Mental footnotes: Knowledge constructivism from logical thinking to daily functioning

Abstract

The mental activity we carry out daily is tiresome. Our cognitive system must save energy in order to be able to solve problems. If we had to reason every single problem that was presented to us, our mental load and fatigue would increase immeasurably. Our minds can avoid the unnecessary waste of resources by taking a shortcut when reasoning. The output of previous reasonings turns into pieces of implicit information that constitute the meanings that we give to things or circumstances. Those meanings determine the manner we represent our environment and, therefore, our beliefs, emotions and behaviors. These “mental footnotes” set the way we contemplate and understand the world.