Smart, Andrada and Clowes interrogate the intuition that an external resource becomes part of cognition only when its mediation disappears from experience. They reject phenomenal transparency as either a necessary or sufficient criterion for cognitive extension, arguing instead that transparency belongs to the circumstances under which cognitive dispositions are attributed to agents and systems. This distinction matters because a notebook, smartphone or mixed-reality device may remain perceptually conspicuous while still participating constitutively in cognition. Their conceptual operation separates phenomenological invisibility from functional integration, preventing seamlessness from becoming a metaphysical test. Theoretical attention moves from whether a tool feels external toward the mechanisms and dispositional patterns through which cognition is sustained. The paper bridges philosophy of mind, phenomenology and technology studies by showing that an interface can remain visible as an interface without ceasing to be cognitively operative. Cognitive extension therefore depends on organised participation, not on the disappearance of the support that enables it.
