From Second Brain to Collective

Tools For Thinking by Betaworks hosted by Jerry Michalski - Podcast Index

Links mentioned

• "We Shape Our Tools and Thereafter Our Tools Shape Us" (not! in Understanding Media)
• Elevating Ideas (Heleo's tagline)
• Extended Mind Thesis (1998 EMT)
• Great Man Theory
• Learn Better, Live Smarter (Next Big Idea Club's tagline)
• Multiplayer Tools for Thinking
• The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free (xlnt)
• Tools for Thinking Podcast (2022 T4T, TfT)

Highlights

• The Power of the Digitally Extended Mind
  Key takeaways:
  • The extended mind thesis, which suggests that the mind is extended beyond the body, is incorrect, but has since been proven correct due to advances in technology.
  • When people lose a spouse or close friend, they may feel like they have lost a part of their brain, as their brain has become reliant on that person.
  Transcript:
  Speaker 2
  Well I think it was so in in 1998 Andy Clark and David Chalmers read a paper called The Extended Mind thesis I believe right and and it was a very kind of simple but but novel idea at the time Which was that well what if you know you know this is pre-iPhone and pre you know many things that that you know when people write things down on a laptop and at the time it was like the use Of laptop computers that inspired this thought that really the if the laptop becomes a partner in thinking and you start exporting your brain onto this other device really your your Brain is extended onto onto this laptop device and what I kind of remember who who said since then that that this the extended mind thesis was incorrect in 1998 when they came up with it But it has since become correct because we now know that if we're separated from our iPhones or smartphones that we're we feel debilitated right right because because because of the Persistent proximity of these devices we have basically all of Google Wikipedia everything else is right here all the time and that's become you know part of of it is changed the way I have conversations with my children at dinner I was gonna say dinner with kids is not not the same as it was 20 years ago right I mean why is the sky blue boom I mean and it's and though we Have no phones at dinner you know policy we have we do have a well if you're looking up something to add information to the conversation you're allowed to do that right because it is you Know so but but they had the additional insight that well when people lose a spouse with you know with whom they've cohabitated for decades it can feel like you've lost a portion of yourself And that's actually not an illusory sense because very often people outsource parts of their brains you literally have your wife or your husband remembers for you a certain range of Experiences that you've had lives that you've let it you know you know people you know and when you lose that person you you've literally lost part part of your brain and and so this but But this becomes more compelling when we think about sort of the power of the extended mind in in communities of you know friends colleagues and all the people we potentially connect With through tools like the one that sorry is building Time 0:43:51