Embodied Cognition

For those of you who have not utilized your extended cognition to look up this concept, it is the notion that cognition, esp. memory, extends beyond the constrains of your brain. I personally am of the opinion that it is a valid concept, but I would like to hear some other thoughts about it.

If this concept is true then what would be some of the consequences that it can have?
How can it be utilized in our daily and professional lives?

OriginalRoast said:

For those of you who have not utilized your extended cognition to look up this concept, it is the notion that cognition, esp. memory, extends beyond the constrains of your brain. I personally am of the opinion that it is a valid concept, but I would like to hear some other thoughts about it.

If this concept is true then what would be some of the consequences that it can have?
How can it be utilized in our daily and professional lives?

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Wow. Now you've really got me thinking.

"Consciousness is simply the real time processing of sensory input and internal communication and monitoring. Our experience of reality is demonstrably constructed by the brain. When you alter the underlyingbrain function, you alter that construction. People can be made to feel as if they do not control their own limbs, or that they have extra limbs, or that sound has a color, that parts of the world do not exist, that their spouse has been replaced by an imposter, or that they are one with the universe. We can do all this by poking around in the brain." -StevenNovella

Thats an interesting quote Heisenberg and I agree with most of it. However, one of the functions of the brain relates to a sense of time or duration. So if we alter this function, then our brains would not be processing things in real time. We either would have to say that when this particular function is disrupted we lose consciousness even though we are still perceiving things in the world, or that our minds do not necessarily process real time information. Also, there is a delay between when the senses pick up info and when that info gets to the brain. This short delay could allow for a subtle change in the enviro that causes what we perceive to be completely different from what is actually happening.

Also, your quote has nothing to do with embodied cognition. Do you have an opinion on whether or not we can use our cellphones as an augmentation for our memories?

I think the quote suggests that if we can "poke" at the brain just right with outside influences, we can change our experience of reality. I can envision a day when we may use devices to that can do this in specific and precise ways. Of course, causing someone to feel like they have extra limbs would probably not have utility and be a novelty at best, but those are arbitrary examples.

Heisenberg said:

I think the quote suggests that if we can "poke" at the brain just right with outside influences, we can change our experience of reality. I can envision a day when we may use devices to that can do this in specific and precise ways. Of course, causing someone to feel like they have extra limbs would probably not have utility and be a novelty at best, but those are arbitrary examples.

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I thought about this earlier and wondered how it would affect, say, the perspective of the person's mental age. For example, can you make a person's perspective change to that of a married adult parent, from one of a twenty-something kind of care free-ish type, etc. If specific adjustments change the user's experiences wouldn't experiences themselves be more video game-like than actual life experience?

That is an interesting notion eye exaggerate. I think that a person's mental age could definitely be altered. The consequences of doing that, I think, would definitely allow for one to perceive things differently. For example, if we lowered one's mental age to that of a child then that person would experience things very differently. I don't think, though, that there is a large enough gap between a married adult parent and a twenty-something kind of care free-ish person. Also, the validity of mental age is rather low as a measurement of anything really.

How would our experiences, perceptions, and even mental age change if we could rely on other things then our mental abilities to, for example, take a test?

OriginalRoast said:

That is an interesting notion eye exaggerate. I think that a person's mental age could definitely be altered. The consequences of doing that, I think, would definitely allow for one to perceive things differently. For example, if we lowered one's mental age to that of a child then that person would experience things very differently. I don't think, though, that there is a large enough gap between a married adult parent and a twenty-something kind of care free-ish person. Also, the validity of mental age is rather low as a measurement of anything really.

How would our experiences, perceptions, and even mental age change if we could rely on other things then our mental abilities to, for example, take a test?

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I think the problem would be in what would amount to something similar to culture shock. I don't know that I'd want to slip in and out of varying levels of perception without having had the experiences to create the solid ground for me to walk on -after the change in perception.