scholarly journals Sensorimotor Subjectivity and the Enactive Approach to Experience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Self Regulation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Living Body ◽  
Enactive Approach ◽  
Sensorimotor Activity ◽  
Bodily Activity ◽  
Sensorimotor Coupling ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The Explanatory Gap ◽  
The Brain

The enactive approach offers a distinctive view of how mental life relates to bodily activity at three levels: bodily self-regulation, sensorimotor coupling, and intersubjective interaction. This paper concentrates on the second level ofsensorimotor coupling. An account is given of how the subjectively lived body and the living body of the organism are related (the body-body problem) via dynamic sensorimotor activity, and it is shown how this account helps to bridge the explanatory gap between consciousness and the brain. Arguments by O’Regan, Noë, and Myin that seek to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual consciousness in terms of ‘bodiliness’ and ‘grabbiness’ are considered. It is suggested that their account does not pay sufficient attention to two other key aspects of perceptual phenomenality: the autonomous nature of the experiencing self or agent, and the pre-reflective nature of bodily self-consciousness.

scholarly journals The Croonian Lecture. On the irritability of nerves

1832 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 33-35
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Annular Ligament ◽  
Living Body ◽  
First Case ◽  
Middle Aged Person ◽  
Aged Person ◽  
Healthy State ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Real State ◽  
Different Parts

Its object is principally to investigate the opinion hitherto entertained, that the nerves may be considered as chords that have no power of contraction within themselves, but only serve as a medium by means of which the influence of the brain may be communicated to the muscles, and the impressions made upon the different parts of the body may be conveyed to the brain. After pointing out the extreme difficulty of such an inquiry, owing to the few opportunities that offer for investigating the real state of the nerves in the living body, Mr. Home intimates that he resolved to avail himself of every opportunity that might offer of any operation in surgery performed upon nerves, either in a healthy state, or under the influence of disease, in order to elucidate this intricate point, without neglecting certain experiments he thought he could devise upon animal bodies, before they are wholly deprived of life. The first case, which explains some circumstances respecting the actions of the nerves when under the influence of disease, was that of a middle-aged person, who, having hurt his thumb by a fall, experienced long after an occasional swelling and convulsions in that part, attended with spasms, which at times extended in the direct course of the trunks of the radial nerve up to the head, the patient being at times afflicted with absolute insensibility. In order to put a stop to the progress of tips irritation, which seemed to constitute the disease, it was proposed to divide the nerve as it passes from under the annular ligament of the wrist. This operation was accordingly performed, but not altogether with the desired success, owing probably to the wound not healing by the first intention.

scholarly journals Brain in a Vat or Body in a World: Brainbound Versus Enactive View of Experience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Thompson ◽  
Diego Cosmelli
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
The Body ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Living Body ◽  
The World ◽  
Neuronal Processes ◽  
Argument Proceeds ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat ◽  
Embodied Agent

We argue that the minimal biological requirements for consciousness include a living body, not just neuronal processes in the skull. Our argument proceeds by reconsidering the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment. Careful examination of this thought experiment indicates that the null hypothesis is that any adequately functional “vat” would be a surrogate body, that is, that the so-called vat would be no vat at all, but rather an embodied agent in the world. Thus, what the thought experiment actually shows is that the brain and body are so deeply entangled, structurally and dynamically, that they are explanatorily inseparable. Such entanglement implies that we cannot understand consciousness by considering only the activity of neurons apart from the body, and hence we have good explanatory grounds for supposing that the minimal realizing system forconsciousness includes the body and not just the brain. In this way, we put the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment to a new use, one that supports the “enactive” view that consciousness is a life-regulation process of the wholeorganism interacting with its environment.

scholarly journals I. The Croonian Lecture. On the irritability of nerves

1801 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Real ◽  
Living Body ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Real State ◽  
Different Parts

The nerves have been hitherto considered as chords that have no powers of contraction within themselves, but only serving as a medium, by means of which the influence of the brain may be communicated to the muscles, and the impressions made upon different parts of the body conveyed to the brain. The difficulties which attend every attempt to investigate the real state of the nerves in the living body, and the impossibility of acquiring any information upon this subject after death, may be urged in excuse for this opinion having been so universally received, since it will be found, from the following experiments and observations, to be void of foundation.

scholarly journals THE DEAD TEACHING THE LIVING – BODY WORLDS

Obiter ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magda Slabbert ◽  
Bonnie Venter
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
The Body ◽  
Chess Player ◽  
Dead Body ◽  
Living Body ◽  
Body Worlds ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Full Body

The Body Worlds exhibition takes the visitor through a journey of more than 200 specimens. These various skinless full body plastinates are posed in different positions to display how the human body works; they vary from the chess player with his brain split open to display the brain “in action”, the runner with his muscles falling off the bones to display the working of the muscles in athletics and the controversial pregnant woman with her womb cut open to show her eight month old foetus. Von Hagens the creator of Body Worlds believes his exhibition is educational – educating the masses. Since the first exhibition of Body Worlds there has been rigorous debate on whether the display is a violation of human dignity or not. This aspect is discussed in the article. In conclusion the process regarding donating a complete dead body in South Africa is highlighted and the question is answered whether a South African citizen could legally donate his or her body to a Body Worlds display.

Tonische Bewegung, Energie und ratio: Georg Ernst Stahls Agentenmodell des ,,Organismus" und die kategorielle Differenz zwischen Lebendigem und Unlebendigem

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Autonomous Agent ◽  
Living Body ◽  
Natural Agents ◽  
Organic Body ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Contraction And Relaxation

AbstractThis essay focuses on the structure of agency in Georg Ernst Stahl's model of organic order and the role that it plays for the difference between living and non-living beings in the discourses of medicine and natural history around 1700. Stahl calls the order of organic beings an "organism". He characterizes the "organism" through the notions of tonic movement, energy and ratio. The tonic movement is a mechanism of contraction and relaxation of organic units to direct fluids to certain parts of the body; the energy represents a certain, limited potential of the living body to act spontaneously and to react if it is irritated; and the ratio expresses the logic of a processual, directed order imposed on corporeal dispositions. This ratio inheres in natural agents. However, to establish his theory of agency, Stahl first analyzes the irregular blood movements that characterize diseases. The capacity of the organic body to change these movements and to heal itself in redirecting them, leads him to the assumption that such bodies can regulate their own order and that self-regulation requires an autonomous agent.

scholarly journals V. The Croonian Lecture. Microscopical observations on the following subjects. On the brain and nerves; showing that the materials of which they are composed exist the blood. On the discovery of valves in the branches of the vas breve, lying between the villous and muscular coats of the stomach. On the structure of the spleen

1821 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Animal Body ◽  
Living Body ◽  
Medullary Substance ◽  
The Brain

The Croonian Lectures for the three preceding years, contain Mr. Bauer's microscopical observations on the blood. That fluid we find is made up of a greater number of ingredients than it was known to contain; indeed we find in it materials ready prepared, for the formation of most of the structures of an animal body. In the present Lecture, the brain and nerves form the first subject of investigation. Having found upon a former occasion that the retina is perfectly transparent in the living body, and is only rendered visible by coagulation after death, this, the only expansion of medullary substance in the body with which I am acquainted, was examined by Mr. Bauer in the microscope.

scholarly journals Embodied appearance properties and subjectivity

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 199-210
Author(s):  
Miguel Ángel Sebastián
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
The Body ◽  
Subjective Character ◽  
Body Activity ◽  
De Se ◽  
Bodily Activity ◽  
Appearance Properties ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Content Of Experience

The traditional approach in cognitive sciences holds that cognition is a matter of manipulating abstract symbols following certain rules. According to this view, the body is merely an input/output device, which allows the computational system—the brain—to acquire new input data by means of the senses and to act in the environment following its commands. In opposition to this classical view, defenders of embodied cognition (EC) stress the relevance of the body in which the cognitive agent is embedded in their explanation of cognitive processes. From a representationalist framework regarding our conscious experience, in this article, I will offer a novel argument in favor of EC and show that cognition constitutively—and no merely causally—depends upon body activity beyond that in the brain. In particular, I will argue that in order to solve the problem derived from the empirical evidence in favor of the possibility of shifted spectrum, representationalist should endorse the view that experiences concern its subject: the content of experience is de se. I show that this claim perfectly matches the phenomenological observation and helps explaining the subjective character of the experience. Furthermore, I argue that entertaining this kind of representation constitutively depends on bodily activity. Consequently, insofar as cognition depends on consciousness, it is embodied.

scholarly journals A critical approach to sensorimotor contingency theory: brain as agent and conscious mind as a guide of action

Sofia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-80
Author(s):  
Jonas Gonçalves Coelho
Keyword(s):  
Contingency Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Visual Consciousness ◽  
The Explanatory Gap ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Adaptive Actions ◽  
Sensorimotor Contingency

I present and consider critically O'Regan and Noë's sensorimotor contingency theory, proposed as an alternative to solve the explanatory gap problem. I start with the criticism that these authors address the current conception of representation, according to which conscious experiences are representations of the external world produced by the brain. Afterward, I summarize the way the sensorimotor contingency theory addresses the problem of the explanatory gap, explaining the existence, form, and content of visual consciousness in terms of an "exploratory activity" mediated by sensorimotor contingency laws. Finally, in agreement with criticisms addressed to O'Regan and Noë's solution, I propose a way to face the problem of the explanatory gap, which, recognizing the relevance of the body and the external environment to the existence, form and content of visual consciousness, but privileging the role of the brain as an organ of visual consciousness, and as an agent who uses visual consciousness as a guide to initiate and maintain embodied and situated adaptive actions in the world.

scholarly journals The Forgotten Phenomenology: “Enactive Perception” in the Eyes of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
Roi Bar
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Cartesian Dualism ◽  
Enactive Approach ◽  
New Science ◽  
Philosophical Consideration ◽  
Autonomous Agency ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Kuhnian Revolution ◽  
Mind Science

Phenomenology is not dead yet, at least not from the viewpoint of the “phenomenology-friendly”approach to the mind that has recently emerged in cognitive science: the “enactive approach” or “enactivism.” This approach takes the mental capacities, such as perception, consciousness and cognition, to be the result of the interaction between the brain, the body and the environment. In this, it offers an alternative to reductionist explanations of the mental in terms of brain activities, like cognitivism, especially computationalism, while overcoming the Cartesian dualism mind-world. What makes this approach so fruitful for a renewed philosophical consideration is its ongoing reference to Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenologies. It was said to be “consistent with Husserl and Merleau-Ponty on virtually every point,” to be the “revival” of phenomenology, even a “Kuhnian revolution.” Evan Thompson argues that this approach “uses phenomenology to explicate mind science and mind science to explicate phenomenology. Concepts such as lived body, organism, bodily selfhood and autonomous agency, the intentional arc and dynamic sensorimotor dependencies, can thus become mutually illuminating rather than merely correlational concepts.” The phenomenological works seem to strike a chord with the enactive theorists. Are we witnessing the dawn of “The new Science of the Mind”? 

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