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Embodied philosophy

throng
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Posted 08/19/08 - 06:10 AM:	#11
Consider this, All nature of men are having ideas, as they wonder what is true. From all angles (backrounds, persuasions) they are seeking, but with the same goal. So, people all over get similar ideas at the same time, because thier seeking is of one thing, and their findings are similar things.
I know that I don't know, so I don't know if I do.

Kelby
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Posted 08/26/08 - 01:40 PM:	#12
DJPavel...I too am very interested in Embodied Cognition. I can't believe I didn't see this thread before, as I am a constant advocate of this field.

Phaedruswax
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Posted 08/06/09 - 05:39 PM:	#13
False_Prophet wrote: One problem I find with Embodied Cognition, as good of a theory I think it is, doesn't it assume that there is a "body" in the first place? (Back to the old Descartes/Hume stuff, is it something that has thoughts or a collection of thoughts?)I mean if it is to be any decent philosophy, I think it needs a solid foundation first; in this case to show that thinking or "cognition" is necessarily embodied. Otherwise, from what I gather, it would fall into the trap of circularity. In this case, using our bodies(or senses more specifically) to find out about our bodies(since "cognition" in this case is of the body just like senses are). It depends on where you're looking from. Are you looking from the point of view of a cartesian dualist? And you fall into a trap. You assume that there is something using our bodies, instead of us BEING our bodies.

180 Proof
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Posted 08/06/09 - 09:44 PM:	#14
DJPavel wrote: Psychological experiments suggest that when the brain perceives something, it goes through this evaluation process (whether you consciously realize it or not): 1. Can I eat it? 2. Can it eat me? 3. Can I mate with it? 4. Have I seen this before? So, we pick out the details in the perceptual stimuli biased by this evolved heuristic (for obvious reasons). If the answer to 4 is in the negative, the brain starts evaluating what the body can do with whatever caused the stimuli. It later stores the evaluation as a category in memory for subsequent recognition and a shortcut to action. 1. Nope. 2. Er, not at this distance ... 3. I wouldn't even with your genitalia. 4. No, but the déjà vu its giving me is a bitch. Edited by 180 Proof on 08/10/09 - 03:25 AM. Reason: grammar ...
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

MarchHare
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Posted 08/07/09 - 06:56 AM:	#15
False_Prophet wrote: One problem I find with Embodied Cognition, as good of a theory I think it is, doesn't it assume that there is a "body" in the first place? (Back to the old Descartes/Hume stuff, is it something that has thoughts or a collection of thoughts?)I mean if it is to be any decent philosophy, I think it needs a solid foundation first; in this case to show that thinking or "cognition" is necessarily embodied. Otherwise, from what I gather, it would fall into the trap of circularity. In this case, using our bodies(or senses more specifically) to find out about our bodies(since "cognition" in this case is of the body just like senses are). One can only NOT assume the body if one first pretends to be in a radically different epistemic situation, which might have fictional value but has nothing to do with reality. I don't think the foundation one starts with in philosophy ever really matters: it is how one goes about things after the foundation. If I'm in Kuala Lumpar and you're in Caracas, rational inquiry would lead to both of us finding out way to Athens. The real test for embodied cognition would be this: can one have a mind which is disembodied? To my knowledge, no proof of a disembodied mind has ever been substantiated (despite years of parapsychology) which means embodied cognition is very plausible. Since we know that all known minds have bodies, the pressure is on those who believe the two are in some way fundamentally separate to prove the existence of a disembodied mind. At a conceptual level, I can't imagine any sort of experience without a body; at a semantic level, we talk about the body as being a part of ourselves eg. "I was hit by that ball".
Doubt requires a reason to doubt. Nothing is immune from potential doubt. The correct response to a question isn't always to try to give the question's answer.

Phaedruswax
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Posted 08/07/09 - 07:40 AM:	#16
MarchHare wrote: The real test for embodied cognition would be this: can one have a mind which is disembodied? To my knowledge, no proof of a disembodied mind has ever been substantiated (despite years of parapsychology) which means embodied cognition is very plausible. Since we know that all known minds have bodies, the pressure is on those who believe the two are in some way fundamentally separate to prove the existence of a disembodied mind. At a conceptual level, I can't imagine any sort of experience without a body; at a semantic level, we talk about the body as being a part of ourselves eg. "I was hit by that ball". I think we can go further and say that the materials which the body is composed of is less important than a contiguous body. What I mean by this is, hypothetically speaking, if one were to replace a body part with some other functioning part, the whole would retain its identity.

MarchHare
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Posted 08/14/09 - 09:43 AM:	#17
Phaedruswax wrote: I think we can go further and say that the materials which the body is composed of is less important than a contiguous body. What I mean by this is, hypothetically speaking, if one were to replace a body part with some other functioning part, the whole would retain its identity. Quite possibly. I would agree that, for example, there's no reason to regard an artificial limb as being less a part of oneself than an organic limb. I would also say that any concept of the self based on substance alone is likely to quickly fall into absurdity, given our modern knowledge of atomic physics: if you defines oneself as being the atoms that make up one's body, then you weren't there in many of your memories where you THINK you remember being there and you certainly weren't there when you were born. A lot of interesting work lately has gone into the issue of extended minds: what is, for instance, the essential difference between a set of neurons that store memories of a shopping list and a piece of paper that has the shopping list written on it? I would tend to say that it is the transactive nature of the whole that is the key thing behind human experience: one cannot isolate a single part of a person that is "the self" (Buddhist philosophers have a useful analogy with a chariot for this concept) but the self and its interrelations within its environment create what we call the self.
Doubt requires a reason to doubt. Nothing is immune from potential doubt. The correct response to a question isn't always to try to give the question's answer.

Machiveli
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Posted 08/17/09 - 11:33 AM:	#18
Merleau-Ponty Ok now add to it... I generally fall into the embodied consiousness camp myself. Though I feel that your heuristic 1. Can I eat it? 2. Can it eat me? 3. Can I mate with it? 4. Have I seen this before? Is a little faux evolutionary psycology and also a little too high level. You are starting with actualy very complex concepts which already build in certain preconceptions of the world. View it at a lower level start with the embodied processing of a simple organism. Think of an artificial situation. e.g. what would the embodied consiousness of packman be? (or something) and work up from there. Edited by Machiveli on 08/17/09 - 11:40 AM

Happy Liar
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Posted 08/17/09 - 03:15 PM:	#19
MarchHare wrote: one cannot isolate a single part of a person that is "the self" I completely agree with this. Although it makes our loss/regeneration of cells a little tough to understand in this context. However one could take a holistic approach and believe it isn't the materials which matter, but the arrangements of said materials.

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