The System’s Enactive History And The Essence Of Embodied Cognition

In recent decades, the concept of embodied cognition is becoming more andmore popular in cognitive science. Cognitive science is a combination of the researchof computer science, psychology, linguistics, cognitive neurotic science. As the firstgeneration of cognitive science encountered difficulty, the embodied cognition wasproposed. The first generation of cognition thinks cognition is dis-embodied andregard it as the process of formal operation on abstract system. As they encountereddifficulties, some researchers began to rethink of the nature of cognition. They thinkwhether the view that the cognition is dis-embodied is appropriate. Then they proposethe view that cognition is embodied which is based on the critical of the view of firstgeneration. Embodied cognition is a new approach. So far, it has not been establishedsystematic theory. The researchers have different views on embodied cognition. Theview of Lakoff and the view of VA-ray are the representatives. Although their viewsare different, they all focus on the importance of bodily experience for humancognition. Essentially, embodied cognition is about the correlation of body and mind.The first generation of cognitive science thinks that they have no correlation, whilethe view of embodied cognition thinks they have correlation. Individual human beingshould be a entirety which includes body and mind. The system science studies andemphasizes the integrity of system and emergence of system. We can in differentways understand that everyone is a system. If we understand everyone in the way ofbody and mind, our body and mind should be a whole. There are a lot of theoriesabout system. About system, the researchers have formed the views that theemergence is caused by the interaction of the part and the system is en-active. Theyfocus on the whole of system. Every one of us is a complex system. We all areen-active and our body and mind are enactive too. When we appear, our body andmind is a whole which can’t be separated. And individual human being and thecircumstances can be together as a new system, our embodied cognition is enactiveas the result of the development of the new system. Embodied cognition should be an object for system science. As system is enactive, we should study embodied cognitionin an enactive history perspective instead of exiting system. We can look for newviews and methods from the system science to serve embodied cognition. But in thisprocess, we should be careful. Every discipline is in a process of development.Essentially, science is the result of our embodied cognition. Our human cognition isdevelopmental, so every scientific discipline is in the process of development.