Johnson supports his argument that our understanding of meaning is debilitatingly limited without accounting for the embodied experience of the world by examining five ways that the body engages in it: biologically, ecologically, phenomenologically, socially and culturally. Positing that the body is actively intrinsic to all these areas of life, Johnson reveals through these levels of functioning the ways that it is ‘more than a lump of pulsating flesh” (275). As I made my own ‘conscious effort to change how my mind worked’ through meditation, I experienced changes in my life that relate to many of Johnson’s following categories of embodiment.
1. The body as a biological organism – Describing the body as the “…principal locus” of our “being-in-the-world” from which “(our) world extends out from”, Johnson discusses the intricate coordination of biological systems that provide the palette for all experiences from which we infer meaning in life. Referring to Putnam’s ‘brain in a vat’ hypothesis, Johnson states that beyond the brain and nervous system, it is our “… body-in-interaction-with-our-world that defines human meaning, reference and truth” (275-6). Science supports …show more content…
To my mind at the time, the idea of eating raw fish was hilariously bizarre. Almost as bizarre was the practice of yoga that I started noticing, which was embarrassing to watch from my repressed, Canadian perspective. Years passed, and eventually I found myself loving sushi and doing a lot of yoga. Both of these cultural practices that were grafted into my Canadian life expanded my world in different, tangible ways. Sushi provided an increased intake of Omega 3’s in my diet and a more adventurous palate; yoga opened my world up to physical flexibility that coincided with a attitudal flexibility that only increased when I started practicing its counterpart,
1. The body as a biological organism – Describing the body as the “…principal locus” of our “being-in-the-world” from which “(our) world extends out from”, Johnson discusses the intricate coordination of biological systems that provide the palette for all experiences from which we infer meaning in life. Referring to Putnam’s ‘brain in a vat’ hypothesis, Johnson states that beyond the brain and nervous system, it is our “… body-in-interaction-with-our-world that defines human meaning, reference and truth” (275-6). Science supports …show more content…
To my mind at the time, the idea of eating raw fish was hilariously bizarre. Almost as bizarre was the practice of yoga that I started noticing, which was embarrassing to watch from my repressed, Canadian perspective. Years passed, and eventually I found myself loving sushi and doing a lot of yoga. Both of these cultural practices that were grafted into my Canadian life expanded my world in different, tangible ways. Sushi provided an increased intake of Omega 3’s in my diet and a more adventurous palate; yoga opened my world up to physical flexibility that coincided with a attitudal flexibility that only increased when I started practicing its counterpart,