Physicalese for Beginners

May 22nd, 2007 Fred McVittie Posted in Computation, Embodiment, Seeing |

The mind of the machine speaks ultimately in zeroes and ones, whereas the body of the machine speaks in the physical language of input/output devices; printers, monitors, robotic arms, webcams etc. In humans, there is no such switch from concrete action to abstract symbols, the structure of the representation of experience that constitutes cognition remains embodied throughout. Human bodies, like the bodies of machines, are medium sized objects moving at medium speed, and the language of these bodies is constrained and constructed from the affordances they possess. It is a language of space, and motion, and gravity: of the swinging of an arm in a predictable arc when catching a ball and the rhythmic fall of a foot when walking. It is also the language of the senses: the flow of light across the retina when we pass a window and the feel of warmth on the back of the neck when we walk away from the sun. The body talks to the world, and listens to the worlds responses, in a kind of ‘physicalese’. The universal language of embodied human being.

The ‘mentalese’ spoken by our minds uses this same grammar and vocabulary, or more accurately, the body provides the grammar and vocabulary utilised by the mind. There is no need for translation into some kind of neurological Visual Basic or C++.