The mind is external to the brain and the mind is how we survive/thrive (not the brain) in an increasingly complex fast changing environment

in #life5 years ago (edited)

Definition: For this post I'm defining the "mind" of an economic agent as the total resources which that economic agent can rely upon for arriving at increasingly better decisions over time. The brain is a resource of course but not all decisions come from just the brain. Some decisions come from brains and computers, some come from polling or tracking the decisions of many other brains, some come from formulas or logical language. Any tool which can be used to make decisions (which over time improve) is by my definition part of the mind. It might be a mind offered by a company or a mind you built for yourself or some combinations.

The "mind" is external. Our external mind (which exists independent of our brain) is what we use to become increasingly better economic agents over time. The brain is limited in it's ability to be rational, to think clearly, to pay attention, to adapt, but the mind is not.

The mind includes all the external resources which aid in your ability to reach decisions. This can include other people, it can include machines, it can include using symbolic representation languages such as logic, or formal languages to improve the preciseness and clarity of thought such as math.

The idea of a personal exocortex is the idea that every human should have access to an ability to create and evolve their external mind. The idea of an exocortex is as a means of defeating the plague of involuntary ignorance, involuntary immorality and involuntary irrationality. In other words if you want to be a more effective economic agent then just as businesses use these tools like spreadsheets and human resources (consultants, experts etc) so do all persons.

The idea of having to survive in a complex changing society with only our own individual brains to rely on is next to impossible. It is only due to the fact that we have tools that we can navigate a fast changing environment at all because our brains do not adapt overnight but our tools can. If our tools can adapt then our decisions can also adapt even at rates faster than our brain can keep up (think of high frequency trading as an example).

There is no persistent "me". Just like I don't have perfect memory. What I do have is the ability to monitor, track, calculate, using tools which tell me who I am currently and hopefully can help guide me to who I want to become in the future. The example of this could be the scales people use when their goal is to lose weight. If not for this external object called a scale a person would not even know themselves well enough to know if they are progressing toward their goal. The scale if that information is constantly updated into the cloud becomes a part of the person's mind. The mind is a resource which a person (economic agent) can use to improve their decision making capacity. The brain of most people isn't capable of being rational, or having perfect recall, or being moral in a mathematical sense, because when people rely on their brains even for something like shopping they end up spending more and buying stuff they don't even want or need.

The brain is in constant feedback loop with the mind. The mind is language while the brain is the physical organ. A person without a mind might not even remember their own name but a person with a mind doesn't have to.

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"The idea of having to survive in a complex changing society with only our own individual brains to rely on is next to impossible" Therefore the youngsters always want to be connected to the extended mind, as they hope to get answers to their more and more overwhelming reality.

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