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In essence embodiment as an idea binds two worlds of substance and spirit, a duality long percieved through notables like Descartes. The core idea looks to find the biological substrate not as a vessel, but as the being itself. The mind and spirit are not a sublimation of the biology, but are a method of its workings. Thus body and mind are fused into a single being - the only distinction between matter and person being the way of observing the being.
Some consider such a reduction to mathematics, or alternatively an attempt to explain mathematics (as in the cognitive science of mathematics), to be at best premature. Critics of embodiment argue that there is no one process by which the brain and linguistic and categorization categories bind to things in the environment, be they ecological or social. Thus no one model could exist.
However, the ambitious and integrative programs continue, on every scale from perception of mothers by children, to Gaia theory: the perception of the home planet of an intelligent species by that species.
The political ramifications of some of these points of view are extreme, as they imply both psychological and political notions of environmentalism - in effect, if embodiment is valid as an idea, then a single process may bind the mind to its body, family, language, and ultimately even to its society, species, and planet. This would provide alternative and probably radical views of physicsPhysics (from the Greek, physikos , "natural", and physis , "Nature") is the science of Nature in the broadest sense. Physicists study the behavior and properties of matter in a wide variety of contexts, ranging from the sub-microscopic particles from whi, mathematics, ethicsEthics is a general term for what is often described as the " science of morality". In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is " good". The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy . This is one of the three major branches of and cosmologyCosmology is the study of the large-scale structure and history of the universe. In particular, it deals with subjects regarding its origin and evolution. It is studied by Astronomy, Philosophy, and Religion. See also cosmogony. Subjects in cosmology incl. Those who accepted some limited biological aspects of it as useful theory would find it hard to argue with more general application of it as a political or moral principle - exactly as happened with evolutionThis article is about biological evolution. For other possible meanings, see Evolution (disambiguation). Evolution generally refers to any process of change over time. However, in the context of the life sciences, evolution is a change in the genetic make.
Another concern is that embodiment theory simply reiterates ideas from behaviorismSocial philosophy Behaviorism (or behaviourism is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. Within that broad approach, there are different emphases. Some behaviorists argue simply t and sociobiologySociobiology is a branch of biology that attempts to throw light upon animal behavior and social structures in terms of evolutionary advantage or strategy. It uses techniques from ethology, evolution and population genetics. The term "sociobiology" was co, combining them with theories of massive neural networkSee also MPNN: Massively parallel neural network ANN: Artificial neural network, Neural network.s and a society of mind from computer science. It does to a degree treat ecology and environment as a homunculus, and assumes that these are beyond direct human investigation, and certainly beyond more than a very dilute control.
This in turn can offend those who believe in human dignity or the ongoing human control of Earth after a technological singularity. Embodiment theory tends to contradict many common understandings of humanism including, high on the list, that of free will. Defenders however point out that free will itself is not so compatible with real life on a planet with many incalculable forces: