The Extended Mind

Involve your body, surroundings and other people to enhance your thinking.

The human brain evolved to allow you to interact with your environment, handle physical objects and engage in social relationships. But Western culture encourages you to believe cognition happens only in your head. As a result, you become “brain bound” – forgetting that your body, physical surroundings and social relationships can contribute to thinking, problem-solving and creativity. The idea that your brain functions like a computer doesn’t reflect reality and isn’t helpful.

Brains work best by “looping” information through your body, environment and others. You can use processes that would otherwise lie dormant by gathering ideas from these extra-neural resources into your cognitive thought processes. This is the idea behind “mind extension,” articulated ...