Abstract
Embodied approaches in cognitive science hold that the body is crucial for cognition. What this claim amounts to, however, still remains unclear. This paper contributes to its clarification by confronting three ways of understanding embodiment—the sensorimotor approach, extended cognition and enactivism—with Locked-in syndrome (LIS). LIS is a case of severe global paralysis in which patients are unable to move and yet largely remain cognitively intact. We propose that LIS poses a challenge to embodied approaches to cognition requiring them to make explicit the notion of embodiment they defend and its role for cognition. We argue that the sensorimotor and the extended functionalist approaches either fall short of accounting for cognition in LIS from an embodied perspective or do it too broadly by relegating the body only to a historical role. Enactivism conceives of the body as autonomous system and of cognition as sense-making. From this perspective embodiment is not equated with bodily movement but with forms of agency that do not disappear with body paralysis. Enactivism offers a clarifying perspective on embodiment and thus currently appears to be the framework in embodied cognition best suited to address the challenge posed by LIS.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In his review of recent approaches to embodiment Gallagher has referred to extended functionalism as “embodied functionalism” (Gallagher 2011). Here we stick to “extended functionalism” since it is the term originally used by Clark.
An anonymous reviewer pointed out that the extended functionalist is not restricted to a substitution only strategy. The extended functionalist could argue that given the criteria of “trust and glue” (automatic endorsement, reliability etc.) are met, a tool realizes a cognitive process independent from the question whether or not that same cognitive process is already realized by a brain or body. Accordingly, one could maybe argue that the BCI extends the LIS patient’s cognition if the “trust and glue” criteria are met. However, while we agree that there could be a case of an external tool counting as part of cognition, even though it does not substitute a cognitive process—it could for example augment a cognitive process —such a story is not suitable for the present context of LIS and BCI usage. BCIs are usually not considered to augment a patient’s “normal” cognitive capacities. BCIs are so relevant for the patient precisely because they allow for cognitive processes (such as communication) the patient would be otherwise unable to realize. In other words, BCIs replace a usually otherwise realized capacity. Such a claim entails a claim about substitution and this holds independent from whether the capacity in question was originally bodily or neuronal based.
Nutrition is constitutive of metabolism in the standard biological sense of metabolism as the exchange of material and energy with the environment and their transformation into cellular components and energy. More technically, the enactive approach defines the living process as autopoiesis and the latter as a form of material autonomy (Di Paolo 2005, 2009; Thompson 2007; Di Paolo and Thompson forthcoming). The essence of metabolism is precarious operational closure in the space of molecular transformations, which involves a relation towards energy and material resources with the world. This is in line with Hans Jonas’ characterization of the essence of life as metabolism, i.e., as a dynamical form made out of ongoing material flux: “This ontological individual, its very existence at any moment, its duration and its identity in duration is, then, essentially its own function, its own concern, its own continuous achievement. In this process of self-sustained being, the relation of the organism to its material substance is of a double nature: the materials are essential to specifically, accidental individually; it coincides with their actual collection at the instant, but is not bound to any one collection in the succession of instants, “riding” their change like the crest of a wave and bound only to their form of collection which endures as its own feat. Dependent on the availability of materials, it is independent of their sameness as these; its own, functional identity, passingly incorporating theirs, is of a different order. In a word, the organic form stands in a dialectical relation of needful freedom to matter”, (Jonas 1966, p.80). This relation is of its essence, which is why the nutrient analogy works; the organizational requirements that define the class identity of metabolising systems includes nourishment, while the temporal spread of actual acts of nourishment depends on various material and energy budgeting scenarios according to the species.
An interesting parallel can be drawn to the work of Merleau-Ponty here. He says that “sometimes, finally, the meaning aimed at cannot be achieved by the body’s natural means; it must then build itself an instrument” (Merleau-Ponty 2002/1945, ibid., p. 169). In order to relate to something we usually rely on biological bodily structures, such as our eyes or hands for example. Originally non-bodily objects become appropriated by our habit body and thus cease to exist for us as independent objects. Merleau-Ponty illustrates this famously with the stick of the blind person that allows substituting visual feedback of the person’s position with a tactile one. The stick is no longer an external object to the blind person but “has become an area of sensitivity…providing a parallel to sight” (ibid., p. 165). The enactivist might suggest that if our embodied existence can change by “appropriating fresh instruments”, then BCI should count as an example of such a non-biological instrument (Merleau-Ponty 2002/1945, p. 166). Having learned how to reliably produce distinct activation patterns to control an artificial limb or a cursor on a screen could be seen as having acquired a new habit. Crucially, BCIs do not extend a pre-existing mind as one might argue from an extended functionalist perspective. Just like the stick for the blind person they are “incorporate[d] into the bulk of our own body”. They hence provide an additional structuring element that allows the patient to create a new domain of significance and thus continuously enact her conscious and directed existence in the world (ibid., p. 166).
References
Aizawa, A. (2007). Understanding the embodiment of perception. The Journal of Philosophy, 4(1), 5–25.
Albahari, M. (2007). Analytical Buddhism: The two-tiered Illusion of Self. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Anderson, M. L. (2003). Embodied cognition: a field guide. Artificial Intelligence, 149(1), 91–130.
Bauby, J. D. (1997). The diving bell and the butterfly. London: Harper Perennial.
Bauer, G., Gerstenbrand, F., & Rumpl, E. (1979). Varieties of locked-in syndrome. Journal of Neurology, 221, 77–91.
Birbaumer, N. (2006). Breaking the silence: Brain–computer interfaces (BCI) for communication and motor control. Psychophysiology 43, 517–532.
Birbaumer, N., & Cohen, L. G. (2007). Brain–computer interfaces: communication and restoration of movement in paralysis. Journal of Physiology, 579(3), 621–636.
Birbaumer, N., Hinterberger, T., Kübler, A., & Neumann, N. (2003). The thought-translation device (TTD): neurobehavioral mechanisms and clinical outcome. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 11(2), 120–123.
Birbaumer, N., Ruiz, S., & Sitaram, R. (2013). Learned regulation of brain metabolism. Trends in Cognitive Science, 17(6), 295–302.
Block, N. (2005). Book review of action in perception. The Journal of Philosophy, 102, 259–272.
Bower, M., & Gallagher, S. (2013). Bodily affectivity: Prenoetic elements in enactive perception. Phenomenology and Mind 4(1), 78–93
Bruno, M.-A., Pellas, F. & Laureys, S. (2008). Quality of life in locked-in syndrome survivors, Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine: 881–890.
Buhrmann, T., Di Paolo, E., & Barandiaran, X. (2013). A dynamical systems account of sensorimotor contingencies. Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00285.
Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body and world together again. Cambridge: MA: MIT Press.
Clark, A. (2008a). Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clark, A. (2008b). Pressing the flesh: a tension in the study of the embodied, embedded mind? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 76, 37–59.
Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58, 7–19.
Clark, A., & Grush, R. (1999). Towards a cognitive robotics. Adaptive Behavior, 7(1), 5–16.
Cosmelli, D., & Thompson, E. (2010). Embodiment or envatment? Reflections on the bodily basis of consciousness. In J. Stewart, O. Gapenne, & E. A. Di Paolo (Eds.), Enaction: Towards a new paradigm for cognitive science (pp. 361–385). Cambridge: MIT Press.
De Jaegher, H., & Di Paolo, E. (2007). Participatory sensemaking: an enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6(4), 485–507.
De Jaegher, H., Di Paolo, E., & Gallagher, S. (2010). Can social interaction constitute social cognition? Trends in Cognitive Science, 14(10), 441–447.
Di Paolo, E. (2009). Extended life. Topoi, 28, 9–21.
Di Paolo, E., & De Jaegher, H. (2012). The interactive brain hypothesis. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6(163). doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00163.
Di Paolo, E., & Thompson, E. (forthcoming). The enactive approach. In L. Shapiro (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of embodied cognition. New York: Routledge Press.
Di Paolo, E., Rohde, M., & De Jaegher, H. (2010). Horizons for the enactive mind: Values, social interaction and play. In J. Stewart, O. Gapenne, & E. A. Di Paolo (Eds.), Enaction: Towards a new paradigm for cognitive science (pp. 33–87). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Dobkin, B. (2007). Brain-computer interface technology as a tool to augment plasticity and outcomes for neurological rehabilitation. The Journal of Physiology, 579, 637–642.
Engel, A., Maye, A., Kurthen, M., & Koenig, P. (2013). Where's the action? The pragmatic turn in cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(5), 202–209.
Fenton, A., & Alpert, S. (2008). Extending our view on using BCIs for locked-in syndrome. Neuroethics, 1, 119–132.
Fingerhut, J. (2012). The body and the experience of presence. In J. Fingerhut & S. Marienberg (Eds.), Feelings of being alive (pp. 167–199). Berlin & Boston: Walter De Gruyter.
Fuchs, T. (2011). The brain as a mediating organ. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 18(7–8), 196–221.
Gallagher, S. (2006). How the body shapes the mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gallagher, S. (2011). Interpretations of embodied cognition. In W. Tschacher & C. Bergomi (Eds.), The implications of embodiment: Cognition and communication (pp. 59–71). Exeter: Imprint Academic.
Gallese, V. (2010). Embodied simulation and its role in intersubjectivity. In T. Fuchs, H. C. Sattel, & P. Henningsen (Eds.), The embodied self. Dimensions, coherence and disorders (pp. 78–92). Stuttgart: Schattauer.
Goldman, A. (2012). A moderate approach to embodied cognitive science. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 3(1), 71–88.
Goldman, A., & Vignemont, F. (2009). Is social cognition embodied? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(4), 154–159.
Gosseries, O., Bruno, M. A., Vanhaudenhuyse, A., Laureys, S., & Schnakers, C. (2009). Consciousness in the locked-in syndrome. In S. Laureys & G. Tononi (Eds.), The neurology of consciousness (pp. 191–203). Oxford: Elsevier.
Gould, S. J., & Lewontin, R. C. (1979). The spandrels of San Marco and the panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 205(1161), 581–598.
Hanna, R., & Maiese, M. (2009). Embodied Minds in Action. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hutto, D. (2005). Knowing what? Radical vs. conservative enactivism. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 4, 389–405.
Inci, S., & Özgen, T. (2003). Locked-in syndrome due to metastatic pontomedullary tumor—case report. Neurologia Medico-Chirurgica, 43, 497–500.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology, Vol. 1 New York and London: Holt and Macmillan.
Jeannerod, M. (2001). Neural simulation of action: a unifying mechanism for motor cognition. NeuroImage, 14(1), 103–109.
Jonas, H. (1966). The phenomenon of life: Toward a philosophical biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kübler, A., & Birbaumer, N. (2008). Brain-computer interfaces and communication in paralysis: extinction of goal directed thinking in completely paralysed patients? Clinical Neurophysiology, 119(11), 2658–2666.
Kyselo, M. (2013a). Locked-in syndrome and BCI – towards an enactive approach to the self. Neuroethics, 6, 579–591.
Kyselo, M. (2013b). From body to self - towards a socially enacted autonomy, with implications for locked-in syndrome and schizophrenia. Doctoral thesis, University of Osnabrück.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.
Laureys, S., Pella, F., Van Eeckhout, P., Ghorbel, S., Schnakers, C., Perrin, F., Berré, J., Fayonville, M., Pantke, K., Damas, F., Lamy, M., Moonen, G., & Goldman, S. (2005). The locked-in syndrome: what is it like to be conscious but paralyzed and voiceless? Progress in Brain Research, 150, 495–511.
Lulé, D., Zickler, C., Häcker, S., Bruno, M. A., Demertzi, A., Pellas, F., Laureys, S., & Kübler, A. (2009). Life can be worth living in locked-in syndrome. Progress in Brain Research, 177, 339–351.
Merleau-Ponty (2002/1945). Phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge.
Nizzi, M.-C., Demertzi, A., Gosseries, O., Bruno, M.-A., Jouen, F., & Laureys, S. (2012). From armchair to wheelchair: how patients with a locked-in syndrome integrate bodily changes in experienced identity. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(1), 431–437.
Noë, A. (2004). Action in perception. Cambridge: MIT press.
Núñez, R. (2004). Do real numbers really move? Language, thought, and gesture: The embodied cognitive foundations of mathematics. In F. Iida, R. Pfeifer, L. Steels, & Y. Kuniyoshi (Eds.), Embodied artificial intelligence (pp. 54–73). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.
O’Regan, K., & Noë, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 939–1031.
Plum, F., & Posner, J. B. (1966). The diagnosis of stupor and coma. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis.
Reddy, V. (2003). On being the object of attention: implications for self-other consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(9), 397–402.
Roberts, T. (2009). Understanding 'sensorimotor understanding'. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9, 101–111. doi:10.1007/s11097-009-9125-7.
Rohrer, T. (2007). The body in space: Dimensions of embodiment. In T. Ziemke, J. Zlatev, & M. F. Roslyn (Eds.), Body, language and mind 1. Embodiment (pp. 339–377). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Scarinzi, A. (2012). Grounding aesthetic preference in the bodily conditions of meaning constitution. The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 43, 83–104.
Schnakers, C., Majerus, S., Goldman, S., Boly, M., Van Eackhout, P., Gay, S., Pellas, F., Bartsch, V., Peigneux, P., Moonen, G., & Laureys, S. (2008). Cognitive function in the locked-in syndrome. Journal of Neurology, 255, 323–330.
Shapiro, L. (2011). Embodied cognition. New York: Routledge.
Shapiro, L. (forthcoming). When is cognition embodied? In U. Kriegel (Ed.), Current controversies in philosophy of mind. New York: Routledge.
Thompson, E. (2005). Sensorimotor subjectivity and the enactive approach to experience. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 4, 407–427.
Thompson, E. (2007). Mind in life: Biology, phenomenology, and the sciences of mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Thompson, E. (2011). Précis of Mind in life. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 18, 10–22.
Thompson, E., & Varela, F. (2001). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge: MIT Press.
van León-Carrión, J., Eeckhout, P., & Dominguez-Morales, M. R. (2002). The locked-in syndrome: a syndrome looking for a therapy. Brain Injury, 16, 555–569.
Varela, F. J. (1997). Patterns of life: intertwining identity and cognition. Brain and Cognition, 34, 72–87.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind. Cambridge: MA: MIT Press.
Walter, S. (2010). Locked-in syndrome, BCI, and a confusion about embodied, embedded, extended, and enacted cognition. Neuroethics, 1, 61–72.
Wheeler, M. (2005). Reconstructing the cognitive world: The next step. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Wheeler, M. (2010). In defense of extended functionalism. In R. Menary (Ed.), The extended mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(4), 625–636.
Wilson, R. A. (2004). Boundaries of the mind: The individual in the fragile sciences: Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolpaw, J. (2007). Brain–computer interfaces as new brain output pathways. Journal of Physiology, 579(3), 613–619.
Zahavi, D. (2005). Subjectivity and selfhood: Investigating the first-person perspective. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Zebrowski, R. L. (2009). We are plastic: Human variability and myth of the standard body. Doctoral thesis. University of Oregon: Eugene, Oregon.
Ziemke, T. (2003). What's that thing called embodiment? Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1305–1310). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Mike Beaton, Athena Demertzi, Marek McGann, and Shaun Gallagher for helpful comments. This work is supported by the Marie-Curie Initial Training Network, “TESIS: Towards an Embodied Science of InterSubjectivity” (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN, 264828).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kyselo, M., Di Paolo, E. Locked-in syndrome: a challenge for embodied cognitive science. Phenom Cogn Sci 14, 517–542 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-013-9344-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-013-9344-9