The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain

by Annie Murphy Paul

Our schools, our workplaces, the very structure of our society are based on the assumption that some people are able to think more intelligently than others. The reason for such individual differences is taken as self-evident: obviously it’s because those people are smarter—because they have more of the stuff called “intelligence” inside their heads. Research on the extended mind points to a different explanation. That is: some people are able to think more intelligently because they are better able to extend their minds. They may have more knowledge about how mental extension works, the kind of knowledge that this book aims to make accessible. But it’s also indisputable that the extensions that allow us to think well—the freedom to move one’s body, say, or the proximity of natural green spaces; control over one’s personal workspace, or relationships with informed experts and accomplished peers—are far from equally distributed. When reading the chapters that follow, we should keep in mind the way access, or lack of access, to mental extensions might be shaping the thinking of our students, employees, co-workers, and fellow citizens.