[Xmca-l] Re: How embodied is Cognition?

[Carol Macdonald]

Hi Mike

I think it's a bit *too *radical.  We share walking, reaching, looking for
hidden objects with at least our primate relatives (for the third one) and
other animals. However, we are led to believe that our use of language,
although originally, and in an ongoing way, rooted in our experience of the
world achieves something qualitatively unique. By the I mean syntax,
phonology. And then there is metacognition.

So, I think this embodied notion bears some discussion.

Carol

On 7 January 2015 at 07:17, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> This part sure sounds radical, Henry:
>
> in principle no difference between the processes engendering, walking,
> reaching, and looking for hidden objects and those resulting in mathematics
> and poetry." (p. xxiii)
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 2:17 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Greg,
> > While reading about what Hutto and McGivern on "radical E-approaches to
> > cognition I remembered reading a book by Esther Thelen and Linda Smith ,
> A
> > Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action
> (1994).
> > Here are three quotes:
> > "We conclude here that, as all mental activity is emergent, situated,
> > historical and embodied, there is in principle no difference between the
> > processes engendering, walking, reaching, and looking for hidden objects
> > and those resulting in mathematics and poetry." (p. xxiii)
> >
> > and
> >
> > "Walking in intact animals is not controlled by an abstraction but in a
> > continual dialogue with the periphery...What sculpts movement patterns are
> > these peripheral demands, not cartoons of the movement that exist
> > beforehand...Cats and humans do not walk in abstractions. They walk in a
> > gravity-dominated, variable, and changing world for different functional
> > purposes. "(p. 9)
> >
> > and
> >
> > "In chicks, as in frogs and humans, a dialogue with the periphery is an
> > essential motor, driving developmental change." (p. 19)
> >
> >
> > I wonder if Hutto and McGivern would call this radical.
> >
> > Henry
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Jan 6, 2015, at 10:36 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > I thought this short article "How embodied is Cognition?" by Daniel
> Hutto
> > > might be a nice piece to bring together with the pre-frontal discussion
> > in
> > > the other thread (not as counterpoint but as complement):
> > >
> > > https://www.academia.edu/9614435/How_Embodied_Is_Cognition
> > >
> > > Here is a teaser:
> > > "E is the letter, if not the word, in today's sciences of mind. E
> > > adjectives proliferate. Nowadays it is hard to avoid claims that
> > cognition
> > > - perceiving, imagining, decision-making, planning - is best understood
> > in
> > > E terms of some sort. The list of E-terms is long: embodied, enactive,
> > > extended, embedded, ecological, engaged, emotional, expressive,
> emergent
> > > and so on. This short piece explains: the big idea behind this
> movement;
> > > how it is inspired by empirical findings; why it matters; and what
> > > questions the field will face in the future. It focuses on the stronger
> > and
> > > weaker ways that..."
> > > -greg
> > >
> > > --
> > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > > Assistant Professor
> > > Department of Anthropology
> > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > > Brigham Young University
> > > Provo, UT 84602
> > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science as an object
> that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>



-- 
Carol A  Macdonald Ph D (Edin)
Developmental psycholinguist
Academic, Researcher,  and Editor
Honorary Research Fellow: Department of Linguistics, Unisa