Robocop’s cognition: The Analysis of Robocop’s existence through Perspectives of Extended Cognition

Abstract

This article aims at a philosophical analysis using Extended Cognition to analyze the RoboCop’s existence in the Film RoboCop (2014). I begin this article by demonstrating the influence of technology on humans in the current age. I have presented the brief story of the existence of Murphy, the protagonist who has been modified body through technological techniques. It made him exist in a body that is a combination of a biological body and a robotic body and is controlled by an AI program. Then, I presented the debate on consciousness and self between Daniel Dennett’s proposal and Hubert Dreyfus’s proposal and some interesting arguments from Alva Noë. Lastly, I offered a different perspective, that is, if we use the lens of Extended Cognition to analyze RoboCop’s existence. It reveals that Murphy is not the same person as Murphy who is unmodified. Moreover, Murphy’s selfhood did not exist originally. Murphy has been the existence of soft selves that are prepared to transfigure and combine the nonbiological and biological bodily elements dynamically. On the one hand, it might be said that Murphy’s existence is a temporary self that was Murphy as a person, Murphy was RoboCop and Murphy can exist in different forms of altered existence in case Murphy is combined with other types of new technology in the future.