Why Open Source is Necessary for Your Sanity
The concept of ‘open source’ is centred around the use of the word ‘free’. Open source products are free, as in freedom. Every person involved with the open source product, from its inception through to its use and marketing, has the freedom to interact with it as they see fit. Further, this freedom extends to ownership for the individual interacting with the open source product truly owns this interaction and anything resulting from this interaction. Individuals can keep their ‘property’ or they can give it away, they can even sell it. This property is truly theirs. Other uses of the word ‘free’ are often mentioned in relation to open source, particularly the use of free as in cost. It is true that many open source products are cost free but I will be focusing solely upon the use of ‘free’ as in freedom. I want to explore the implications of freedom, specifically relating to open source software, as it relates to the active externalism view of the extended mind thesis proffered by Clark and Chalmers.
In the foreword to Andy Clark’s book Supersizing the Mind, Chalmers1 states:
A month ago, I bought an iPhone. The iPhone has already taken over some of the central functions of my brain. It has replaced part of my memory, storing phone numbers and addresses that I once would have taxed my brain with. It harbors my desires: I call up a memo with the names of my favorite dishes when I need to order at a local restaurant. I use it to calculate, when I need to figure out bills and tips. It is a tremendous resource in an argument, with Google ever present to help settle disputes. I make plans with it, using its calendar to help determine what I can and can’t do in the coming months. I even daydream on the iPhone, idly calling up words and images when my concentration slips.
Debating the merits of such an active externalism view of the extended mind thesis is beyond the scope here. But let’s imagine for a moment that Chalmers’ view is correct. How does the iPhone, to use his example, integrate within our selves?
The iPhone is a product that is produced by Apple. It provides many functions including those mentioned by Chalmers above. If Chalmers is correct, the iPhone acts as an aspect of our mental states, able to enhance our memories, harbour our desires and plan our futures. But there is an important difference between how our minds complete these tasks and how the iPhone does. Our minds develop through exposure to the world, a fairly uncontroversial claim whether you are a behaviourist, a functionalist, or a connectionist. We are the agents of our mind to a certain extent (advertising, for example, may act as an agent too), we control what goes in and we are responsible for what comes out. So long as our mind functions correctly we have access to our mental states which we, and no one else, control and own. The introduction of active externalism makes this final stage ambiguous, if our minds extend into the world, particularly into devices such as the iPhone, then the way our minds are stored, accessed, and owned is beyond our control, we may cease to be the primary agents of our minds.
The iPhone is an example of a closed source, proprietary, project. It is developed, produced, used, and owned, in an important way. The software that enables the iPhone to operate is not given to the public, forcing the end users to interact with the device only as the developers allow. Further, the data produced with and on the iPhone is stored with codecs that are closed source. The end user may have intellectual rights over the poem they have just composed on their iPhone but they don’t own the content as it is stored on the device. You may record your voice on your iPhone and store it as an mp3 file, and like the previous example, you don’t actually own that recording as it is stored in that codec. Closed source is problematic for ownership.
Further, you may store a particular item of content in a closed source format, perhaps a .doc document, but as you don’t own the way that your data is stored you have no say over how it may be modified in the future. If Microsoft (the owners of the .doc format) decide to alter the way the .doc format functions then you have no say over the future of your data, the future of your mind.
Minds evolve and develop and we send our children to school based on this very fact. If we couldn’t change our minds, integrate new ideas and concepts, new beliefs about our world, then persons would never develop the advanced cognitive capacities that we associate with them. It could be argued that this is a strong disanalogy against active externalism – minds evolve, they change, and we are the primary agents in this process, whereas data stored on the iPhone doesn’t have these characteristics. Sure, we can update the iPhone’s notebook, but we don’t control the processes underlying our interaction with the iPhone.
The control that Apple have over the development and deployment of the iPhone interacts with the extended mind in a way that traditional advertising never could. Consider a billboard that is designed with the input of the world’s best advertising psychologists. It will probably succeed in changing a lot of minds, but it does this is an indirect and potentially haphazard way. If an iPhone is an aspect of the extended mind then all Apple needs to do to change its users’ minds is to alter a piece of their (Apple’s) software for Apple owns a physical piece of their users’ minds. Consequently, Apple can directly program minds.
This is why open source is so important for it allows every individual involved with it, at all levels, complete control and freedom over its use and implementation. If the iPhone was based upon open source principles then the disanalogy presented above would not fit. Open source formats and codecs are owned by the user, and the user has a say in any changes to be made, and may decide not to accept any changes they don’t agree with. There is no central control over the open source codec or format (or anything else) like there is with closed source projects. Any data that you have in an open source format or codec is yours alone, and you interact with it as you choose. Devices such as the iPhone are bringing us closer into a feared Orwellian society where our minds can be centrally controlled. If the open source movement is not encouraged then such an Orwelian future may not be such a far fetched idea. Open source is necessary for your sanity
1. Chalmers, D 2007, Foreword to Andy Clark’s ‘Supersizing the Mind’, <http://consc.net/papers/supersizing.pdf.
