Embodiment, disability, sexuality, emotion, some sources on embodiment

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
    I thought I would put up some references to embodiment in regard to
examining the role of affect in computing.  I am referring to a comment that
Jim Devine made awhile back,

Jim,
I don't think that disembodiment (as far as I understand this concept) is
the full story, since I think that understanding individual cognition isn't
the whole story. We have to look at the social-psychology, the sociology,
the political economy. Cognition is an individual process, but we need to
also understand the whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts societal
process.

Doyle
In order to properly understand the role of embodiment in regard to
contemporaneous computing and business practices certain directions need to
be understood.  Webster's dictionary defines embody this way;

2 a: to deprive of spirituality b: to make concrete and perceptible

I'm posting these sources (below) for reference to a role of computing and
affect (production of emotions in communications), disability issues related
to that, cognition issues underlying this and most important of all
embodiment as an influence during this period;

Embodied Conversational Agents, edited by Justine Cassell, Joseph Sullivan,
Scott Prevost, Elizabeth Churchill, MIT Press, 2000,

Affective Computing, Rosalind W. Picard, MIT Press 1998,

Human Language and Our Reptilian Brain, The Subcortical Bases of Speech,
Syntax, and Thought, Philip Liberman, Harvard Press, 2000

There are many sources of information concerning cognition, but this month
George Lakoff will publish his new book on the embodied origins of math.
The point of this thrust in the intellectual culture is to reshape the
direction of knowledge production.  Embodiment will have an important impact
in certain specific ways within business and this culture.

Affect computing indicates ways to understand an affect Marxism.  Affect
Marxism is about the role of materially producing feelings in the social
organization of workers.  What are those implications for Marxist?  I think
one area that matters with regard to embodiment are wireless computational
communication devices that people carry with them all the time.  In effect
demanding that we better understand the relationship of physical place upon
communication production.

Important parts of embodiment issues in computing relate to how groups are
pulled together by on line tools.  What size of a group, what does social
cohesion require in a group, etc.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor