#embodied cognition

[ladyfingerpress]

z. X "The Brain, Pt. 1" Quick steps through key concepts in neuroscience of great utility when reading our works on neurodivergence, consciousness, the critical brain, differential processing, etc

[raffaellopalandri]

Qi Gong as Neurodivergent Praxis - Part 1

To speak of Qi Gong, especially the forms we use in MMQG, as a neurodivergent praxis is to step entirely outside the architectures of both the modern wellness industry and the rigid lineages of classical transmission that have too often become bound by their own ritual formalism. It is to address the question of how the divergent nervous system, with its irregular firing patterns, unusual…

[the-most-humble-blog]

hey so I absolutely love it when people mix real biology/science with writing, just wanted to let you know

besides that, have a nice day!

Real biology is writing. Your bones are just libraries written in calcium. Your eyes? Thousands of years of evolutionary editorial notes.

So thank you. You’re not just reading me. You’re remembering yourself.

I’ll keep mixing the blood and the truth. You just keep showing up.

Have a very genetically significant day.

[theidealistphilosophy]

To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Source Unlisted.

[astranemus]

Cognition, then, operates at various levels, and as the sophistication of the organism grows, so does its sensorium for the environment, and so does the extent of co-emergence between organism and environment. Thus we go from unicellular to multicellular organisms, where we can have flagella and light- or sugar-sensitive receptors, to the development of sensitive tentacles in the first aquatic organisms, and up to the higher cognitive functions in fish. In all these cases, the organisms contribute to the “creation” of their environments. For example, the onset of photosynthetic organisms may have indeed created a novel, oxygen-rich environment. Similarly, the spider's web, the woody constructions of the beaver, and the cities constructed by mankind modify the structure of their environments. In all these cases, the environment is created by the organism, and this creation permits the existence of the living organism.

At a certain point in the evolution of the sensorium's sophistication, there is the development of a nervous system and with it, eventually, the emergence of consciousness. But from the flagella up to the brain, the same basic mechanism is operative: acts of cognition and mutual co-emergence with the familiar environment. In this process of “enaction,” a term proposed by Varela (Varela, 2000), or co-emergence, as we can say more generally, the organic living structure and the mechanism of cognition are two facets of the same phenomenon of life (Varela, 2000).

...

This means that it makes no sense to talk about mind in an abstract way. Mind is always present in a bodily structure; and, vice versa, a truly living organism must be capable of cognition (the process of knowing). The same holds for human consciousness. Consciousness is not a transcendent entity, but it is always manifest within an organic living structure...

Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision

[afutureworththinkingabout]

'Star Trek: Picard' and The Admonition: Misapprehensions Through Time

I recently watched all of Star Trek: Picard, and while I was definitely on board with the vast majority of it, and extremely pleased with certain elements of it, some things kind of bothered me. And so, as with much of the pop culture I love, I want to spend some time with the more critical perspective, in hopes that it’ll be taken as an opportunity to make it even better.

[Promotional image for Star Trek: Picard, featuring all of the series main cast.] This will be filled with spoilers, so. Heads up.

Read the rest of 'Star Trek: Picard' and The Admonition: Misapprehensions Through Time at A Future Worth Thinking About

[kus-algavad-muinasjutud]

This Is Your Brain on Architecture

A new book explores the neuroscience of architecture, finding that many buildings and urban spaces fail the people who use them.

One thing I often say is there’s no such thing as a neutral environment. If the environment we inhabit — whether cityscapes or landscapes or buildings — is not supporting us, it’s probably harming us.

[Cities] undervalue the importance of the design of the built environment altogether. There is this sort of professional split between high architecture and building, which my research shows is just fallacious. It’s all architecture and it’s all important, because it’s all having an impact on people all the time.

See also:  Sarah Williams Goldhagen — Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives

[noosphe-re]

By using the term embodied we mean to highlight two points: first that cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensorimotor capacities, and second, that these individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context.

Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch: The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience