Embodied mind

Figure 8.8 The co-emergence of the human autopoietic structure and the environment in the process of life. This co-emergence (cognition) in this case becomes the embodied mind (Varela et al, 1991) - as mind (and eventually consciousness) -is based on experiencing the world. Body and mind are two faces of the same phenomenon, the phenomenon of life (see Varela, 2000). However, this schematization assumes a starting duality that is not supposed to exist in reality.

Some readers may recognize in all these ideas a flavor of Buddhism. I mention this because the life and thoughts of Francisco Varela were indeed significantly influenced by Buddhism. The Embodied Mind (Varela et a/., 1991) is in fact a book... 

Valera F. Thompson E. and Rosch E. (1991). The Embodied Mind Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 292 pp. 

This dimension of Woolf s writing prefigures current theories of the embodied mind , in which sensations and perceptions are understood as fully involved in cognitive work. 

It is useful to keep in mind these three embodiments of the derivatives that enter into the radial kinetie energy in various eontexts it will be useful to employ various of these. 

In this chapter the symmetry properties of atomie, hybrid, and moleeular orbitals are treated. It is important to keep in mind that both symmetry and eharaeteristies of orbital energetics and bonding "topology", as embodied in the orbital energies themselyes and the interaetions (i.e., hj yalues) among the orbitals, are inyolyed in determining the pattern of moleeular orbitals that arise in a partieular moleeule. 

To extraet from this set of coupled equations relations that ean be solved for the eoeffieients , whieh embodies the desired wavefunetion perturbations /k ", one eolleets together all terms with like power of X in the above general equation (in doing so, it is important to keep in mind that Ek itself is given as a power series in X). 

The day that Wolfram s article appeared at ITP s library is forever etched in my mind as one of those proverbial milestone events in one s life. I knew instantly that cellular automata embodied a profound new approach to looking at physics and the world and that cellular automata were a subject about which I had to do a lot of thinking. I will forever be indebted to Max for allowing me to pursue musings that seemed-certainly to those making up the intellectual inner-circle of ITP at the time-comical, at best and childishly unphysics-like, at worst. So... 

Since all is ultimately consciousness, mind (as Buddhist metaphysics terms consciousness) is the builder of all and the source of the illusion of separateness. It is by the skillful use of the image-building faculty of consciousness (imagination) that we fashion the tools for our liberation. The subjectivity of inner vision does not diminish its reality value. It is real on its own level. Such visions are not hallucinations, because their reality is that of the human psyche. They are symbols in which the highest knowledge and the noblest endeavor of the human mind are embodied. Visualization is the creative process of spiritual projection, through which inner experience is translated into visible form, comparable to the creative act of an artist whose subjective idea, emotion, or vision is transformed into an objective work of art which then takes on a reality of its own, independent of the creator. 

Yetzirah. It is this power of mind that sustains embodiment. It is through the constructive and eliminative functions of the corporeal intelligence that the physical body is gradually transformed into the deathless body of a Sage. 

There is a valid reason for this commingling of the reports of the effects of this chemical and plant, however. In many peoples minds, the two materials are felt to be exclusively monoamineoxidase inhibitors, and to be interchangeable. I recently read the following bit of advice somewhere on the internet. "If you really want to get off on shrooms, take some harmaline or Syrian Rue seeds along with them." This one phrase embodies a number of popular myths in the psychedelic drug subculture. Let me try to unravel this tangled knot. 

Modern neuroscience has permitted us to build the scientific base that Freud wanted but which psychoanalysis had to do without. Part II treats two foundational themes of psychoanalysis, dreaming (chapter 4) and dissociation (chapter 5), showing that we can understand mind, brain, and drug action within a new unified conceptual framework. To emphasize this paradigm shift, I introduce the notion of neurodynamics and show how many processes previously considered to be exclusively psychodynamic are actually embodied in brain anatomy and physiology. 

We can I believe go a step further than this recognition of the quantum nature of consciousness, and see just how this overlays and links with the mind/brain problem. The great difficulties in developing a theory of the way in which consciousness/mind is embodied in the activity of the brain, has I believe arisen out of the erroneous attempt to press a deterministic view onto our brain activity. Skinner and the behaviourist psychologists attempted to picture the activity of the brain as a computer where each cell behaved as an input/output device or a complex fhp/flop. 

Consciousness, as we ordinarily know it in the west, is not pure awareness but rather awareness as it is embodied in the psychological structure of the mind or the brain. Ordinary experience is of neither pure awareness nor pure psychological structure, but of awareness embedded in and modified by the structure of the mind/brain, and of the structure of the mind/brain embedded in and modified by awareness. These two components, awareness and psychological structures constitute a gestalt, an overall interacting, dynamic system that makes up consciousness. 

Finally, in this past year, two of this century s giants of stereochemistry passed away. However, the scientific legacies of Vladimir Prelog and Sir Derek H. R. Barton are firmly embodied in the fundament of our knowledge of stereochemistry and their personal legacies irrevocably woven into the hearts and minds of those co-workers, colleagues, students and friends who were graced by their lives. 

THE INVISIBLE LANDSCAPE Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. Copyright 1975, 1993 by Dermis J. McKenna and Terence K. McKenna. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. 

---