Ocean of Elephants: Embodiment, Trans Women & Digital Otherworlds

As I discussed with philosopher and cognitive scientist Andrea Hiott recently, implicit in our embodiment is also our embeddedness in our environment, how we enact our agency, and how our cognition is extended through others.

Abstract thought is essential; the issue comes when it disconnects us from a contextual reality. McGilchrist put it beautifully: abstraction can be viewed as the removal of context in place of a false certainty.

cognition isn’t an abstract process happening in our heads, but inseparable from our physicality and our environment. All our mental concepts come from our bodies, and understanding what that really means that can help us reconnect to authentic conversations, re-establish trust in the social contract, and kick-start cultural evolution.

Collectively, we’re going through something like a death, in which over-abstraction is crashing into physical reality. The liberal world order is gone, and across multiple domains, from education and economics to immigration policy and climate change, we’re wrestling with what it means to let go of ideas about what should be and face what is.