Cognition in the Wild

Why read this book?
In Mindware, Andy Clark made a compelling case for the idea that recent developments in cognitive science stress the ways that biological solutions to cognitive problems exploit all levels of interaction among brain, body, and environment (Clark, 1986, 2001). This perspective highlights the importance of context that shapes and is shaped by cognitive activity. Cognition in the Wild presents a sustained effort to carefully document the context of thinking in a particular activity: ship navigation. It explores the ways in which cognition both creates and is created by patterns in the social and material world.

Cognition in the Wild Ch. 1: "Welcome Aboard"

Theme of the reading
Real-world cognition is always enacted by someone, located somewhere, thinking about something. This means that the context of cognition always includes a social organization within which the person has relationships, a physical location, which may be constructed to support thinking, and a content or subject matter domain. In the case of ship navigation, all three of these spaces: social, physical, and conceptual are different from those encountered everyday by civilians. This first chapter attempts to help the reader understand the context for the cognitive activities that will be examined in detail in later chapters.

Getting ready to read
Definitions:

Reading
Orienting questions and issues to keep in mind:

What is meant by the phrase "Cognition in the Wild"? (Introduction)

The descriptions of physical space, social space and conceptual space are woven together in chapter 1.
How do they fit together?
That is, how do physical space or physical objects help to establish social categories?
How are social categories associated with bodies of knowledge?