Embodiment and Emergence: From 4E Cognitive Science to AI

The text analyzes the embodiment hypothesis, which shifts the focus of artificial intelligence development from abstract information processing to the dynamic coupling of morphology, action, and perception. The author invokes the concept of 4E cognitive science (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended), indicating that the body is not merely a periphery of the mind but an integral element of the cognitive mechanism. A key element of the analysis is the Gibsonian notion of affordance, defining perception as a relationship between environmental properties and the possibilities of a specific organism. Unlike language models, a physical agent interacts with the resistance of the world, meaning that representation errors carry real consequences, making physicality an essential verifier of hypotheses and a catalyst for learning.