Member Discussion for “The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain” — July 2022

“The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain” by Annie Murphy Hall is ...

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“The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain” by Annie Murphy Hall is the next book in the “Thinking About Thinking” series for The Dispatch Book Club. To ask questions, share thoughts, and interact with other members use the comment section on this page. At the end of this month, we will release the accompanying podcast with Sarah Isgur and a special guest.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Martin Hernandez

    I was reminded of the Chapter on interior spaces while listening to Jonah speak to Brent Orrell about JP Morgan employees being reluctant to return to the workplace. I can only imagine many of their employees are happily enjoying their own (at least perceived) improved output as they got to work (for the last two years) in their own spaces, as opposed to having to share them in a distracting environment. I hope Sarah found time to ask about the recent rise or trend in these Co-Working spaces like Co-Hatch, Versa and Qwirk (among others) that create these open usable work spaces and are designed to recreate the "coffee house" vibe of Ben Franklin's time. Is this another case of hipster trends gone wrong? or is there data to support their potential for success?

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  2. Dan Mays

    I can't help but think that the idea of each generation thinking they are better than the previous generation (and how wrong that thinking is) is displayed throughout this book. Yes, there are aspects of each generation that build on or make right previous generations mistakes, but it seems to me that a lot of our understanding of learning in the US today is unhelpful (i.e.. are brains are computers). Plus, the idea of getting outside, moving, physically writing, were done by past generations better than my learning experience.

    I think of someone like "John Wesley" who road all over the place on horse back and kept pins and paper in his coat to write ideas down. John Wesley was able to think deeply, creatively, and profoundly because of the time alone and outside.

    Still trying to figure out the best way to incorporate some of these things into my life. I'm trying to journal and write more (with pen and paper). Not very good at this, but working on it.

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    1. Laura P

      (Sorry, didn’t mean to hit Post yet)
      Yes, you’re right that a younger generation can fall in love with a new idea/fashion/tech and go too far. The car entranced the public in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. Walking, like buses, fell totally out of favor; highways slashed through cities, destroying neighborhoods; suburbs paved farms and forests: all bad effects that we’re only now beginning to recover from. But that doesn’t mean that cars were an unmitigated disaster, just that it just takes time to put new tech into its proper place, where we get its true benefits and control its nasty side effects. In 50 years (I hope) we will have figured out how to keep social media — today’s new innovation that has run wild — in its proper niche.

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    2. Laura P

      I think each generation has new insights and loses older ones, all the time. So, yes, you’re right

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    Jori Sackin

    In Anna Karenina, she takes a train ride and looks at a landscape dotted with small towns on her way to the city. This scene begins and ends the book. In the first trip she’s excited and happy and so the landscape and the people she sees are as well. By the end she’s depressed and so everything takes a darker tone. Tolstoy’s insight into human beings, that we shape the environment around us by how we’re feeling, seems a much stronger force than the author’s claim that natural settings are good and so they make us happier and more focused. They’re both true, but one seems to swamp the other in terms of its power over our experience. I don’t doubt that in general natural settings may lift our spirits, but the question is, how much? Given the expense of redesigning buildings and schools and office spaces, the effect needs to be greater than the comparative cost, especially if there are cheaper ways to get people to focus and relax, such as meditation.

    I have to say I used to enjoy these kinds of books more, the type that hoovers up all the relevant studies in a field to reinforce an argument. Since the replication crisis, I’m much more skeptical about psychological results especially one’s that are based around priming. I’ve been fooled one to many times by astounding results from underpowered studies, and since there are so many studies referenced, and I can’t possibly look into each and every one of them, it does start to exhaust my counter factual producing mind. I don’t mean to imply that the author has picked a bunch of bad studies to pull from, just that the history of the field is a specter that hangs in the background when I read one or two sentences that sums up the research that touches on human behavior.

    Last point. I’m sure it’s occurred to her but it is a little ironic that we’re consuming all of this information in the exact way she’s arguing against, hunched over staring at a book, reading and not using our body to process or remember the things she is telling us. Even so, I seem to be processing it just fine, which is good for her in one way, she’s getting her information out there, but bad in another, it’s almost an argument against her side, that even though we find ourselves in unnatural settings, not using our body and simply processing symbols in front of us, that’s still a pretty damn good way to take in information.

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    1. Melissa Feagins

      I am listening while driving, so definitely not hunched over sitting still. And I agree with you about the studies. I do know that my autistic mind works this way, and always has. However, I am not sure how that will translate for everyone.

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  4. Melissa Feagins

    I started listening to this book on Audible yesterday and found myself thinking that she was describing how autistic people experience the world. I have trouble disconnecting what my body is experiencing from how my mind responds. Most times for me, that's fine, but when I experience sensory overload, I freeze and can't make rational decisions or even form a coherent thought.
    Sometimes it goes the other way, though. My mind gets so entangled in a problem that I have to move my body into a different physical environment to reset it. This happened to me with work this morning. I sent my boss an email to let them know I was taking a walking around the block and literally walked away.

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    W James Anderson

    So… I’m new here. Not a techy guy but I’m fumbling through. This book club looks intriguing. Would it be better to buy a physical copy or go to an audible version. I can listen while I work so that’s a plus.

    Also, is there a timeline for when the book should be read: or listened by or do we just comment as we read? Peace. 💀’s and🌈’s

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    1. Laura P

      Audible will enliven an otherwise boring time — for me, a ten-hour highway drive — but the written book will stick with you more.

      With a written book, you get purely physical memories, such as, “I saw that on the top of the page.” (This actually supports one of the book’s main concepts.) And in a written book, you can easily find a certain passage and re-read it, as slowly or often as you like, which is not easy in an audio version.

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        W James Anderson

        Thanks Laura. I got a copy of Think Again by Adam Grant. Although in the future I may try audible. We’ll see. My main point for audible was to ensure finishing the book in time😎

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      Jori Sackin

      Each book encompasses a month, so this current book will be done at the end of July. You can comment whenever you like. Sometimes I can't hold onto a comment so I'll post it as I'm reading.

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        W James Anderson

        Maybe I’ll hop on board in August😎

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    Anne W (Raw5254)

    What a great choice, Sarah! I’m someone who has ADHD, and it can be fine sometimes, but a real struggle other times. This book gives me some hope, actually. One of the most relaxing and recharging things I do is trail ride my horse, but I enjoy hiking, too. I’m so grateful my husband and I live in the country.

    Yesterday and today I was reading about “copying.” I do that a lot, especially when it comes to learning how to paint. I’ve copied a number of paintings I’ve found online (I never claim them as my own, and I don’t even share them.). I’m really good at copying for some reason. Same thing with learning how to paint with computer and iPad apps. I copy, and I learn.

    I’ve done quite a bit of my own artwork, and I’m quite proud of it. I don’t sell anything; it’s just for me, and I share it with friends.

    ADHD made me feel as though I wasn’t very smart when I was younger. I wasn’t good academically, but I see now that I didn’t really apply myself. I was bored a lot of the time, and easily distracted (that still happens). My brain works differently, but that’s not necessarily bad.

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  7. BrainTrusts

    Einstein, Keppler, Watt, etc., had, I think, few of these illustrative gestures, or other help to "visualize" their concepts in science. Many had no contemporaries to give them those "illustrations" to push their never-before-found ideas.
    After reading a good chunk of this book, I can't help but wonder how the author takes a myriad of psychologists, psychiatrists, social scientists, educators, and other researchers, to the n-th degree and consolidates their collective findings into: hey! get out of the house, pay attention to others, see the World, and try to manipulate your thinking to see how others' see things so that you may learn something new.
    The author's other findings, which are REALLY odd, are that one can make decisions based upon bodily feelings, meaning "gut" feelings, in fact, the author uses that word. Am guessing that there is about as much evidence that stock traders use just GUT feelings to make money as there is evidence in telepathy. Seems to me Gut Feelings have no reference to reality. Author does say that one must test those feelings over time, but am guessing that ANY feelings about decisions, even love, must ALWAYS be judged by realities and prior knowledge and experiences. I can't tell you how many times I have gone AGAINST my gut feeling to do nothing, and did them anyway, ie.: taking on a new job, making cold calls in sales, approaching the opposite sex, and, of course, speaking my mind when I was sure it was going to get me into trouble.
    So far, a lot of conclusions in this book seem to be New Age teachings and mysticism.
    I think I can sum up the book, so far, in saying: stop watching tv, read more books, listen to others who disagree with you, pay attention to other people and their words/actions, gain better speaking and writing skills, learn better illustrative speaking skills, and most of all, forget about your "feelings".
    Most of all, learn to cognitively manipulate ideas and concepts to conceive of them in different lights, so that you can Grok them.
    Yeah, and get exercise on a daily basis; it forces blood/oxygen into the brain and tends to flush out the feeling that you thought your were already in good shape.
    Can you tell I'm not crazy about this book? I'll finish it anyway, though.

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    1. Chris Nilepublican

      I think understanding this author's points about "gut feelings" might mean looking at other scientific work they follow, like Lisa Feldman Barret's exploration of emotions - https://anniemurphypaul.com/article/thinking-clearly-requires-feeling-deeply/. It's about bringing the concept of feelings into the 21st century, just like we've had to revise our understanding of how the brain distributes the work of memory, sensory perception, etc.

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      Jori Sackin

      The stronger argument for the writer’s “gut feeling” claim is better flushed out by identifying the difference between experiential intuition (flow states achieved in sports) and intuition that isn’t connected to a body of knowledge (guessing a number on roulette).

      Baseball players have an intuitional knowledge of how to play the game, which essentially means, they’ve played it long enough that there conscious response is packeted into unconscious reactions and so if you asked them, “what was going through your mind when you did so and so play” they would say, “nothing” or maybe make reference to “a feeling”.

      Her example of stock traders follows along this line. They’re sucking up a lot of information and so when you ask them why they made a certain decision they also might respond with “a feeling” but of course that feeling is related to a whole bunch of packeted unconscious information that they developed through the rational processes of trail and error.

      My problem with the author’s framing is that she often pits these things against each other (rationality vs. intuition) (brain vs. body). Given her knowledge of how framing works, it just seems odd that she would create this conflict as opposed to describing them as co-evolutionary systems that work together to give us access to a much wider range of responses to our environment.

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    3. mle

      I'm only about 20% through the book, but having read the intro and the table of contents, I fear that you are correct. I don't disagree with most of the ideas. It is good to get exercise (I actually just finished up Chapter 3 while on my elliptical), and gesturing probably does help with learning. But I'm not enjoying this book nearly as much as I enjoyed LiveWired.

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      1. Charles Gorder

        I agree. I am having a difficult time getting anything new out of this book. I have put it down for this week and not sure I can finish it before it is due back at the library. LiveWired was much more thought provoking.

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    Martin Hernandez

    I'm at the doorstep of the final chapter and thus far can't help but think of the difference between how my schooling (private, Catholic, Caribbean setting) was early in life and my daughters' (public, US) has been. I learned in classrooms with windows open to vibrant courtyards, individual desks facing the teacher and teachers who would instruct us to do some minor calisthenics before starting the lessons. My daughters' have had classes in mobile trailers lit with fluorescent lighting, desks grouped together, facing each other and no recess other than after their lunch breaks. I'm also saddened by how my daughters' are missing out on the weekly argument filled dinner conversations I had with my siblings and family members growing up in Puerto Rico. Concepts and ideas constantly bounced around and rebutted (hand gestures galore!); meanwhile here at home I feel like we have to hold back when certain friends or my wife's family are around, lest my wife's sister-in-law have a kanipshin. There's a part of me that comes out while reading this book that wants me to get into teaching. In certain way I feel like we have always known the right answers to get the best our of ourselves but this book provides the data and research to support the hypotheses that we developed. As the author states in Chapter 7 (pg 178): "Even if there doesn't turn out to be a functional rationale for the actions taken, imitating the customs of one's culture is a smart move for a highly social species like our own."

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    Jori Sackin

    Halfway through. Really enjoying it so far. Two things popped out to me that I wanted to get down before I forget.

    The first is that in the beginning she uses a common layout in cognitive linguistics, which is to present metaphors that are viewed as problematic (brain as computer, brain as muscle) then go through the ways in which they fail, and finally propose a new metaphor that’s supposed to work better. The problem with this approach is that every metaphoric concept has a point of failure. A common example is that Time in Money. You can give people your time, but they can’t give it back to you. This is a logical error in the Time is Money concept, but it doesn’t mean we should stop using it. Pointing out these errors are important, but the solution is not lessening the amount of metaphors we can use but expanding our suite of concepts that can highlight different aspects of a single experience.

    The second point comes from the section on gesture. I am one of those rare people who actually has tried for months to observe and study people’s metaphoric gesture while they’re speaking ‘out in the wild’, and a few insights I can bring is that (1) people are almost always unconscious of what they’re doing with their hands and (2) the meaningful content that exists in someone’s hands during communication is often beside the point to the meat of what they’re trying to convey.

    Imagine you are trying to figure out where you’d like to go to dinner. You are ‘weighing your options’ with another person, and in doing so you do the metaphoric gesture of holding out both hands and dipping them up and down like a scale. What you’re doing is fascinating, in that, you’ve turned yourself into a scale that’s weighing your options and deciding which option is more valuable by ascribing the quality of weight to value. That’s an incredibly complex thing to do without thinking about it, but the focus of the conversation shouldn’t be on what you’re doing with your hands, but on where you should go to eat. This is why most gesture happens unconsciously, because, like the author stated, it is there to help us process information, and maybe not so much to communicate or convey a higher level of meaning.

    Since gesture is more fundamental than speech, the meaning that’s conveyed through it may also be more fundamental i.e. spatial concepts, logical entailments of metaphoric concepts, etc that don’t necessarily elaborate on the meaning but reinforce it. This, to me, is the problem with trying to focus people on their gesture, because the fluidity of conversation requires a lack of self consciousness and asking someone to highlight their hand movements often makes for an awkward interaction because suddenly their awareness of their hands takes away from their awareness of the other person, or a whole host of other things. Anecdotally, I had a hard time attending to the meaning of a conversation when I was watching someone move their hands, and while I did get better at it, it was apparent to me that attending to one thing, gesture, made me worse at attending to many others.

    That is not to say that all of the ways the author describes the uses of gesture aren’t valuable and help in learning, but I imagine most of this happens on a unconscious level and maybe, in a lot of cases, that’s the best place for it to remain.

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  10. Kim Schell

    I really liked this book. It did seem to contradict Livewired in its challenge to so much attention and hope for the future being applied to brain as computer and muscle (which left me hopeful for the littles but not for me).

    The Extended Mind led me to think of all the ways I intuitively extend my mind and motivated me to intentionally extend it more.

    It was a hopeful read. I like that there were applications there for every mind, every vocation, every stage in life. I liked especially the idea that extended minds could lead to extended hearts. What?!

    SO, in Starting Now-speak, this happened to be a week of staging a home office with intention, agreeing to quickly honor the hubster's request for updated family photos for his desk, memorizing a company's mission statement and values using ridiculous hand motions, contemplating Sherlock's mind palace, recommending a client reimagine their company's physical environment, and hearing my heart beating with new attention.

    I did not find the book difficult to digest but I listened rather than read.

    Loved the Livewired pod, more than the book. Can't wait for this book's pod.

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      Anne W (Raw5254)

      It’s hard for me to sit down and read for any length of time. I’ve actually had Alexa read my Kindle book, and I’m surprised at how sophisticated that’s gotten. I love reading, but I’m definitely someone who listens more.

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