November 8th to 11th, 2004

Lela Pereira de Queiroz
lela@amcham.com.br
Brazil

EMBODIMENT ON SOMATIC SBMC WORKS

ABSTRACT
This paper debates the concept of "embodiment" from the standpoint of the SMBC (School for the Body-Mind Centering), which is concerned to the study and knowledge of all the corporal systems and to the re-padronization practice focused on the mind-body relationship. The term "embodiment" is here translated into Portuguese as "corporalização", The article points out the implications and states that other translation alternatives, such as "incorporação" and "corporificação", take into account a religious aspect involved in the common sense and stress the false notion of the phenomenon happening from outside in. The embodiment subject is approached through the formulation of the flesh and bone philosophy of the philosophers George Lacoff and Mark Johnson, the TNGS theory of Gerald Edelman and the Jesper Hoffmeyer's bio-semiotics. The hypothesis adopted is that a critical field occurs characterizing a change in the kind of occurrence. The embodiment makes the events that don't have the embodiment phenomenon to intermediate the "inside-out" in the organism, and discusses the question of the transit between tissues, restating its crucial role based on Jesper Hoff meyer. The question concerning assimilation and deepening follows. The article defends that the embodiment process is a dynamical and recurrent one, and seeks ground on the hypothesis of selectivity of the neuronal group of Gerald Edelman.

KEYWORDS: Embodiment, Mind-Body Relationship, Inside-Out.

Center for Pragmatism Studies
Philosophy Graduate Program
Departament of Philosophy
Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo - Brazil