The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain

Lately, I’ve found myself recommending the book, The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul to lots of people – clients, friends, other writers. 

The book is an owner’s manual to your mind – but not the mind that is just in your head – the mind that is in your body, your environment, and your interactions with other people.  

For as long as I can remember I have used my hands while talking. In high school I was told I shouldn’t use my hands because it wasn’t dignified. Over the years, I have tried to adapt to expectations and reduce the use of my hands, while also trying to accept that I have an inclination to use them when I speak.

I feel like my hands know what I’m thinking before my mind/mouth does and that by using my hands I am pulling the words forward. 

When I was living in Brazil, I saw people speaking with their hands, and I felt at home. I was overjoyed to read in the chapter called Thinking with Gesture that,  

“Researchers who study embodied cognition are drawing new attention to the fact that people formulate and convey their thoughts not only with words but also with the motions of the hands and the rest of the body. Gestures don’t merely echo or amplify spoken language; they carry out cognitive and communicative functions that language can’t touch. Where language is discrete and linear – one word following another – gesture is impressionistic and holistic, conveying an immediate sense of how things look and feel and move.”  

Paul goes on to describe the ways in which gesturing helps children to learn language, helps people figure out what they want to say before they say it, and communicates meaning that helps listeners more deeply understand what the speaker is saying.  

This is just one mind-blowing chapter in the section on thinking with the body. She also describes how movement helps us to think, how being in nature helps to reset our brains, why some built environments are more or less conducive to concentrated thought and the ways in which interacting with others helps us think.  

As someone who has always written my thoughts to better understand myself and what I care about, I was especially fascinated by an idea called looping. Looping is the process of how we write, then read what we wrote, then get ideas and understanding because of what we see written before us.

We actually enter into this dialogue with our writing – a dialogue which helps us to think.

To more clearly explain this concept of looping, she describes how famed physicist Richard Feynman was emphatic in an interview with historian Charles Weiner. When Weiner said that Feynman’s notes and sketches were a “record of the day-to-day work,” Feynman corrected him by saying “No, it’s not a record . . . it’s working. You have to work on paper and this is the paper.” The process of writing was an integral part of the thinking process.

Getting your ideas out of your head and onto paper through writing and drawing are critical practices that Paul calls offloading.

Once the ideas are out in front of you, you’re able to do things with the ideas and see connections in a way that’s much harder if it’s all in your head.  

This looping also happens when we’re in conversation with people. I talk to you, sharing my idea, my concern, and you respond and you may not agree with me, which can actually be beneficial because in that process we’re helping each other to see our blind spots. Of course, arguing respectfully is a skill that many of us need help to develop.

We are are wired to interact with one another and learn from each other and think together.

She divides the interaction with people into three segments – interacting with experts, with groups and with peers. All of them are valuable and stimulating to the brain.  She talks about the built environment and what’s necessary for us to focus. For example she shows how the open office plan is not conducive to deep thought.  

This book has given me appreciation for how I can enhance my thinking and intelligence – not by moving less, but by moving more, not by doing more things on my own, but by reaching out to others to share ideas and test my thinking. And yes, by gesturing and drawing and letting the ideas form in response to my movements.