Embodied Thinking
Turning outward, engaged in embodied thinking the thinker empathizes with a living or non-living entity, transcending his own mental and physical self, he becomes one with the empathized. Turning inward, the thinker uses proprioperception to examine the state of his own body or a part of it. Through this connection with his physical self the thinker gains an understanding of the state of his state of mind and emotions.
Though in the past ten years I have often engaged in the different types of embodied thinking described in the Sparks of Creativity wiki and the CEP 818’s home site, I have never used embodied thinking for the purposes of work or to make intellectual insights.
How do I usually engage in embodied thinking? As a practice of proprioperception I lay still and concentrate on my own body, part by part. Not leaving any surface or internal element out, effortlessly and rapidly flowing my attention though the parts that are well, and getting held up where there’s apparent stress. The best part of this exercise is to concentrate on my brain; to better do this I study its general anatomy. I can also effortlessly play football, completely becoming one the game to a level that I don’t need to concentrate on my handling the ball all (that would actually make my game worse). I can run long distances meanwhile problem solving or planning things out internally, and I must walk or pace in tight loops when I think hard on some acute problem. Another type of proprioperception I practice is this: every morning during the first half hour of my day I’m attentive to my mood and of my reactions to my family members, gauging how restful the night’s sleep has been, taking cautionary notes if necessary to use them later guiding my day at work. As for empathy, I empathize with my small and aging do; I know what scares her and what makes her happy. I also empathize with the plants in the school- garden I take care of; the first thing to do every morning as I arrive to the school to spend fifteen minutes observing the plants. How did they change since yesterday? Are they fine? What do they need? Where the best place to plant a particular next one?
I’m not new to many of the forms of embodied thinking, but I found it very difficult to embody the topic I choose for the purposes of this course and to make useful insights about it by feeling it from within. There is a difference between personifying inanimate objects and becoming one with them; as I worked on this assignment I often found myself doing the former rather than the latter. How does a prime number feel? How do prime waves collectively experience their existence? Do they identify with the properties we assign to them from the outside, or does their own perspective yield their essence? For truly empathizing with these entities all externally invested characteristics must be dropped.
So how may I physically experience being the collective prime wave stream? Perhaps like this: sitting in a cool and fast flowing mountain stream. The water beating down on my body in a steady rhythm but never quite the same way or with the same strength. If I hold on to a mossy rock in the riverbed and completely submerge into the cool rushing water I can feel my body become light like a water plant and becoming one with the waves. There is no need to hold my breath, I can last under the water effortlessly as long as I want, I just relax and undulate with the stream letting my torso and limbs completely relax, flap as the water commands, becoming one with the water. Being one with the waves I endlessly flow, steady yet always changing.
Turning outward, engaged in embodied thinking the thinker empathizes with a living or non-living entity, transcending his own mental and physical self, he becomes one with the empathized. Turning inward, the thinker uses proprioperception to examine the state of his own body or a part of it. Through this connection with his physical self the thinker gains an understanding of the state of his state of mind and emotions.
Though in the past ten years I have often engaged in the different types of embodied thinking described in the Sparks of Creativity wiki and the CEP 818’s home site, I have never used embodied thinking for the purposes of work or to make intellectual insights.
How do I usually engage in embodied thinking? As a practice of proprioperception I lay still and concentrate on my own body, part by part. Not leaving any surface or internal element out, effortlessly and rapidly flowing my attention though the parts that are well, and getting held up where there’s apparent stress. The best part of this exercise is to concentrate on my brain; to better do this I study its general anatomy. I can also effortlessly play football, completely becoming one the game to a level that I don’t need to concentrate on my handling the ball all (that would actually make my game worse). I can run long distances meanwhile problem solving or planning things out internally, and I must walk or pace in tight loops when I think hard on some acute problem. Another type of proprioperception I practice is this: every morning during the first half hour of my day I’m attentive to my mood and of my reactions to my family members, gauging how restful the night’s sleep has been, taking cautionary notes if necessary to use them later guiding my day at work. As for empathy, I empathize with my small and aging do; I know what scares her and what makes her happy. I also empathize with the plants in the school- garden I take care of; the first thing to do every morning as I arrive to the school to spend fifteen minutes observing the plants. How did they change since yesterday? Are they fine? What do they need? Where the best place to plant a particular next one?
I’m not new to many of the forms of embodied thinking, but I found it very difficult to embody the topic I choose for the purposes of this course and to make useful insights about it by feeling it from within. There is a difference between personifying inanimate objects and becoming one with them; as I worked on this assignment I often found myself doing the former rather than the latter. How does a prime number feel? How do prime waves collectively experience their existence? Do they identify with the properties we assign to them from the outside, or does their own perspective yield their essence? For truly empathizing with these entities all externally invested characteristics must be dropped.
So how may I physically experience being the collective prime wave stream? Perhaps like this: sitting in a cool and fast flowing mountain stream. The water beating down on my body in a steady rhythm but never quite the same way or with the same strength. If I hold on to a mossy rock in the riverbed and completely submerge into the cool rushing water I can feel my body become light like a water plant and becoming one with the waves. There is no need to hold my breath, I can last under the water effortlessly as long as I want, I just relax and undulate with the stream letting my torso and limbs completely relax, flap as the water commands, becoming one with the water. Being one with the waves I endlessly flow, steady yet always changing.
I chose the embodiment of prime waves as becoming a mountain stream because of the fast flow and energy present in these streams. The flow of water is particularly visible and closely resembles the prime wave image I used in Module 1 as the water rushes around and above rocks in the riverbed. The overall quality of the stream is constant, while the individual details of the flow never repeat. There is constant variation on the same general theme. The image of primes perceived as waves in Module 1 links the cognitive tools of perception, patterning, abstraction, and embodied thinking. Prime numbers perceived as waves analogous to a fast stream of water become a realistic element into which the thinker takes a virtual plunge.
Jump into the mountain stream here:
See the animated embodiment here: http://www.powtoon.com/show/eGZ2WWrvYsa/embodied-thinking/#/
Jump to module 6.