BS 198 Embodied Cognition with Evan Thompson
Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, MD: Neuroscience for Everyone
Ginger Campbell, MD
4.8 • 896 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2022
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This month's episode of Brain Science is a free encore playing of my interview with Evan Thompson about his book Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. We discuss how the enactive approach to embodied cognition offers potential clues to the mystery of how the brain can generate Consciousness. A free episode transcript is also available.
This is the 2nd of two free encore episodes that are being shared to give listeners a taste of the diverse content available to Premium subscribers. Premium subscribers have access to over 100 additional episodes of Brain Science along with episode transcripts.
The embodied cognition movement is an approach within cognitive neuroscience that includes philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists and computer scientists. The key idea is that cognition, which includes thinking and decision-making, is inseparable from embodiment. This is not just because it requires sensory inputs to the brain, but also because moving in the world is a key component. Thus embodied cognition does not see this as a passive input/output process, but as something that requires constant interaction with the world via the body.
Links and References:
- Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind by Evan Thompson
- The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience by Francisco J. Varela, Evan T. Thompson, Eleanor Rosch
- Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy by Evan Thompson (follow-up interview BSP 115)
- Evan Thompson, PhD, University of British Columbia
- Please visit http://brainsciencepodcast.com for additional references and episode transcripts.
- TextExpander at textexpander.com/podcast
- Wren at wren.co/brainscience
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to brain science, the |
| 0:05.0 | brain science, the podcast that explores how recent discoveries in |
| 0:09.3 | neuroscience are helping unravel the mystery of how our brain makes us human. |
| 0:15.0 | I am your host Dr. Ginger Campbell and this is episode 198. |
| 0:21.0 | This is our second and final encore episode for the year featuring philosopher Evan Thompson. |
| 0:27.0 | Early in his career, Thompson was one of the co-authors of the groundbreaking book, The Embodied Mind, Cognitive Science, and Human |
| 0:37.8 | Experience, which is still considered a foundational text for the embodied cognition movement. In this interview |
| 0:45.8 | we talked about his follow-up book, Mind in Life, Biology, Phenomenology, |
| 0:51.6 | and the Sciences of mind, in which he explored the so-called |
| 0:56.6 | explanatory gap between biological life and consciousness. |
| 1:03.4 | If you're new to brain science, please don't panic. |
| 1:07.5 | First of all, I think you will appreciate Thompson's unique background and the perspective he brings to the question of how a brain could |
| 1:16.0 | possibly generate something like consciousness. We will be talking more about |
| 1:21.6 | embodied cognition in an upcoming episode, |
| 1:24.8 | so I chose this episode to introduce the subject to new listeners |
| 1:28.9 | and to provide a refresher for longtime fans. |
| 1:33.0 | The transcript for this episode is also free. |
| 1:37.2 | Before we jump into the interview, I want to remind you that you can get complete shownotes |
| 1:41.0 | and episode transcripts at brain science |
| 1:43.9 | podcast dot com and you can send me email at brain science |
| 1:48.0 | podcast at gmail dot com. You can also get show notes automatically each month when you sign up for the free |
| 1:55.6 | brain science newsletter. You can sign up at brain science podcast.com or just text |
... |
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