New York Times
October 26, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
The Outsourced Brain
By DAVID BROOKS
The gurus seek bliss amidst mountaintop solitude and serenity in
the meditative trance, but I, grasshopper, have achieved the oneness with the
universe that is known as pure externalization.
I have melded my mind with the heavens, communed with the universal
consciousness, and experienced the inner calm that externalization brings, and
it all started because I bought a car with a G.P.S.
Like many men, I quickly established a romantic attachment to my
G.P.S. I found comfort in her tranquil and slightly Anglophilic voice. I felt
warm and safe following her thin blue line. More than once I experienced her
mercy, for each of my transgressions would be greeted by nothing worse than a
gentle, ÒMake a U-turn if possible.Ó
After a few weeks, it occurred to me that I could no longer get
anywhere without her. Any trip slightly out of the ordinary had me typing the
address into her system and then blissfully following her satellite-fed
commands. I found that I was quickly shedding all vestiges of geographic
knowledge.
It was unnerving at first, but then a relief. Since the dawn of
humanity, people have had to worry about how to get from here to there.
Precious brainpower has been used storing directions, and memorizing turns. I
myself have been trapped at dinner parties at which conversation was devoted
exclusively to the topic of commuter routes.
My G.P.S. goddess liberated me from this drudgery. She enabled me
to externalize geographic information from my own brain to a satellite brain,
and you know how it felt? It felt like nirvana.
Through that experience I discovered the Sacred Order of the
External Mind. I realized I could outsource those mental tasks I didnÕt want to
perform. Life is a math problem, and I had a calculator.
Until that moment, I had thought that the magic of the information
age was that it allowed us to know more, but then I realized the magic of the
information age is that it allows us to know less. It provides us with external
cognitive servants — silicon memory systems, collaborative online filters,
consumer preference algorithms and networked knowledge. We can burden these
servants and liberate ourselves.
Musical taste? I have externalized it. Now I just log on to iTunes
and it tells me what I like.
I click on its recommendations, sample 30 seconds of each song,
and download the ones that appeal. I look on my iPod playlist and realize IÕve
never heard of most of the artists I listen to. I was once one of those people
with developed opinions about the Ramones, but now IÕve shed all that knowledge
and blindly submit to a mishmash of anonymous groups like the Reindeer Section
— a disturbing number of which seem to have had their music featured on
the soundtrack of ÒThe O.C.Ó
Memory? IÕve externalized it. I am one of those baby boomers who
are making this the ÒItÕs on the Tip of My Tongue Decade.Ó But now I no longer
need to have a memory, for I have Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia. Now if I need to
know some fact about the world, I tap a few keys and reap the blessings of the
external mind.
Personal information? IÕve externalized it. IÕm no longer clear on
where I end and my BlackBerry begins. When I want to look up my passwords or
contact my friends I just hit a name on my directory. I read in a piece by Clive
Thompson in Wired that a third of the people under 30 canÕt remember their own
phone number. Their smartphones are smart, so they donÕt need to be. TodayÕs
young people are forgoing memory before they even have a chance to lose it.
Now, you may wonder if in the process of outsourcing my thinking I
am losing my individuality. Not so. My preferences are more narrow and
individualistic than ever. ItÕs merely my autonomy that IÕm losing.
I have relinquished control over my decisions to the universal
mind. I have fused with the knowledge of the cybersphere, and entered the bliss
of a higher metaphysic. As John Steinbeck nearly wrote, a fella ainÕt got a
mind of his own, just a little piece of the big mind — one mind that
belongs to everybody. Then it donÕt matter, Ma. IÕll be everywhere, around in
the dark. Wherever there is a network, IÕll be there. Wherever thereÕs a TiVo
machine making a sitcom recommendation based on past preferences, IÕll be
there. Wherever thereÕs a Times reader selecting articles based on the most
e-mailed list, IÕll be there. IÕll be in the way Amazon links purchasing
Dostoyevsky to purchasing garden furniture. And when memes are spreading, and
humiliation videos are shared on Facebook — IÕll be there, too.
I am one with the external mind. Om.