Embodiment, consciousness, and the massively representational mind

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I claim that extant empirical data do not support a radically embodied understanding of the mind but, instead, suggest (along with a variety of other results) a massively representational view. According to this massively representational view, the brain is rife with representations that possess overlapping and redundant content, and many of these represent other mental representations or derive their con-tent from them. Moreover, many behavioral phenomena associated with attention and consciousness are best explained by the coordinated activity of units with redundant content. I finish by arguing that this massively representational picture challenges the reliability of a priori theorizing about consciousness. Proponents of the embodied approach to cognitive science (Barsalou et al. 2003, Gibbs 2006; Glenberg 1997; Lakoff and Johnson 1999) claim that embodiment-related empirical results support sweeping, negative conclusions: that there are no amodal symbols; that there are no arbitrary symbols; that functionalism is false; tha