Cognitive Integration: Embodied Engagements and the Manipulation Thesis

Abstract

It is through our bodies that we primarily engage with the world and through this engagement the body is constantly integrating with the environment. When body and environment co-ordinate, the environment becomes part of the resources the organism has for acting, thinking or communicating. How, though, ought we to understand the co-ordination, or reciprocal coupling, of body and environment as accomplishing thinking? Reciprocal coupling is a symmetrical relation, the organism manipulates its environment in one direction, but the result of this environmental alteration feeds back to the organism prompting further bodily actions. Our focus in this chapter is on the nature of bodily manipulations. There are two ways to understand manipulations that I want to explore.

We may… be said to know how by means of our habits … We walk and read aloud, we get off and on street cars, we dress and undress, and do a thousand useful acts without thinking of them. We know something, namely, how to do them.

— John Dewey

Let me explain in terms of the martial arts. As a beginner you know nothing of stance or sword position, so you have nothing to dwell on in yourself mentally. If someone strikes at you, you just fight, without thinking of anything. Then when you learn various things like stance, how to wield a sword, where to place the attention, and so on, your mind lingers on various points, so you find yourself all tangled up when you try to strike. But if you practice day after day and month after month, eventually stance and swordplay don’t hang on your mind anymore, and you are like a beginner who knows nothing.… The cogitating side of your brain will vanish and you will come to rest in a state where there is no concern.

— Takuan (16th century)