Embodied Cognition
Sunday's Boston Globe had a fascinating article in the Ideas section, "Don't Just Stand There, Think", by Drake Bennett. The article describes some recent discoveries concerning cognition and the relationship between the mind and the body.
Researchers have discovered that we think not only with our brains, but with our bodies. For example, "A series of studies...has shown that children can solve math problems better if they are told to use their hands while thinking. Another recent study suggested that stage actors remember their lines better when they are moving. And in one study...subjects asked to move their eyes in a specific pattern while puzzling through a brainteaser were twice as likely to solve it."
The term scientists use for this phenomenon is embodied cognition.
My own faith journey has progressed along a path of an increasingly central role of and appreciation for the body. Like many Christians, my faith tended to lean toward docetism. Docetism emerged in the early stage of the church and is "the belief that Jesus only 'seemed' or appeared to have a human body and to be a human person" (Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms). In other words, I downplayed physicality of Jesus, and of life.
But as I have grown in my faith, the incarnation and the importance of the incarnation; the fact that Jesus lived a fully embodied life, and took the physical world and the body seriously has taken center stage. The bodily resurrection is the ultimate vindication of the goodness of the created world and the importance of our bodies.
This, in turn, has influenced my understanding of what it is to be human, and the nature of the mind body connection. Rene Descartes and the Enlightenment placed an enormous wedge between mind and body. The mind and pure reason were the "creme de la creme" of humans in the understanding of many. In the 2oth century the computer served as a common metaphor for the mind and the body implementing the commands.
A number of years ago I was listening to a scientist/philosopher interviewed about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and so many of the failed promises in that field. I can't remember the person's name, but I vividly remember him saying that he felt one of the greatest problems of those working in AI was their completely undervaluing the importance of the body in understanding consciousness and mind.
In fact, I have in my bookshelf waiting be be read the book, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson which from linguistic and philosophical perspectives address this issue. In his article, Bennett refers to Lakoff who has taken the radical stance with some others that "much of mathematics...derives not from immutable properties of the universe but from the evolutionary history of the human brain and body." While this is not widely accepted, it does demonstrate some of the theorizing that is currently going on.
As you can probably tell, I am excited about this new direction that research is taking.
Researchers have discovered that we think not only with our brains, but with our bodies. For example, "A series of studies...has shown that children can solve math problems better if they are told to use their hands while thinking. Another recent study suggested that stage actors remember their lines better when they are moving. And in one study...subjects asked to move their eyes in a specific pattern while puzzling through a brainteaser were twice as likely to solve it."
The term scientists use for this phenomenon is embodied cognition.
My own faith journey has progressed along a path of an increasingly central role of and appreciation for the body. Like many Christians, my faith tended to lean toward docetism. Docetism emerged in the early stage of the church and is "the belief that Jesus only 'seemed' or appeared to have a human body and to be a human person" (Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms). In other words, I downplayed physicality of Jesus, and of life.
But as I have grown in my faith, the incarnation and the importance of the incarnation; the fact that Jesus lived a fully embodied life, and took the physical world and the body seriously has taken center stage. The bodily resurrection is the ultimate vindication of the goodness of the created world and the importance of our bodies.
This, in turn, has influenced my understanding of what it is to be human, and the nature of the mind body connection. Rene Descartes and the Enlightenment placed an enormous wedge between mind and body. The mind and pure reason were the "creme de la creme" of humans in the understanding of many. In the 2oth century the computer served as a common metaphor for the mind and the body implementing the commands.
A number of years ago I was listening to a scientist/philosopher interviewed about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and so many of the failed promises in that field. I can't remember the person's name, but I vividly remember him saying that he felt one of the greatest problems of those working in AI was their completely undervaluing the importance of the body in understanding consciousness and mind.
In fact, I have in my bookshelf waiting be be read the book, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson which from linguistic and philosophical perspectives address this issue. In his article, Bennett refers to Lakoff who has taken the radical stance with some others that "much of mathematics...derives not from immutable properties of the universe but from the evolutionary history of the human brain and body." While this is not widely accepted, it does demonstrate some of the theorizing that is currently going on.
As you can probably tell, I am excited about this new direction that research is taking.
posted by UCC Medfield at 9:37 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home