“No man is an island”—John Donne. Contemporary cognitive science is proving this to be true. Humans are deeply social creatures, both for survival and wellbeing. Our inner private experience, our thoughts, can be understood as an inner dialogue. We correct misunderstandings and false beliefs through contact with others and we need this interaction to make sense of and act in the world.

Dialogos is conversation which engages deeply distributed cognition. More than just a dialogue (a conversation), in dialogos the conversation itself becomes an entity you're engaged with. Dialogos is somewhat like a shared, distributed flow-state, where intelligibility and skills are fully manifest. This leads to insight and depth that we can't reach on our own—more than the sum of parts. There is a through-line of the conversation connecting the experiences and intelligences of the participants, but this through-line is not dictated by any individual.

Entering into dialogos, like entering into flow-state, can be thought of as the dialogos "catching fire". Practices such as Art Fellowship, provide the structure, guidance, and space to help find it. Here are some intentions you can set to help enter dialogos:

• Focus less on being right and more on shared discovery and progress. Allow yourselves to be vulnerable and ignorant. "Right relation, rather than being right"
• Listen intently. Try to see into the other person and draw out their thoughts rather than simply agreeing or attacking
• Pick a subject a bit beyond any of your grasps. Rather than try to reach a conclusion, seek emergent insight that you can only get to together.