embodied vs. tacit vs. tactile
I may be looking at the wrong thing, or looking from a perspective that doesn't interest me as much as the perspective that I want. I'm not worried about embodiment of the mind -- I see that case as mostly closed. Maybe I'm more interested in the em-mind-iment of the body.
posted by Unknown @ 9:30 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Hi John,
In other words you want to start from the opposite direction that you feel these other ideas are taking? So instead of "giving concrete form to an abstract concept", you'd like to observe a concrete form and derive an abstract concept?
So instead of trying to observe bodily manifestations of the mind, you like to observe the body and garner this impact on the mind? A bit like yoga or outdoor education? How the physicality of your morning dips in Craig are mindfully different than your apartment shower sort of em-mind-ment? Am I understanding you right?
I think of them as mutually informing, muddled. I guess it also depends on how distinct one views mind/body awareness, the thinking they are halves of a whole? And then there is a third in religious terms, the soul. Or if one serves as a filtration of the expression of the other. Like the idea that the mind is the expressor and the body the expression, or flip it?
My framework for what embodiment is, in the ability to discuss thus, is a bit influenced by the bioenergetic/somatic education conversations with V, who's quoted Lowen and Keleman.
It could be I'm entirely confused about what you mean. I guess I consider myself when thinking how the body/mind relationship works and you know all about that, grin. ;)
Muddled seems accurate to me. Interestingly enough, one of the books I chose to read is The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience by Francisco J. Varela, Evan T. Thompson, Eleanor Rosch -- all of whom I understand are students of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the founder of Boulder's Naropa Institute, etc. Buddhism seems to follow me wherever I go. Of course this phenomenom could be framed differently -- does it matter in my understanding of it? Do I need to understand it? Or is mindfulness (or even noticing) of it enough? Can I be mindful without understanding it, or maybe rather, what level of understanding do I need to have to be "mindful"? Muddlement is about as accurate as I am right now, and while I'm generally fine with that state in most of my life, alas that academics require elucidation (of sorts) that turn, for example, othewise lucid understandings of embodiment into books like The Embodied Mind.
Hi John,
When trying to find an online cite for Aristotle's "The more you know the more you know you don't know." for you I came upon a couple divergences that I thought you might find interesting:
The Habits of MindHow "Wisdom" Differs from Intelligence and Knowledge (specifically in reference to the CIA)
I think it would be right to say in Buddhism that mindfulness cultivates understanding, so you wouldn't need to have your 'mind wrapped around something' to be mindful. I also think it would be right to say that muddlement does not preclude accuracy, that muddlement is not the absense of accuracy.
?
And that is all the secondhand wisdom(?) I have for you at the moment, grin...
whoops, I think blogger somehow didn't recognize I put a hard carraige return after that first link to make a new paragraph and they sort of ran together in an unattractive way, sorry...
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