Abstract
Contemporary neuroscience seems to suggest that conceptual understanding as in reading and discourse at least in part is perceptually and sensory-somatically corroborated. In other words, conceptual knowledge seems to involve reenacting forms of perceptual experiences. However, in many aspects of life we do not have first hand experiences of the concepts we master to perfection. Who has ever had personal experiences with unicorns, the ice ages or Big Bang? In this chapter, I expand on the relation between symbol use as it applies to the linguistic exchange in professional communities and different levels of immersion in the associated practices to clarify the issue of levels of embodiment from a cognitive point of view.
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- 1.
Collins and Evans discuss the taxonomy of expertises, the natural or acquired facility in a specific activity. In this chapter focus is on the characteristics of the knowledge associated to particular expertises.
- 2.
Physicists (like all specialists) are unique. Lumping them together is therefore bound to result in superficial and inaccurate characterizations. Naturally, some physicists have specialized in experimental designs; others in theoretical approaches.
- 3.
To count as a genuine interactional expert, knowledge must be obtained away from the concrete context relevant to contributory experts. In reality such clear cut examples are rare. For the sake of argument, I have the serene form in mind.
- 4.
Bear in mind though that according to the theory, the interactional expert does not contribute to the evolvement of physics as a science.
- 5.
In the simple version; for example sensitisation and conditioning in Kandel’s Aplysia californica, a seahare, involves the linking of various external stimuli enabled by the phylogenetically determined, neural connections (Kandel, 2001).
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Schilhab, T. (2012). Levels of Immersion and Embodiment. In: Schilhab, T., Stjernfelt, F., Deacon, T. (eds) The Symbolic Species Evolved. Biosemiotics, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2336-8_12
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