Embodied Cognition with Evan Thompson (BS 198)

This month's episode of Brain Science is a free encore playing of my interview with Evan Thompson about his book Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. We discuss how the enactive approach to embodied cognition offers potential clues to the mystery of how the brain can generate Consciousness. A free episode transcript is also available.

The embodied cognition movement is an approach within cognitive neuroscience that includes philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists and computer scientists. The key idea is that cognition, which includes thinking and decision-making, is inseparable from embodiment. This is not just because it requires sensory inputs to the brain, but also because moving in the world is a key component. Thus embodied cognition does not see this as a passive input/output process, but as something that requires constant interaction with the world via the body.

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Links and References:

 Learn more about Embodied Cognition:

  • BS 193: What does it mean to say that the Mind is Embodied?

  • How the Body Shapes the Way We Think: A New View of Intelligence by Rolf Pfeifer and Josh C. Bongard (My interview with Pfeifer in BSP 25 was my first discussion of embodied cognition

  • BSP 36 with Arthur Glenberg also explores embodied cognition

  • Embodied Cognition by Lawrence Shapiro (interviewed in BSP 73)

  • Phenomenology: An Introduction by Stephan Kaufer andAnthony Chemero

    • BSP 123 is an interview with Chemero about embodied cognition and phenomenology.

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