Embodied cognition is the theoretical claim that cognitive processes cannot be fully understood as abstract symbol manipulation divorced from the body — instead, the body's perceptual systems, motor capacities, and embodied interactions with the environment constitute the very structure of cognition. Parameters: (1) cognition is grounded in sensorimotor experience rather than purely computational representation; (2) the body's physical morphology constrains and shapes cognitive architecture; (3) real-time interaction with the environment is constitutive of thought, not merely an input-output channel. The concept persists through empirical research programmes in cognitive science, philosophical debates in philosophy of mind, and applied frameworks in AI and robotics. The map it draws distinguishes embodied cognition from classical computationalism and behaviorism, carving a position where mind is seen as emerging from the dynamic coupling of brain, body, and world.
[formal: cognitio-embodita | substrate: mind | horizon: generations | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]