John Grossbohlin sent me a link to an article on "embodied cognition" from the Boston Globe that reflects on some of the concepts I've discussed earlier in the blog, like Susan Goldin-Meadow's research on gesture and George Lakoff's use of metaphor to examine the relationship between mind and body. It is always exciting for me to see these kinds of things being discussed in the mainstream media. The re-examination of the mind-body, the idea that the body itself plays a role in the process of thought, by necessity includes the hands. It also leads us to a re-examination of our children's education.

According to Angeline Lillard, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, the value of embodied cognition in education is self-evident.

"Our brains evolved to help us function in a dynamic environment, to move through it and find food and escape predators. It didn't evolve to help us sit in a chair in a classroom and listen to someone and regurgitate information."

It may be that consciousness and intelligence are widely distributed throughout the body according to the theory presented by Anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff and Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose. Quantum Consciousness was been lightly summarized for me as follows by a psychologist friend of mine Bill Symes:

The theory Hameroff and Penrose have been pursuing is that microtubules, microscopic hollow hair-like fibers populating every cell by the gizzilions, are the microprocessors of the body that interface with the quantum field/reality. The microtubules capacity to vibrate at multiple frequencies allows the cell to gather and distribute huge quantities of information at any single moment. The brain seems to be a switching system directing responses, but not necessarily the source of insight or information.

As the hands are the primary and most direct physical engagement (both sensing and creating) between the individual and his or her environment, you can imagine the amount of information that is processed within and through. Quantum Consciousness is also a scary concept to imagine for those conditioned to look at the world through the typical human centrist perspective. If individual cells are the seat of intelligence and consciousness, then we are challenged to re-examine our self-serving dominance of all life. That would be a huge leap of human consciousness. Can you imagine humans as stewards and protectors of all life rather than as god-like predators at the top of the environmental food chain? If you can imagine it (stretch a bit, OK?) it can happen.