# The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience

“The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience” (2017), by Francisco J. Varela et al. Neuroscience research paper. Original abstract below, unchanged. No free PDF was found.

- Authors: Francisco J. Varela, Eleanor H. Rosch, Evan T. Thompson
- Published: January 1, 2017
- Field: Neuroscience
- Source: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/6/monograph/book/46970

## Abstract

Part 1 The departing ground: a fundamental circularity - in the mind of the reflective scientist - an already-given condition, what is cognitive science?, cognitive science within the circle, the theme of this book what do we mean Human Experience? - science and the phenomenological tradition, the breakdown of phenomenology, a non-western philosophical tradition, examining experience with a method - mindfulness/awareness, the role of reflection in the analysis of experience, experimentation and experiential analysis. Part 2 Varieties of cognitivism: symbols - the cognitivist hypothesis - the foundational cloud, defining the cognitivist hypothesis, manifestations of cognitivism, cognitivism and human experience, experience and the computational mind the I of the storm - what do we mean by Self?, looking for a self in the aggregates, momentariness and the brain, the aggregates without a self. Part 3 Varieties of emergence: emergent properties and connectionism - self-organization - the roots of an alternative, the connectionist strategy, emergence and self-organization, connectionism today, neuronal emergences, exeunt the symbols, linking symbols and emergence selfless minds - societies of mind, the society of object relations, co-dependent arising, basic element analysis, mindfulness and freedom, selfless minds, divided agents, minding the world. Part 4 Steps to a middle way: the Cartesian anxiety - a sense of dissatisfaction, representation revisited, the Cartesian anxiety, steps to a middle way, enaction - embodied cognition - recovering common sense, self-organization revisited, colour as a study case, cognition as embodied action, the retreat into natural selection evolutionary path making and natural drift - adaptationism - an idea in transition, a horizon of multiple mechanisms, beyond the best in evolution and cognition, evolution - ecology and development in congruence, lessons from evolution as natural drift, defining the enactive approach, enactive cognitive science. Part 5 Worlds without ground: the middle way - evocations of groundlessness, Nagarjuna and the Madhyamika tradition, the two truths, groundlessness in contemporary thought laying down a path in walking - science and experience in circulation, nihilism and the need for planetary thinking, Nishitani Keiji, ethics and human transformation. Appendices: meditation terminology categories of experiential events used in mindfulness/awareness works on Buddhism and mindfulness/awareness.

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