The interviewee name is Annie Murphy. She is a science journalist. Her recent book [[The Extended Mind: The Power of thinking Outside the Brain|The Extended Mind: The Power of thinking Outside the Brain]] explains how we benefit from outside resources of the brain that can help us think better.
She claims that after the cognitive revolution period, we overly focus our brain in the thinking process. Actually, many things be involved this process. For example, not only the brain but also our body affects our thinking. That means aware of interoception, which “defined as the collection of senses perceiving the internal state of the body”[1], is important to thinking wisely. Because interoception is information that helps us choose the best option in a given situation. We can train ourselves to perceive this information more easily.
Relationship with others is another important thing. For example, ideas become more useful or innovative when we discuss the ideas with others. In 18th centuries in England, people met up at London coffeehouses and shared ideas each other. It was like a “liquid networks” where ideas collide and lead inovation.[2] Of course, the internet is coffeehouses in a modern world where collective intelligence grows if we use it wisely.
Body and relationship are mental extension that helps us think better as her explanation. Another mental extension is a physical space. If we want to do our best in a thinking process, it needs to get ideas and information in our heads out of heads and onto physical space like a whiteboard or post-it. We can think more clearly as much as loads of working memory decrease by dump ideas and information into physical space.[3]
The key point is that thinking doesn’t only happens in our head. We dump the ideas and information in our heads to out of heads and loop the ideas and information through body, through relationship with other people, through physical space. We can create the more improved ideas by doing so. We need to reframe about thinking in this way.
Last one year, I have been interested in organizing information through note-taking app. So the subtitle of this book hooked my eyes. Actually, the contents of this book that describes by the author was not that I was thinking, but it gave me insights in a more broaden and integrate perspective. Especially, I learned that aware of bodily process through mindful meditation helps me make better choices, decrease impulsive decisions, and set a more effective plan as much as thinking through tools or devices like a note-taking app or whiteboard.
Finally, what I interested in this episode is that mental extensions are not equally distributed. I mean, someone has more extensions than the other. For example, someone is not able to sleep for about 7-8 hours. Maybe he could only sleep for 4-5 hours because he has to work long hours to earn money enough to live. This is inequality in terms of mental extensions because sleep is important for the body and mental functioning as you know. I’m curious if the author covers this issue more deeply in the book.
Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson, Talks at Google - YouTube ↩︎
[[1. 영구노트/P - 생각정리를 통해 작업기억의 메모리가 충분해야 생각을 잘한다|P - 생각정리를 통해 작업기억의 메모리가 충분해야 생각을 잘한다]] ↩︎
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