Conceptual and Biofunctional Embodiment: A Long Story on the Transience of the Enduring Mind

Abstract

We examine how embodiment in biological activity is different from conceptual embodiment as reflected in classic, modern, and postmodern perspectives on tacit knowledge. The central theme of the essay is how understanding is embodied conceptually and biofunctionally. We focus (a) on how biofunctional understanding (BU) is different from conceptual understanding (CU) and (b) on how the overall differences between these two types of embodied understanding are complementary. We show here from a conceptual perspective that embodiment theories have diverged on the meaning of embodiment; but convergence may be more likely across future perspectives if we first redefine the construct of tacit knowledge as tacit understanding and then define (explicit) CU as being directly grounded in tacit understanding, for the purpose of comparison with BU defined as being grounded in biological activity. We illustrate the complementary differences between conceptual and biofunctional embodiment of understanding first in the absence of language and then using a particular statement format and the implicit analogy of biofunctional embodiment in other bodily systems. We conclude with a suggestion about the directly uncovered but highly related embodiment of language in a section on future research.

Biofunctional Understanding and Conceptual Control: Searching for Systematic Consensus in Systemic Cohesion

“…Commenting on Rumelhart’s pioneering claim that knowers had to employ deep structures to understand stories, these researchers reasoned that deep story structures presupposed rather than caused understanding. The second line of research came in the form of the biological embodiment of understanding and the straightforward assumptions that understanding is the special and unique function of the biofunctional wisdom in the nervous system as the one and only direct, necessary, and sufficient prerequisite for understanding, just as respiration was the special function of the biological activity in the respiratory system as the one and only direct, necessary, and sufficient condition for breathing ( Iran-Nejad, 1980/1987 ; Iran-Nejad and Ortony, 1984 ; Iran-Nejad and Irannejad, 2017b ). The biofunctional view of understanding is that biological systems, subsystems, and microsystems (i.e., neurons) take their turns to be the immediate and direct production site for the intellectual performance that their specialty prescribes.…”

“…The transition era provided scarce ground for the kind of evidence, theory, and methodology about biofunctional understanding that is available worldwide today (e.g., Iran-Nejad, 2000 ; Ziemke et al, 2004 ; Borghi et al, 2013 ; Ghorbani et al, 2014 ; Alverson, 2015 ; Jin et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Johnson, 2015 ; Billing et al, 2016 ; Caligiore et al, 2016 ; Soylu, 2016 ; Thill and Twomey, 2016 ). Therefore, early biofunctional theorizing had to scrape for embodiment one metaphor at a time, just as one had to struggle breathlessly against the downhill current of prestigious metaphysical cognitive psychology ( Iran-Nejad, 1980/1987 ; Iran-Nejad and Irannejad, 2017b ). Biological metaphors were shunned vehemently and rejected out of hand by editors, reviewers, and readers alike.…”

“…Then, following a decade of transition shaped by intense controversy, embodied cognition emerged and suggested sources of control other than those implied by metaphysical information processing. With a thematic focus on embodiment science and an eye toward systematic consensus in systemic cohesion, the present study explores the roles of biofunctional and conceptual control processes in the wholetheme spiral of biofunctional understanding (see Iran-Nejad and Irannejad, 2017b , Figure 1). According to this spiral, each of the two kinds of understanding has its own unique set of knower control processes.…”

Commentary: Does Mindfulness Enhance Critical Thinking? Evidence for the Mediating Effects of Executive Functioning in the Relationship between Mindfulness and Critical Thinking

“…Binary if-then questions are, as a set, an indispensable tool for simplifying complexity by isolating sources of contribution to make those sources more observable, a tool less rewarding for the unobservable biofunctional systems that populate life sciences. To solve their systematic observation problems, biofunctional life scientists must embrace the rocky path of getting well acquainted with another set of questions and learn to use it corequisitely with the first, and we may be quick to add, both conceptually and biofunctionally (Iran-Nejad and Irannejad, 2017). The second question set contrasts dramatically with the first in that it simplifies complexity in science by integration of multiple diverse sources-a process we use here synonymously with understanding.…”

“…Without knowing how, one cannot be mindful to think critically. For similar biofunctional understanding examples, see IranNejad and Irannejad (2017).…”