Over many years of elementary school, high school, and even college and graduate school, we’re never explicitly taught to think outside the brain; we’re not shown how to employ our bodies and spaces and relationships in the service of intelligent thought. Yet this instruction is available if we know where to look; our teachers are the artists and scientists and authors who have figured out these methods for themselves, and the researchers who are, at last, making these methods the object of study.
Our culture insists that the brain is the sole locus of thinking, a cordoned-off space where cognition happens, much like the workings of my laptop are sealed inside its aluminum case. This book argues otherwise: it holds that the mind is something more like the nest-building bird I spotted on my walk, plucking a bit of string here, a twig there, constructing a whole out of available parts.
For humans, these parts include, most notably, the feelings and movements of our bodies; the physical spaces in which we learn and work; and the other minds with which we interact—our classmates, colleagues, teachers, supervisors, friends.
In this book, The Extended Mind, Annie Murphy Paul
suggests that the things and the space around us have a profound effect on how we think, feel, and develop. There are profound cultural implications and socioeconomic implications that are essential for us to understand. Here are a few of the lessons we all can learn to take better advantage of the world outside our brains to improve the way we think and help our brains reach their full potential.
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Resources
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- The Extended Mind The power of distributed cognition
Image Credits: Midjourney
(Public Domain)
In-person, 7–11 September 2026
Warbrook House, Hampshire, UK
We are living and working in conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change. This week-long workshop offers a space to practise Conversational Leadership as a shared, lived experience.