Cognitive processes are not something that we generally pay much attention to until something goes wrong, but they cover the entire scope of us ingesting sensory information, the processing and recalling thereof, as well as any resulting decisions made based on such internal deliberation.
Within that context there has also long been a struggle between those who feel that it’s fine for humans to rely on available technologies to make tasks like information recall and calculations easier, and those who insist that a human should be perfectly capable of doing such tasks without any assistance. Plato argued that reading and writing hurt our ability to memorize, and for the longest time it was deemed inappropriate for students to even consider taking one of those newfangled digital calculators into an exam, while now we have many arguing that using an ‘AI’ is the equivalent of using a calculator.
At the root of this conundrum lies the distinction between that which enhances and that which hampers human cognition. When does one merely offload tasks to a device or object, and when does one harm one’s own cognition?
Continue reading “Reverse-Engineering Human Cognition And Decision Making In A Modern Age”
