What, if any, are the limits of human understanding? Epistemic pessimists, sobered by our humble evolutionary origins, have argued that some parts of the universe will forever remain beyond our ken. But what exactly does it mean to say that humans are ‘cognitively closed’ to some parts of the world, or that some problems will forever remain ‘mysteries’? In this paper we develop a richer conceptual toolbox for thinking about different forms and varieties of cognitive limitation, which are often conflated by the so-called ‘new mysterians’. We distinguish between representational access (the ability to develop accurate scientific representations of reality) and imaginative understanding (immediate, intuitive comprehension of those representations), as well as between different modalities (hard vs. soft) of cognitive limitation. Next, we look at tried-and-tested strategies for overcoming our innate cognitive limitations, drawing from the literature on distributed cognition and cognitive scaffolding’. This allows us to distinguish between the limits of bare brains vs. scaffolded brains. Most importantly, we argue that this panoply of mind-extension devices is combinatorial and open-ended. In the end, this allows us to turn the table on the mysterians: for every alleged ‘mystery’, they should demonstrate that no possible combination of mind extension devices will bring us any closer to a solution.

中文翻译：

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科学的终结？关于人类认知限制以及如何克服它们

如果有的话，人类理解的极限是什么？认知悲观主义者对我们卑微的进化起源感到清醒，他们认为宇宙的某些部分将永远超出我们的认知。但是，说人类对世界的某些部分“在认知上封闭”，或者说某些问题将永远是“谜”究竟是什么意思？在本文中，我们开发了一个更丰富的概念工具箱，用于思考不同形式和种类的认知限制，这些限制经常被所谓的“新神秘主义者”混为一谈。我们区分表征访问（开发现实的准确科学表征的能力）和富有想象力的理解（对这些表征的直接、直观的理解），以及认知限制的不同模式（硬与软）。下一个，我们从分布式认知和认知支架的文献中寻找克服先天认知限制的久经考验的策略。这使我们能够区分裸脑与支架大脑的限制。最重要的是，我们认为这套思维扩展设备是组合的和开放的。最后，这使我们能够扭转神秘家的局面：对于每一个所谓的“神秘”，他们都应该证明，心灵扩展设备的任何可能组合都不会让我们更接近解决方案。我们认为，这套思维扩展设备是组合的和开放式的。最后，这让我们能够扭转神秘家的局面：对于每一个所谓的“神秘”，他们都应该证明，心灵扩展设备的任何可能组合都不会让我们更接近解决方案。我们认为，这套思维扩展设备是组合的和开放式的。最后，这使我们能够扭转神秘家的局面：对于每一个所谓的“神秘”，他们都应该证明，心灵扩展设备的任何可能组合都不会让我们更接近解决方案。