There is perhaps no paper more important for people in safety to read than this:

Fuchs, T., (2016) Interorporeality and Interaffectivity. University of Heidelberg. https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/pam/article/view/7256/7236

Unless safety learns to move away from the cartesian myth of brain-centrism and the dis-embodied understanding of learning, it will never understand why people do as they do.

Everywhere we look in safety we see the iconography, semiotics and metaphor of the brain as an organ of direction and decision making. This is a myth.

As Claxton rightly states (2015):

The brain doesn’t issue commands, it hosts conversations.

The brain hosts conversations between all the systems of the body that work independently from it.

These systems are: nervous, endocrine, respiratory, integumentary (skin), muscular, digestive, cardiovascular, reproductive, cellular, urinary, feeling/emotional and skeletal systems. All these bodily systems interact and inform the brain of what has already been decided and enacted.

The problem is, all of our metaphors and semiotics for thinking and cognition in safety are anchored to the brain-as-computer metaphor. This creates the myth that the brain is a thinking organ. Then we see all these images in safety that promote this myth and then wonder why they don’t understand why people do as they do. We see this promoted most recently in HOP iconography:

The trouble is. This is NOT how humans make decisions. The brain is nothing like a computer and the brain is not an organ that directs decision-making. Such a belief is myth. The brain does NOT direct 95% of decision making. Most decision-making is drive n by automatic decision-making such as’ reflex, habit, heuristics, body memory, muscle memory etc.

The safety belief in brain-centrism is just traditional safety.

As long as Safety thinks that decision-making is computational and brain-centric, it will never understand why people do what they do.

Experts in neuroscience know that the human Mind is NOT in the skull (https://safetyrisk.net/essential-readings-neuroscience-and-the-whole-person/).

Rather, thinking involves all our bodily systems in inter-corporeal and inter-affected ways. This is why we need to perceive thinking as embodied NOT brain-centric. The brain is nothing like a computer. Such a metaphor just empowers the myth of the human as a machine. There is no correlation between how humans-as-bodies work compared to computers. As Roger Penrose informs us, consciousness is NOT computational (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXgqik6HXc0&t=34s). AI cannot ‘think’. Machines cannot ‘learn’.

So, for those who want to learn about embodiment, here is your opportunity.

Free Workshops on Embodiment in Risk

Dr Long is proposing four free workshops on Embodiment and Risk in September. These will be held at 9am every Tuesday morning Canberra time on 8, 15, 22 and 29 September.

If you want to join these free workshops you can request to go on the list here: admin@spor.com.au

The sessions will be recorded for those who can’t attend in person although homework will be expected to be completed.

Embodiment Tool

In SPoR, we use a very simple tool to help us get away from the dis-embodied notion of Descartes. This will be foundational in the free workshops.

Essential Readings on Embodiment

Claxton, G., (2009) The Wayward Mind, An Intimate History of The Unconscious. Abacus. London.

Claxton, G., (2015) Intelligence in the Flesh. Yale University Press. New York.

Colombetti, G., The Feeling Body, Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind. MIT Press, London.

Damasio, A., (1994) Descartes’ Error, Emotion, Reason, and The Human Brian. Penguin, New York.

Damasio, A., (1999) The Feeling of What happens, Body and Emotions in the Making of Consciousness. Harvest Books, New York.

Damasio, A., (2003) Looking for Spinoza, Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain. Harvest Books. New York.

Damasio, A., (2010) Self Comes to Mind, Constructing the Conscious Brain. Pantheon Books. New York.

Damasio, A., (2018) The Strange Order of Things, Life, Feeling and the Making of Cultures. Pantheon Books. New York.

Damasio, A., (2021) Feeling and Knowing, Making Minds Conscious. Pantheon Books. New York.

Durt, C., Fuchs, T., and Tews, C., (eds.) (1997) Embodiment, Enaction, and Culture. MIT Press. London.

Fuchs, T., (2018) Ecology of the Brain, The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind. Oxford University Press. London.

Fuchs, T., (2021) In Defense of the Human Being Foundational Questions of an Embodied Anthropology. Oxford University Press. London.

Ginot, E., (2015) The Neuropsychology of the Unconscious, Integrating Brain and Mind in Psychotherapy. Nortons. New York.

Johnson, M., (1987) The Body in Mind, The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

Johnson, M., (2007) The Meaning of the Body, Aesthetics of Human Understanding. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

Johnson, M., (2014) Morality for Humans, Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

Johnson, M., (2017) Embodied Mind, Meaning and Reason. How Our Bodies Give Rise to Understanding. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

Lakoff, G., and Johnson, M., (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

Lakoff, G., and Johnson, M., (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh, The Embodied Mind and Its Challenges to Western Thought. Basic Books, New York.

Macknik, S., and Martinez-Conde, S., (2010) Sleights of Mind, What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions. Henry Holt Co., New York.

Meyer, C., Streeck, J., and Jordan, J. S., (2017). Intercorporeality, Emerging Socialities in Interaction. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

Noe, A., (2009) Out of Our Heads, Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from The Biology of Consciousness. Hill and Wang. New York.

Norretranders, T., (1991) The User Illusion, Cutting Consciousness Down to Size. Penguin. London.

Panksepp, J., (1998) Affective Neuroscience, The Foundations of Human Animal Emotions. Oxford University Press. London.

Raaven, H., (2013). The Self Beyond Itself, An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences and the Myth of Free Will. The New Press. New York.

Ramachandran, V. S., (2004) A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness. PI Books, New York

Robinson, K., (2011). Out of Our Minds, Learning to Be Creative. Capstone. London.

Thompson, E., (2010) Mind in Life, Biology, Phenomenology, and the Science of the Mind. Belknap Press. London.

Tversky, B., (2019) Mind in Motion, How Action Shapes Thoughts. Basic Books. New York.

Van Der Kolk, B., (2015) The Body Keeps the Score, Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin, New York.

Varela, F., Thompson, E ., and Rosch, E., (1993) The Embodied Mind, Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press, London.