Cognition With and Beyond the Brain: Assemblages, Endosomatization, and AI-Driven Sensory Technologies
Antikythera Digital Journal May 10, 2025 DOI: 10.1162/anti.5czn via Semantic Scholar
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractCognition should be understood not as a brain-bound or human-only process but as a relational, entangled, and process-oriented phenomenon shaped by interactions among body, environment, and technology. The 4E cognition framework (embodied, embedded, enacted, extended) and Hayles's theory of cognitive assemblages show how cognition is dynamically extended through nonhuman agents and technical objects. Building on Stiegler's ideas of human technogenesis, the article proposes a speculative framework for artificial endosomatization, using AI-driven sensory technologies as an example where cognitive processes are reintegrated into human thought through advanced sensory feedback.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Philosophy Computer science |
| Key finding | Cognition is a multilayered, relational process dependent on complex cognitive assemblages that include body, environment, and technology, and can be speculatively extended through artificial endosomatization. |
Abstract
This paper explores the potential for reconceptualizing cognition beyond brain-centered and anthropocentric readings, highlighting the entanglement between the body, the environment, and emerging technologies. Critiquing the limitations of computationalist and reductionist perspectives as well as rejecting any possible unifying definition of the phenomenon of cognition, I advocate for a relational, entangled, and process-oriented ontological standpoint to examine cognition as a multilayered process dependent on complex cognitive assemblages. Drawing on the 4E cognition framework (embodied, embedded, enacted, extended), I integrate insights from Hayles’s theory of cognitive assemblages to emphasize how cognition is dynamically shaped and extended through interactions with nonhuman agents and technical objects. Further, building on Stiegler’s reflection on human technogenesis and the relationship between exosomatic organisms and endosomatic processes, I propose a speculative framework to envision forms of artificial endosomatization. Specifically, I discuss the case of AI-driven sensory technologies, imagining how some cognitive processes are not merely extracted but reintegrated into human thought through advanced sensory feedback systems.