Stretching the Bounds (II)

What remains of Simon’s idea of rationality after the distributed cognition (DC) approach is considered? The DC approach points out that one of the most important activities of human cognition is that it is shaped by what is found in the environment, i.e., external resources or artifacts. What is or is not rational assumes a completely different meaning within this framework. The idea that the brain works in isolation and that information is taken from the outside, then computed, and subsequently expelled as a solution to a given problem largely overlooks what happens during the simplest cognitive process. One thing is clear: If we accept the DC framework, we can no longer rely on this input-process-outputi idea of rationality and decision making.