4B1. The mind and body are one.

The “4E” approach to cognition argues that cognition does not occur solely in the head, but is also embodied, embedded, enacted, or extended by way of extra-cranial processes and structures.

As Gregory Bateson asked - “What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all the four of them to me? And me to you?” The question implies that the patterns making up life and mind are interwoven.

Organisms are sense-making beings. They establish their own goals, and make meaning out of their interactions with their environments. For example, bacteria move towards what they find attractive, and away from what they find repellent. They communicate with each other through chemical signals, and thereby regulate one another’s gene expression in response to fluctuations in their cell population density. Like all organisms, they alter their own environments and those of other organisms. Living is sense-making in precarious conditions, and sense-making is the beginning of mind. — REF 1. Thompson, E. (2007). Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Harvard University Press, chapters 5 and 6.

Cognition is brought to life through embodied action of a living system within its environment. It is a process situated in a brain-body-environment context. An analogy — a bird needs wings to fly but the flight isn’t inside the wings. It is a process between the whole being and environment. Flying is embodied action. Same for the brain - thinking isn’t in the brain. Cognition is embodied sense-making as you take action embodied in your physical body and environment.

See a great summary for this published in Mind & Life “What is mind?…” by Evan Thompson — REF

Connections

• This relates to Zen and Buddhist philosophy of non-duality and mind eminent in all things.
• Once could argue this treats organizations as having their own “mind”.

4B2. Trauma is a “scar” that often leads to disassociation (”tuning out” or repression).