Embodiment is the way in which human (or any other animal's) psychology arises from the brain's and body's physiology. It is specifically concerned with the way the adaptive function of categorisation works, and how things acquire names. It is distinguished from developmental psychology and physical anthropology by its focus on cognitive science, ontogeny, ontogenetics, chaos theory and cognitive notions of entropy - far more abstract and more reliant on mathematics. Psychology is an academic or applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. ... Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, an important early achievement in the study of physiology. ... For Wikipedias categorization projects, see Wikipedia:Categorization. ... This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ... Physical anthropology, often called biological anthropology, studies the mechanisms of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and variation, primatology, primate morphology, and the fossil record of human evolution. ... Cognitive science is usually defined as the scientific study either of mind or of intelligence (e. ... Ontogeny (also ontogenesis or morphogenesis) describes the origin and the development of an organism from the fertilized egg to its mature form. ... A plot of the trajectory Lorenz system for values r = 28, σ = 10, b = 8/3 In mathematics and physics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that under certain conditions exhibit a phenomenon known as chaos. ... Ice melting - classic example of entropy increasing[1] described in 1862 by Rudolf Clausius as an increase in the disgregation of the molecules of the body of ice. ... Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by by Raphael in this detail from The School of Athens. ...

Philosophy of embodiment

In essence embodiment as an idea binds two worlds of substance and spirit (or culture, thought of as intentional objects and phenomena), contrary to a duality long posited by notables like Descartes. The core idea looks to find the biological substrate not as a vessel, but as the being itself. The mind and spirit are not a sublimation of the biology, but are a method of its workings. Thus body and mind are fused into a single being - the only distinction between matter and person being the way of observing the being. René Descartes René Descartes (IPA: , March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650), also known as Cartesius, worked as a philosopher and mathematician. ...

One source of inspiration for embodiment theory has been research in cognitive neuroscience, such as the proposals of Gerald Edelman concerning how mathematical and computational models such as neuronal group selection and neural degeneracy result in emergent categorization. Drawing on experimental psychology and linguistics as well as Edelman and other cognitive neuroscientists, Rohrer (2005) discusses how both our neural and developmental embodiment shape both our mental and linguistic categorizations. The field of cognitive neuroscience concerns the scientific study of the neural mechanisms underlying cognition and is a branch of neuroscience. ... Gerald Maurice Edelman (born July 1, 1929) is a biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972 for his work on the immune system. ...

Some consider such a reduction to mathematics, or alternatively an attempt to explain mathematics (as in the cognitive science of mathematics), to be at best premature. Critics of embodiment argue that there is no one process by which the brain and linguistic and categorization categories bind to things in the environment, be they ecological or social. Thus no one model could exist. The cognitive science of mathematics is the study of mathematical ideas using the techniques of cognitive science. ...

However, the ambitious and integrative programs continue, on every scale from perception of mothers by children, to Gaia theory: the perception of the home planet of an intelligent species by that species. For other uses, see Gaia. ...

The political ramifications of some of these points of view are extreme, as they imply both psychological and political notions of environmentalism - in effect, if embodiment is valid as an idea, then a single process may bind the mind to its body, family, language, and ultimately even to its environment (eco-somatics), society, species, and planet. Those who accepted some limited biological aspects of it as useful theory would find it hard to argue with more general application of it as a political or moral principle - exactly as happened with evolution. For the psychology topic, see Environmental psychology. ... Eco-somatics is a term used by movement artist and dance movement therapist Sandra Reeve in her Move Into Life work. ... This article is about evolution in biology. ...

Another concern is that embodiment theory simply reiterates ideas from behaviorism and sociobiology, combining them with theories of massive neural networks and a society of mind from computer science. It does to a degree treat ecology and environment as a homunculus, and assumes that these are beyond direct human investigation, and certainly beyond more than a very dilute control. Behaviorism is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behaviour can be studied and explained scientifically without recourse to internal mental states. ... Sociobiology is a synthesis of scientific disciplines that explains behaviour in all species by considering the evolutionary advantages of social behaviours. ... // See also Artificial neural network. ... The Society of Mind is the book and theory of natural intelligence as written and developed by Marvin Minsky. ... Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... Ernst Haeckel coined the term oekologie in 1866. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ...

This in turn can offend those who believe in human dignity or the ongoing human control of Earth after a technological singularity. Embodiment theory tends to contradict many common understandings of humanism including, high on the list, that of free will. Defenders however point out that free will itself is not so compatible with real life on a planet with many incalculable forces: Human dignity is an expression that can be used as a moral concept or as a legal term. ... Adjectives: Terrestrial, Terran, Telluric, Tellurian, Earthly Atmosphere Surface pressure: 101. ... When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Free-Will is a Japanese independent record label founded in 1986. ...

If an unknowable process guides our conceptual development as a whole, starting with our neural structure, then our impressions of our family, then our home, then our local ecology and society, can we knowing that all of these are affected by global processes really feel in control of ourselves?

Key ideas

Key ideas applied in embodiment theory are:

• prototype in the sense of computer science (roughly)
• synergetics
• level of abstraction
• modularity
• conceptual landscape
• latent learning
• behavioural silence
• global mapping
• recursive synthesis
• homunculus (in the scientific sense of an unknowable prime actor)
• classification couple
• parallel and reciprocal connection
• secondary repertoire
• degeneracy
• neuronal group selection
• ontogenetic realization of categorization
• cognitive bias as the product of embodiment itself, and as an input
• the Embodiment

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Prototyping. ... Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... Inspired by the laser theory and founded by Hermann Haken, synergetics is an interdisciplinary science explaining the formation and self-organization of patterns and structures in open systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Abstraction layer. ... Modularity is a concept that has applications in the contexts of computer science, particularly programming, as well as cognitive science in investigating the structure of mind. ... Latent learning occurs when knowledge has been acquired at a certain date, but is not demonstrated until a later date when the knowledge is required. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... The cognitive embodiment topic, ontogenetic realization of categorization is also being treated in the agents of the Society of Mind, and in cognitive ontology as part of ontology, ... A cognitive bias is any of a wide range of observer effects identified in cognitive science and social psychology including very basic statistical, social attribution, and memory errors that are common to all human beings. ... Embodiment is the way in which human (or any other animals) psychology arises from the brains and bodys physiology. ...

Embodiment in Artificial Intelligence

Embodiment theory was brought into Artificial Intelligence most notably by Rodney Brooks in the 1980s. Brooks and other scruffies showed that robots could be more effective if they 'thought' (planned or processed) and perceived as little as possible. The robot's intelligence is geared towards only handling the minimal amount of information necessary to make its behavior be appropriate and/or as desired by its creator. Brooks (and others) have claimed that all autonomous agents need to be both embodied and situated. They claim that this is the only way to achieve strong AI. Hondas humanoid robot AI redirects here. ... Rodney Allen Brooks (b. ... In artificial intelligence, the labels neats and scruffies used to refer to one of the continuing holy wars in artificial intelligence research. ... ASIMO, a humanoid robot manufactured by Honda. ... Automated planning is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence concerned with developing computer algorithms to generate plans, typically for execution by a robot or other agent. ... Typically, processing describes the act of taking something through an established and usually routine set of procedures to convert it from one form to another, as a manufacturing procedure (processing milk into cheese) or administrative procedure (processing paperwork to grant a mortgage loan). ... In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. ... For the Pet Shop Boys album of the same name see Behaviour Behavior or behaviour (see spelling differences) refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. ... Simple reflex agent Learning agent In computer science, an intelligent agent (IA) is a software agent that exhibits some form of artificial intelligence. ... In artificial intelligence, the term situated refers to an agent which is embedded in an environment. ... In the philosophy of artificial intelligence, strong AI is the supposition that some forms of artificial intelligence can truly reason and solve problems; strong AI supposes that it is possible for machines to become sapient, or self-aware, but may or may not exhibit human-like thought processes. ...

The embodiment movement in AI has in turn fueled the embodiment argument in Philosophy, see in particular Clark (1997) and Hendriks-Jansen (1996).

See also

• Embodied philosophy
• Embodied cognitive science
• Enactivism
• Situated cognition
• thought form
• Henri Bergson

Embodied philosophy (also known as the embodied mind thesis, embodied cognition or the embodied cognition thesis) usually refers to a set of beliefs promoted by George Lakoff and his various co-authors (including Mark Johnson, Mark Turner, and Rafael E. Núñez), which suggest that the mind can only be... Embodied Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary field of research whose aim is to explain the mechanisms underlying intelligent behavior. ... In psychology, and the cognitive sciences more generally, enactivism is a theoretical approach to understanding the mind. ... Situated cognition is a new movement in cognitive psychology which derives from pragmatism, Gibsonian ecological psychology, ethnomethodology, the theories of Vygotsky and the writings of Heidegger. ... The term and concept of meme (pronounced in IPA; from the Greek word μνήμη for memory) first appeared in the 1976 book by Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. ... Henri-Louis Bergson (October 18, 1859–January 4, 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential in the first half of the 20th century. ...

References

• Clark, Andy (1997) Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
• Hendriks-Jansen, Horst (1996) Catching Ourselves in the Act: Situated Activity, Interactive Emergence, Evolution, and Human Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
• Johnson, Mark and Rohrer, Tim. (2006). We Are Live Creatures: Embodiment, American Pragmatism, and the Cognitive Organism In Body, Language and Mind, vol. 1. Zlatev, Jordan; Ziemke, Tom; Frank, Roz; Dirven, René (eds.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Rohrer, Tim. (2005). Image Schemata in the Brain In From Perception to Meaning: Image Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics, Beate Hampe and Joe Grady, eds., Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 165-196.
• Rohrer, Tim. (2006). The Body in Space: Dimensions of embodiment In Body, Language and Mind, vol. 2. Zlatev, Jordan; Ziemke, Tom; Frank, Roz; Dirven, René (eds.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

External links

• 2001 Summary of how the embodiment hypothesis of cognitive linguistics has begun to interact with theories of embodiment in fields ranging from cognitive anthropology to cognitive neuroscience
• Society for the Scientific Study of Embodiment
• 1995 Summary of Embodiment - mentions most key theorists of the physiology
• Embodiment Resources - for those researching into embodiment, particularly as it relates to phenomenology, sociology and cognitive neuroscience.
• The Embodiment Wiki