"writing as an environmental manipulation that transforms the problem space for human brains" ; "language as (...) an external resource" (198); "a specific kind of external representation"; "the linguistically mediatde processes of cultural storage and gradual refinement over many lifetimes" (199); dh.: "language as an external artifact designed to complement rather than to transfigure the basic processing file", "the rich environment of manipulable external symbolic structures" (200).
Näherhin: "a variety of ways in which we may trade culturally transmitted representation against individual computational effort" (201) - Aspekte:
1. "the use of external symbolic media to offload memory onto the world";
2. "the provision, by the use of linguistic labels, of a greatly simplified learning environment for important concepts";
3. "the use of language in coordinating action. We say to others that we will be at a certain place at a certain time. We even play this game wirh ourselves, perhaps by writing down a list of waht we weill do on what days" (201); "it often becomes necessary to use pencil and paper to collect and repeatedly reorganize the options, and then to preserve the result as a kind of external control structure available to guide your subsequent actions" (202). Also: "Linguistic exchange and formulation plays a key role in coordinating activities (at both inter-personal and intra-personal levels) and in reducing the amount of daily on-line deliberation in which we engage." (202);
4. "inner rehearsal of speech in manipulating our own attention and guiding our allocation of cognitive resources": "inner speech as an extra control loop capable of modulating the brain´s use of its own basic cognitive resources" - eg. "when we follow written instructions" (202);
5. "language-based reason", lingaform reflection" (203);
6. the "processes of formal education (...) are geared to take young (and not-so-young) minds along a genuine intellectual jouney" (203);
7. writing (a chapter of a book, e.g.): "it is the product of a sustained and iterated sequence of interactions between my brain and a variety of external props" (207), " a good deal of actual thinking involves loops and circuits that run outside the head and through the local environment" (207); "the real physical environment of printed wordds and symbols allows us to search, store, sequence, and reorganize data in ways alien to the onboard repertoire of the biological brain" (207).
Alles in allem: "Public speech, inner rehearsal, and the use of written and online texts are all potent tools that rekonfigure the shape of computational space. Again and again we trade culturally achied representation against individual computation. Againand again we use words to focus, clarify, transform, offload, and control our own thinkings. Thus understood, language is not the mere imperfect mirror of our intuitive knowledge. Rather, it is part and parcel of the mechanism of reason itself." (207)
"The Mangrove Effect" (207ff): "Public language and the inner rehearsal of sentences would on this model, act like the aerial roots of the mangrove tree - the words would serves <sic!> as fixed points capable of attracting and positioning additional intellectual matter, creating the islands of second-order thought so characteristic of the cognitive landscape of Homo sapiens." (209) So entsteht < Achtung: Clark denkt hier konsequent medial!> "sentential and text-based reflection", und die "linguistic constructions, thus viewed, are a new class of objects which invite us to develop new (non-language-based) skills of use, recognition, and manipulation. Sentential and nonsentential modes of thought coevolve so as to complement, but not replicate. each other´s special cognitive virtues." (207) "In combining an array of biologically basic pattern-recognition skills with the special ´cognitive fixatives´ of word and text, we (like the mangroves) create new landscapes - ne fixed points in the sea of thought." - Dh.: "language" - "a complementary cognitive artifact" (207)
<Kritik: Damit beantwortet A. Clark die Fragen (s. Problemkontext) allerdings nur zu einem Teil!>