The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain

by Annie Murphy Paul

Another kind of physical action capable of advancing our thinking is novel movements: movements that introduce us to an abstract concept via a bodily experience we haven’t had before. Consider: When you step into your shower at home, how do you turn on the hot water? To answer that simple question, you simulated the familiar, well-practiced action in your head; maybe you even reached out and turned an imagined faucet handle. But how would you engage in thinking about an action you’ve never physically experienced? That’s the dilemma facing physics students, who are expected to reason about phenomena like angular velocity and centripetal force without a felt sense of what they’re like. Decades of research on physics education reveal the discouraging result: most students never achieve a firm grasp of the subject. Some studies have found that students’ understanding of physics becomes less accurate after they have completed an introductory college physics course.