The spatial intersection of minds

Abstract

Spatial formats of information are ubiquitous in the cognitive and neural sciences. There are neural uses of space in the topographic maps found throughout cortex. There are metaphorical uses of space in cognitive linguistics, physical uses of space in ecological psychology, and mathematical uses of space in dynamical systems theory. These varied informational uses of space each provide a single contiguous medium through which cognitive processes can be shared across subsystems. As we further develop our understanding of how the human mind processes information in real time, the continuous sharing and cascading of information patterns between brain areas can be extended to a sharing and cascading of information between multiple brains and bodies to produce coordinated behavior. Essentially, the way you and the people around you negotiate your shared space affects the way you think, because space is a fundamental part of how you think. It is via space that the mental processes of one mind can form an intersection with the mental processes of another mind.