> Well, what I and embodied cognitive science are trying to formulate > properly, both philosophically and scientifically, is why: > > a) common sense consciousness is the brain-AND-body thinking on several > levels simultaneously about any given subject...
I don't buy that my body plays a significant role in thinking about, for instance, mathematics. I bet that my brain in a vat could think about math just as well or better than my embodied brain. Of course my brain is what it is because of evolving to be embodied, but that's a different statement. > b) with the *largest* part of that thinking being "body thinking" - i.e. > your body working out *in-the-body* how the actions under consideration can > be enacted (although this is inseparable from, and dependent on, the > brain's levels of thinking) What evidence do you have that this is the "largest part" ... it does not feel at all that way to me, as a subjectively-experiencing human; and I know of no evidence in this regard. The largest bulk of brain matter does not equate to the largest part of thinking, in any useful sense... I suspect that, in myself at any rate, the vast majority of my brain dynamics are driven by the small percentage of my brain that deal with abstract cognition. An attractor spanning the whole brain can nonetheless be triggered/controlled by dynamics in a small region. > c) if an agent doesn't have a body that can think about how it can move (and > have emotions), then it almost certainly can't understand how other bodies > move (and have emotions) - and therefore can't acquire a > "more-than-it's-all-Greek/Chinese/probabilistic-logic-to-me" understanding > of physics, biology, psychology, sociology etc. etc. - of both the > formal/cultural and informal/personal kinds. I agree about psychology and sociology, but not about physics and biology. -- Ben G ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=95818715-a78a9b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
