rd Street, Clark and Chalmers
need to also accept that the belief at issue is not physically realized in environmental
items.
One might think, however, that this worry is merely terminological. The problem
can easily be avoided by clarifying what “environmental” items are. For instance,
Clark and Chalmers can simply stipulate that “environmental” items are those items

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that are outside the biological boundary of human subjects. Otto’s notebook is, then,
clearly an environmental item.
This is certainly a reasonable response to the worry. But, it takes us to the second,
and more serious worry. It might turn out, after the clarification of the key terms such as
“extended” or “environmental”, that the idea of extended mind is not very remarkable
after all. The idea of extended mind is often taken to be original and challenging.
Rupert, for example, says that the acceptance of the idea “would alter our approach to
research and theorizing in cognitive science” and “significantly change our conception
of persons” (Rupert 2004, pp. 389–390). But, if Clark and Chalmers accept the SR,
then it is difficult to see how the idea of extended mind can be original and challenging.
Indeed, what makes the idea of extended mind original is the claim that it is Otto who
believes that the museum is on 53rd Street (OEB2). The originality is lost if the claim
is just that the Otto-notebook system believes that museum is on 53rd Street (ONSB2).
After all, many functionalists have already accepted, in response to the Chinese room
argument, that the John-room system understands Chinese. I do not deny that the idea
that a belief is physically realized in the notebook (OEB1, ONSB1) is remarkable,
but I do not find it any more remarkable than the idea that, in the Chinese room case,
understanding Chinese is physically realized in the room.

5 Conclusion

Clark and Chalmers argue that the functionalist argument entails that Otto’s belief
that the museum is on 53rd Street is physically realized in the notebook (OEB). In
response, I argued that the functionalist argument does not entail such a claim. Instead,
it entails that the Otto-notebook system’s belief that the museum is on 53rd Street is
physically realized in the notebook (ONSB).
Before closing, I will briefly discuss the modal strength of the SR to the functionalist
argument for OEB. Both Rupert (2004) and Adams and Aizawa (2001) reject the
argument. They think that the role of the notebook for Otto is significantly different
from the role of internal memory storage for Inga. They do not, however, deny the
metaphysical possibility of extended mental states and processes, at least within the
functionalist framework. Items like an ordinary notebook do not function in exactly
the same way as internal memory storage does, but it is metaphysically possible
to invent, with futuristic technology, an item that does. Rupert “take[s] for granted
the weaker modal claim, that extended cognition is possible” (Rupert 2004, p. 392).
Adams and Aizawa “think it is part of the standard functionalist view of cognition
that a properly organized configuration of processes can simultaneously cross the
boundaries of the brain and constitute cognition” (Adams and Aizawa 2009, p. 79). It
looks as though there is an agreement in the current literature, among the defenders as
well as the critics of the idea of extended mind and cognition, that the metaphysical
possibility of extended mental states and processes simply follows from some sort of
functionalism. The disagreement between the defenders and the critics is not about
the metaphysical possibility of extended mental states and processes, but is rather
about the possibility of extended mental states and processes with “no giant leaps of
technology or technique” (Clark 2010b, p. 82). The defenders of the idea of extended

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mind and cognition (Clark and Chalmers) think that our current technology (e.g., an
ordinary notebook) or something similar is sufficient for realizing extended mental
states and processes. The critics (Rupert, Adams and Aizawa) disagree.14
If the SR to the functionalist argument is successful, however, it is far from obvious
that the metaphysical possibility of extended mental states simply follows from some
sort of functionalism. I have great difficulty in conceiving even a single case where,
according to some sort of functionalism, OEB (or a corresponding claim) is true. It is
quite difficult to see how we can say that it is Otto, rather than the hybrid system, who
believes that the museum is on 53rd Street, no matter what metaphysically possible
technological advancements we bring into the case. This means that if the SR to the
functionalist argument is successful, then it is likely that extended mental states are
metaphysically impossible according to functionalist theories of mind.15

Acknowledgments Early versions of this paper were presented at The Tokyo Colloquium of Cognitive
Philosophy (February 13, 2015, at University of Tokyo) and Korean Society for Analytic Philosophy 2015
Spring Meeting (May 23, 2015, at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies). I learned a lot from the comments
by Woojin Han and Makoto Kureha. I thank two anonymous referees for insightful suggestions. I am a JSPS
Research fellow, and this work is supported by JSPS KAKENHI (15J03906).

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