Science writer Annie Murphy Paul argues that identifying the mind with the brain has limited our understanding of our cognitive abilities and urges a radical shift to keep pace with an increasingly abstract and complex society.

The mind is an elusive thing that scientists and philosophers have tried for ages to describe.

But what if it's actually the ways we talk about the mind and brain that prevent us from fully understanding consciousness?

Annie Murphy Paul is a science writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times and Scientific American.

In this book, Paul argues that our failure to understand our mind lies in flawed metaphors that conceive of the brain as a computer or a muscle separate from the rest of our body.

The Extended Mind argues for a holistic theory of mental existence that integrates our bodies as well as the world beyond.