The Extended Mind (book)

🔗Connect

🔼Topic:: Memory, Attention and cognitive load (MOC) 🔼Topic:: Creativity (MOC) 🔼Topic:: Learning (MOC)

✒️ Note-Making

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas

1. Thinking is not only in the brain - The concept of extended mind suggests that our thinking is not limited to our brain, but can be extended to the environment, our body, and other people. When we think "outside of our brain", we can access much more information, develop our thinking, and explore creative options. Like the difference between a single person and a team, or a sole computer and the internet.
2. Think with your body - Use your hands, walk around, listen to your body, and don't let your mind take control in stressful situations.
3. Think with spaces - Do nature walks, personalize your work area, limit distractions and negative cues, use visual representations
4. Think with others - consult with your peers, imitate experts, and teach others

🗒️Relate

⛓ Life lessons, action items

🔍Critique

✅ by following this method, what will happen?

by moving some of our thinking process from our heads to the environment, our body, or someone else, we can greatly benefit from:

1. Reduced cognitive load
2. Improved critical thinking and creativity
3. Improved memory and learning

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong... The part that says to trust your body or your instincts doesn't include enough considerations for bad intuitions, or biases that can cause us to make bad decisions.

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are...

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... This book is "okay". The idea of an extended mind sounds promising at the start but it is clearly a collection of life hacks smashed together into a book that was perhaps unnecessarily inflated. The distinction between some of the parts is arbitrary and not memorable. The writer was clearly affected by a certain philosopher and wanted to carry on his legacy.

🖼️Outline

📒 Notes

Prolog

believing that our thinking starts and ends with our brain is mistaken. Extended thinking, that can increase our creativity. richness and overall quality of our thoughts can be done using 3 things:

1. Bodily thinking - for example, using your hands while thinking or talking increases memory
2. Situational thinking - using cues from the environment can spark new ideas Nudge
3. Disturbed thinking - discussions with others can also stir up new thoughts and increase their quality. discussions as tools for thinking

Prolog

• we think best when we think with our bodies, our spaces, and our relationships. (Location 92)
• Elements of the world outside may effectively act as mental “extensions,” allowing us to think in ways our brains could not manage on their own. (Location 111)
• As long as we settle for thinking inside the brain, we’ll remain bound by the limits of that organ. But when we reach outside it with intention and skill, our thinking can be transformed. It can become as dynamic as our bodies, as airy as our spaces, as rich as our relationships—as capacious as the whole wide world. (Location 151)

Intro

In the recent century, two main metaphors for the brain ruled our thoughts:

1. A brain is like a computer - a series of components and functions which using a given input will produce a similar output Functionalism
2. A brain is like a muscle - the more you use it, the better it will be Growth Mindset

However, both have led to a misconception of how our brain actually works. Our brain is like magpies, a type of bird which build its nest from whatever is around it. Preferably planets, but when that's not available - then metal scraps, plastic products, and even barbed wire.

By using this analogy, we can understand that:

1. Inter connectivity - thought happens no only "in our head" but also by using the world around us. It is a continuous act of sampling and assembling using resources external to our brain. Coherentism
2. GIGO - the types of "external mental resources" affect the nature of quality of the thought that can be produced. GIGO
3. Expansion - Intelligent thoughts, and our ability to improve our thinking in general, is also the result of our understanding on how to access and use such external resources.

Intro

• Thinking outside the brain means skillfully engaging entities external to our heads—the feelings and movements of our bodies, the physical spaces in which we learn and work, and the minds of the other people around us—drawing them into our own mental processes. (Location 166)
• With every twist of complexity added to the world’s problems, the naked brain becomes more unequal to the task of solving them. (Location 189)
• thought happens not only inside the skull but out in the world, too; it’s an act of continuous assembly and reassembly that draws on resources external to the brain. For another: the kinds of materials available to “think with” affect the nature and quality of the thought that can be produced. And last: the capacity to think well—that is, to be intelligent—is not a fixed property of the individual but rather a shifting state that is dependent on access to extra-neural resources and the knowledge of how to use them. (Location 341)
• Our pronounced bias in favor of brainbound thinking is long-standing and well entrenched—but a bias is all it is, and one that can no longer be supported or sustained. The future lies in thinking outside the brain. (Location 384)
• experts are those who have learned how best to marshal and apply extra-neural resources to the task before them. (Location 431)
• We extend beyond our limits, not by revving our brains like a machine or bulking them up like a muscle—but by strewing our world with rich materials, and by weaving them into our thoughts. (Location 448)

Chapter 1 - Thinking with Sensations

Intuition - the Body Knows Best

People with a keener sense of self awareness, who are able to introspection more easily are usually more successful. Meaning that those who follow their gut have a higher chance of success. The reason for their success is that the body not only learns faster than our brain, but also able to hold more complex ideas. Instincts is actually advanced learning internalized perhaps even before it was consciously understood by the brain.

Therefore, meditations and specifically body scans are a useful tool for a better connection with your body, and hence the cues it is trying to send. mindfulness

The way to Handle Stress

We think that it's mind over matter, that Grit and willpower is our way to control our body into submission, but it's actually the other way around. Mind-body connection Our body is in charge of managing our energy resources, which it allocates for our memory, attention and readiness for action. By tunning in to our body, we can have a better allocation of resources than if we just "let our brain" react to the situation. Life as Flow

Untrained people tend to be not aroused right before a Challenge, and then highly stressed during the challenge, which makes them preform worse since their energy is misallocated. It is focused on the problem and not the solution. Whereas trained people tend to have a spike of stress right before the challenge, and then relaxed during it. Essentially, their body knows how to prepare for the challenge when the cue appears, and then run smoothly and efficiently during the challenge. Stress

Where Emotions come from

We think that emotions are originated from the brain. When we see a bear, our mind tells our body to prepare to run and our heart to spike, but this too is reversed. We feel stressed when our heart spikes. Only after our body has already reacted to the bear, our mind interprets our bodily status as something stressful.

Thinking with sensations

The body not only grants us access to information that is more complex than what our conscious minds can accommodate. It also marshals this information at a pace that is far quicker than our conscious minds can handle. (Location 555) tuning in to these feelings is only a first step. The next step is to name them. Attaching a label to our interoceptive sensations allows us to begin to regulate them; without such attentive self-regulation, we may find our feelings overwhelming, or we may misinterpret their source. (Location 578) Sensing and labeling our internal sensations allows them to function more efficiently as our somatic rudder, steering a nimble course through the many decisions of our days. (Location 594) We think of ourselves as deciding to grit it out, as resolving to exert willpower, often over the protests of an unwilling body. But, in fact, resilience is rooted in our awareness of the sensations that originate in our organs and extremities—and the more alert we are to these inner signals, the more resilient we are able to be in the face of life’s hardships. (Location 663) moving one’s focus back and forth between what is transpiring internally and what is going on outside the body. Such shifts are useful in ensuring that we are neither too caught up in external events nor too overwhelmed by our internal feelings, but instead occupy a place of balance that incorporates input from both realms. (Location 737)

Chapter 2 - Thinking with Movement

movement has a strong effect on our mental capabilities. By having a low-moderate exercise, we prime our body for enhanced efficiently, putting ourselves in an alert state, improving blood circulation and energy consumption. In contrast with sitting down, which "turns off" our body.

Incorporating movement into our learning and thinking process is key for improvement of memory and creativity. The more connected the movement to the actual task, such as using farm toys when reading a book about a farm, or throwing things to learn about gravity, the more benefits we get from it. visual representations

thinking with movement

• the visual system becomes more sensitive when we are actively exploring our environment. When our bodies are at rest—that is, sitting still in a chair—this heightened acuity is dialed down. (Location 880)
• we can intentionally enhance our mental functioning through an application of physical activity—that we can, for example, improve our memory not through working our brains ever harder, but by looping in the meaning-bearing movements of our limbs. (Location 1042)

Chapter 3 - Gestures for Memory

Talking with gestures is helpful for

1. Communication - making the message more understandable and memorable
2. memorization - we tend to remember more ideas when we use our hands to talk about them
3. understanding concepts - especially in spatial, visual ideas, hands are a key component of understanding
4. creativity - we tend to explore ideas more when we can use hand gestures to think about them

In general, we have only treated hands as complementary to speaking, but this is a language of it's own. We express ideas in gestures before we do so in speech. non verbal communication

Gestures for memory

• Gestures don’t merely echo or amplify spoken language; they carry out cognitive and communicative functions that language can’t touch. (Location 1304
• In each exchange, gesture provides a preview of the concept that will be conveyed in words—and in both cases, the listener shows that he or she understands the sentiment (by nodding and murmuring) at the moment when he or she perceives the gesture, before the spoken part of the sentiment is uttered. (Location 1351
• we feel freer to try out new ideas in movement before committing to them in speech; as Susan Goldin-Meadow puts it, “Gesture encourages experimentation.” (Location 1434
• moving our hands advances our understanding of abstract or complex concepts, reduces our cognitive load, and improves our memory. Making gestures also helps us get our message across to others with more persuasive force. (Location 1499)

Chapter 4 - Natural Spaces Are Good for Attention

Nature has a renewing power on our mental health, it clears our heads, restores tranquility and reduces stress. Having the ability to do Nature walk, or even simply having plants and access to natural light in your place of work could be highly beneficial.

Natural spaces are good for attention

• “environmental self-regulation,” a process of psychological renewal that our brains cannot accomplish on their own. (Location 1720
• nature itself provides a comprehensive guide to the conditions in which our minds and bodies work best. (Location 1879)

Chapter 5 - Environment for Better Creativity

The spaces we work in have a great effect on our creativity and productivity. The open office has caused severe damage for the benefit of a reduced price of construction. Key elements to enable creative thinking that can't be done in an open office settings, and will probably require some type of a private office is:

1. Reduced distractions - noise, incoming visitors and visual distractions can harm our focus greatly. Distractions
2. Privacy - you tend to be less creative and risk taker when you know others are watching you. Exploration is replaced with repetition. Psychological safety
3. Social safety - even if we are not aware of it, when we are surrounded by others, much of our mental capability goes on analyzing the social situation at any given moment. Understanding the latest gossip, how others see you, and how you should react according to the social norm can take a large bandwidth of your mind. Social Environment
4. Ownership - having a place that you feel as it is yours, that you can shape as you wish, adjust to your preferences is also very helpful for productivity. Having a sense of "home turf", where you belong and that it is a safe space for you can give you the confidence to "give it all" in your work. Ownership
5. Identity - environment cues can trigger certain identity traits within us. For example reminding Asians that they are "good in math" can improve their performance. Similarly, having the ability to control which cues are apparent in your workplace and knowing which traits they trigger can turn disability to creativity, by giving us a sense of belonging, of a shared identity with the company, by enabling diverse points of view. Instead of a single "blank" worker identity, we should nurture diverse personal identity.

Environment for better creativity

• employees feel more committed to their company when they are able to see themselves reflected in it. A sense of ownership extends from the individual to the organization, and it flows through physical space. (Location 2389)
• The key, she says, is not to eliminate stereotypes but to diversify them—to convey the message that people from many different backgrounds can thrive in a given setting. (Location 2429)

Chapter 6 - Thinking with Space.

Spatial thinking is a great multiplier to our mental capabilities. Like the technology in "minority report", or modern day mind maps (or canvases), when we can touch, play, and view ideas from different angles, there's much more chances of having a great idea.

Therefore, at the least, you should:

1. size does matter - Use a big monitor (more "space" for thought)
2. capture - write down your thoughts Capture content
3. spatialize ideas - employ Memory Palace
4. visualize - use visual representations of your ideas, make them tangible Clarity

Thinking with space

• The human brain is not well equipped to remember a mass of abstract information. But it is perfectly tuned to recalling details associated with places it knows—and (Location 2570)
• the capacity to access information through our peripheral vision enables us to gather more knowledge and insight at one time, providing us with a richer sense of context. The power to see “out of the corners of our eyes” also allows us to be more efficient at finding the information we need, and helps us to keep more of that information in mind as we think about the challenge before us. (Location 2662)
• thinking with your brain alone—like a computer does—is not equivalent to thinking with your brain, your eyes, and your hands.” (Location 2827)

Chapter 7 - Think with Experts

To benefit as much as you can from experts, imitate them. Imitation The advantages of imitations are:

1. filtering - You utilize the wisdom of others, let them be your filter for the irrelevant knowledge.
2. mixing - you can combine knowledge from multiple sources
3. what not to do - you can also learn from their mistakes
4. credibility - other's actions are usually honest (since it is for their own good), so you can be sure that that information is credible.
5. unconscious thinking - Knowledge is not always fully "on the surface", listening to an expert ignores all the subtleties of things that have became automatic for him, which will be salient in his actions.

However, imitation is an art of its own. To be a good imitator, you need to know:

1. Who to imitate - who is truly an expert.
2. what to imitate - which part of their behavior is relevant
3. Why to imitate - why their actions lead to their success, don't just blindly imitate others.

It's best to find an expert that is as close as possible to your situation, meaning that they were a novice not so long ago, perhaps even made the same path as you. That way, they are more aware of the necessary bits of information that are critical for you. Mentor

think with experts

• Although it can feel good to chart our own course, he says, we often perform better when we copy someone more experienced and more knowledgeable than ourselves. (Location 3001)
• imitators can draw from a wide variety of solutions instead of being tied to just one. They can choose precisely the strategy that is most effective in the current moment, making quick adjustments to changing conditions. (Location 3003)
• copiers can evade mistakes by steering clear of the errors made by others who went before them, while innovators have no such guide to potential pitfalls. (Location 3015)
• imitators are able to avoid being swayed by deception or secrecy: by working directly off of what others do, copiers get access to the best strategies in others’ repertoires. (Location 3028)

Chapter 8 - Thinking with Colleagues

Learning and idea forming in general is a social activity. Usually we pay much more attention to the actions of our peers rather than the teachings of the teacher, since this involves understanding our social status. If a class member does something well, there is a much higher chance that I will imitate him rather than being told to do that by the teacher.

The best ways to develop ideas with your colleagues is:

1. Discussions - To switch on our critical thinking glasses we need to enter "teacher mode", that means debating, discussing ideas with our colleagues. peer support
2. Stories - Stories are a powerful tool for learning, it is much more engaging and memorable than a simple delivery of information. Therefore when talking with colleagues, try to deliver your messages using stories. Storytelling

thinking with colleagues

• Our brains evolved to think with people: to teach them, to argue with them, to exchange stories with them. Human thought is exquisitely sensitive to context, and one of the most powerful contexts of all is the presence of other people. (Location 3320)
• Engaging in active debate puts us in the position of evaluating others’ arguments, not simply constructing (and promoting) our own. Such objective analysis, unclouded by self-interested confirmation bias, makes the most of humans’ discriminating intelligence. (Location 3568)
• Listening—and telling—is at the heart of one more way we can use social interaction to enhance our thinking: through the exchange of stories. (Location 3598)

Chapter 9 - Group Thinking

Group thinking can be a powerful source of Intrinsic Motivation and a sense of belonging. By becoming one with the group, we internalize the group goals as our own, and we share an identity with others, which makes the connection strong.

In order to develop a shared identity, we need to:

1. learn together
2. Train together
3. Feel together

basically, the more we share emotional situations together, the stronger the bond will be. For example, arranging shared meals, activities, movements or singing is a good option.

group thinking

• Membership in a group can be a potent source of motivation—if we feel a genuine sense of belonging to the group, and if our personal identity feels firmly tied to the group and its success. When these conditions are met, group membership acts as a form of intrinsic motivation: (Location 3927)
• whenever possible, we should offload information, externalize it, move it out of our heads and into the world. (Location 4246)
• whenever possible, we should endeavor to transform information into an artifact, to make data into something real—and then proceed to interact with it, labeling it, mapping it, feeling it, tweaking it, showing it to others. (Location 4268)