@philosophyminis: Apple owns your mind. Google owns your thinking. The biggest tech companies in the world have taken control of your mind, and they will rent them back to you for a certain price, and certain loyalty commitments. In 1998, the philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers introduced the Extended Mind thesis. They argued that the technologies we've invented aren't just tools to make life easier. They are ways of thinking. And so we offload our thinking to a calculator. We use a journal as our memory. But these days, the smartphones in our pockets are the Extended Mind thesis on silicon steroids. We use Google instead of remembering a fact. We use Apple Maps rather than learning a direction. We wait to see what our friends, or our favourite influencers, think before we even form an opinion. But there is a dark and important difference. When you buy a journal, or a calculator, you own it. That is yours. But so much modern technology is only rented. Sometimes this is explicit. If you stop paying for cloud storage, you'll lose access to all of those photos from your past, and sometimes it's more subtle. If you don't log in, or watch this app, or give the app your attention, then you will lose contact with your friends. You'll lose contact with the world. And so, the solution here is to reclaim your mind. Of course, use technology. Of course, use apps. But remember that you are the one thinking, and you are the one in charge of your life. You don't need to pay any company to use your mind.

Jonny Thomson

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Region: GB

Friday 26 June 2026 14:57:30 GMT