VIDEO: Alva Noë Discusses the Problems of Consciousness

Over at Edge, a video interview and written transcript have been posted of Alva Noë discussing many of the philosophical problems concerning consciousness, and how a paradigm shift toward an embodied understanding of mind might help to resolve those problems.
Within it, Noë notes that most modern cognitivist research about consciousness and experience within neuroscience [...]

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Symposium: New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction

A fascinating symposium will be held April 8-9 in 2009 about human-robot interaction (HRI) in Edinburgh, Scotland:
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is a growing research field with many application areas that could have a big impact not only economically, but also on the way we live and the kind of relationships we may develop with machines. Due [...]

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Monday Profile: George Lakoff

If any single figure could be considered the guru for the current embodied philosophy movement, it has to be George Lakoff. Although technically a linguist, he is probably best known for his extensive interdisciplinary work in cognitive science, conceptual metaphor and politics. His published work includes the closest thing to a bible in the embodiment [...]

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Study Shows the Power of Conceptual Metaphor

A new study appearing in the journal of Psychological Science suggests that the metaphor of social coldness can make the body actually feel cold.
Subjects in the study, when shrugged off and left socially isolated, believed that room temperature was significantly lower than subjects who were involved in social interaction. The study also found that [...]

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VIDEO: Hubert Dreyfus Discusses Embodiment

This is not exactly the most engaging production, but the discussion does span a wide variety of issues related to embodiment.
Hubert Dreyfus discusses notions of embodiment throughout the history of philosophy, particularly in relation to the philosophy of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, and relates it to modern research within Artificial Intelligence and the Internet.
Part [...]

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Monday Profile: António Damásio

António Damásio is a Portuguese neuroscientist currently working at the University of Southern California, where he heads USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute.
His contributions to the Philosophy of Embodiment are most accessible in his two bestsellers Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain, and The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the [...]

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Decision-Making is Really a “Planned Motor Response”

According to some new EU-funded research, there’s more evidence that certain simple decision-making is processed within sensory-motor mechanisms rather than in parts of the brain associated with higher cognition and self-awareness.
This supports the notion that cognition is embodied, according to researchers.
Basically, it means that higher-level abstract cognition is not disconnected or ‘disembodied’ from [...]

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Performing Medicine

Without question, hospital environments need to be kept as biologically sterile as possible to prevent the spread of disease and infection among patients and medical practitioners. But does that mean hospitals need to be kept culturally sterile too?
That’s a question being asked by folks in Performing Medicine, a movement and organization dedicated to treating [...]

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Call for Papers: ECAP – European Computing and Philosophy Conference

In years past, the ECAP has been a welcome and informative forum for embodied computation, AI and embodied cognitive science papers. This year’s conference will he held near Barcelona, Spain, from July 2nd to July 4th in 2009.
Abstracts of around 400 words will be accepted until February 23rd, and the best presented papers will be [...]

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