137. Embodied Cognition | THUNK

Is a brain all you need to have a functional mind? Is the body just peripheral to cognition? Many researchers think so, but advocates of embodied cognition have different ideas.

(Quick note: “Altered Carbon” is racy & gory, but also very good. It doesn’t get particularly hung up on the “Is a copy of my mind REALLY MEEEE?!” question, touches on a lot of interesting problems with technological immortality, & actually has a lot of interesting test cases & scenarios for the concept of embodied cognition.)

-Links for the Curious-

“A Brief Guide to Embodied Cognition: Why You Are Not Your Brain” by Samuel McNerny -

[filterednrg]

My university Modul features you as “extra reading” under one of our classes.
Was really surprised, but happily so, cause I think I’ve watched every video from your channel

[wcropp]

I would recommend Johnson and Lakoff’s book “Philosophy in the Flesh” to anyone interested in philosophical questions from an embodied cognitive linguistics perspective. It isn’t a super quick read, but it’s pretty fascinating. Murleau-Ponty also did some interesting work in the phenomenology of embodied perception, etc. Worth checking out. Now, I’m off to watch Altered Carbon 👍

[oblix]

Just finished Kaiba yesterday, and this brings to mind that part where Warp will mostly change how he acts in another body but keep his main goal the same.

[faridaelnaggar]

I have a social psychology midterm tomorrow and this video just saved me! thank you so much!!

[konstantinbelyshev]

i am surprised that so many contemporary thinkers are getting the credit for embodied cognition. i'm not sure where the thought has originated, but Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception seems like it was a pretty good argument for embodied cognition

[passingthetorch]

Yep. Birds have bird brains, humans have human brains. Without very similar embodiments, we can't expect an intelligence to have similar experiences and reactions. We wouldn't (viscerally) understand some sentient machine's fear of water any more than something which had no need of sex for reproduction would understand love and sexual attraction.

[tomcomposer]

Always great to find high quality youtubes :) Nicely summarised, thanks.

[brassen]

My favourite metaphores in Brazilian Portuguese:
Se toca! (lit. Touch yourself!) = Don't worry, it simply means "Get real!"
Eu me toquei (lit. I touched myself) = "I realized it"
Se enxerga! (lit. Watch yourself!) = "Look at you! / Seriously?"
Pisar na bola (lit. to step on the ball) = "to drop the ball"

[AmaranthOriginal]

My first happiness euphemism was "over the Moon." I know it's just a coincidence, but jeez, my reaction to your example was "how did you know????"

[TheAdmiralBacon]

First time I've felt I disagreed with a Thunk video, and it's awesome. Definitely a lot of food for thunking here.

Sidenote, Netflix should drop you a hefty donation, 'coz I've been considering watching Altered carbon but ddecided against it, given how much I figured it would simplify the morality of the "sleeves" thing. Getting a recommendation from yoh, though, has immediately changed my mind

[TPGNATURAL]

Very nice now you put this video together. Now I will have to read links for the curious. We are metaphorical people from my understanding. Religions, philosophies and story telling of other sorts are full of metaphors. When it comes to body positions, I have heard what you showed in the video. The pencil in the teeth makes us smile. Which makes our brains release dopamine, endorphins and serotonin. The crazy thing is it can be a fake smile and the release is the same. There is different ancient Asian beliefs that talk about body position helping our physical and mental health. And from my experience they are correct. Placebo effect, maybe. US Military has a long history in believing in body positions in training. Which brings positive effects in making for a better warfighter. The US Army stop doing drill and ceremony during basic combat training. Now they are bring it back because of the over all lack of discipline, mental toughness and integrity of the new recruits. I know personally if I what to be relaxed when I go on a walk I slouch a little. If I need to be at a high level of self confidence or I feel a little down emotionally, I walk or stand tall not slouched. Placebo effect, could be. In closing most mental and physical health practitioners I know of believe in the holistic approach of healing. Because it works. Placebo effect, who cares if it is, it working!

[RichardKoenigsberg]

Important idea. Music was ahead of science. Think OLIVEA NEWTON JOHN: "Let me hear your body talk."

[auroraandreinamarcovig]

loved it! Thanks for making this video!

[jakesmith]

This is fascinating. Thanks for a cogent explanation. All the best.

[elmehdihamouda]

Altered Carbon is a good watch tough, I remember that when you have a new 'sleeve' body you start to have a different personality and temper.

[Infantry]

Not to dredge the topic in philosophy, but this idea of embodied cognition is exactly what twists me up when I think about the afterlife.
Without all of the external stimuli informing and adjusting our thoughts, assuming an afterlife means losing your body, I think it would have to be like a dream: a loose consciousness would invent stimuli, like how it invents phantom pain from a lost limb. But either of those examples inevitably resolve in "waking up" or feeling what's "actually there". Without that validation of interpretation, the afterlife of not having a body I think would have to devolve into incomprehensible thoughts.
Then again, all envisioning of the afterlife (in art, movies, etc.) present the idea of afterlife as having a body, again, just in some other space. Which I think adds an interesting cultural spin on Embodied Cognition: even in death we assume we have our bodies, to feel pleasure or pain, so tied is our human experience to our form.

Suffice to say, I think there's a compelling argument that Cognition is indeed embodied, and it's slice of the pie of ""what comprises human thought" is probably very large.

[AnonPax]

I'm not convinced. What's new about this theory?
The evolution of the brain was of course due to relationship with external stimuli. But that evolution coded in our DNA something that can "grow" without the need of the same external stimuli.

The building of a virtual mind without external inputs that mimic the body is useless, because the mind would only "accept" those inputs. Building inputs would be the same as doing a complete virtual body.

Now the question is, does the brain from a child develop differently if it has a body or not? and the answer is obviously yes! Sensation highly affect the plasticity of neurons and memory. But the premise of the video was digitalizing an already build brain.

[os]

Of course it’s makes sense. What is like to be a bat is not only about having a bats brain; it’s also about having the periphery sensations coming from a bat sensory systems (sonar), being light, having wings... having a bats body. Body and brain didn’t evolved under entirely different selective pressures, some adaptive pressures were different, but they acted upon the same individual, same team.

[glennquagmire]

A lot of what was presented is good food for thought and it implies to me that the endocrine system is highly important to emotion and thought. A brain alone would be psychotic possibly. Good stuff to thunk about.

[Dashixiongkuaileyijiaren]

Your video has helped me. Thank you. :)