Action, embodied meaning, and thought
pp. 92-116
in: Jay Schulkin (ed), Action, perception and the brain, Berlin, Springer, 2012Abstract
Human perception, experience, consciousness, feeling, meaning, thought, and action all require a functioning human brain operating in and through a live body that is in ongoing engagement with environments that are at once physical, interpersonal, and cultural. This embodied perspective demands an explanation of how all of the wondrous aspects of human mind – from our ability to have unified, intelligible experience all the way up to our most stunning achievements of theoretical understanding, imaginative thought, and artistic creativity – can emerge from our bodily capacities. I want to examine how the intricate intertwining of perception and action might provide the basis for our so-called "higher" acts of cognition and communication. In other words, I will explore how important parts of our abstract conceptualization and reasoning appropriate structures and processes of our most basic sensory–motor operations.