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Abstract
This short article synthesizes a philosophical and scientific dialogue bridging phenomenology, ecological psychology, enactive cognitive science, and formal neural modeling with key conceptual articulations. We examine how Merleau-Ponty’s concept of motor intentionality—the pre-reflective, embodied orientation of the subject toward the world—reconfigures the movement/consciousness relation, aligns with Gibson’s affordance theory, and finds computational resonance in the distributed, anticipatory dynamics of artificial neural networks. We conclude by situating this synthesis within the enactive paradigm (Varela et al.), highlighting the emergence of meaning and cognition through embodied, sensorimotor engagement with the world.
Keywords: motor intentionality, affordance, enaction, artificial neural networks, embodied cognition, phenomenology, sense-making.
Introduction
« If the third science is that of the Thing and the second science that of Relation, it would be necessary to say that the first science is that of the Act ». Vladimir Jankélévitch, First Philosophy.
« The representation is in the act ». Heinz von Foerster, the Socrates of second-order cybernetics (dixit Varela).
The classical divide between mind and body, perception and action, has been profoundly challenged by phenomenology, ecological psychology, and enactive cognitive science. This article retraces a conceptual trajectory from Husserl’s noesis, through Merleau-Ponty’s motor intentionality, to Gibson’s affordances and the enactive paradigm, culminating in a dialogue with contemporary neural modeling. The central thesis is that movement is not mere reaction or mechanical execution, but the generative locus of sense-making and anticipation.
Phenomenological Foundations: Noesis and Motor Intentionality
Husserl’s phenomenology posits noesis as the subjective pole of intentionality—every act of consciousness is directed toward something (the noema). Merleau-Ponty radicalizes this by grounding intentionality in the living body (Leib), introducing motor intentionality:
- Movement is not commanded by a detached will, but arises from the body’s pre-reflective, skillful orientation toward the world.
- The body schema is a dynamic, anticipatory structure enabling meaningful engagement without explicit representation.
This view dissolves the dualism of subject/object and representation/action, positing a corporeal genesis of sense.
Affordances and the Ecology of Perception
Gibson’s affordances—the actionable possibilities offered by the environment—resonate with Merleau-Ponty’s insight. Affordances are neither purely objective nor subjective; they are relational, enacted through the organism’s sensorimotor capacities.
- The act of perceiving an affordance is itself an embodied anticipation of possible movement.
- Attention and action are intertwined: what is perceived as possible is shaped by the body’s history and abilities.
Parallel Distributed Modeling: Distributed Adjustment and Emergent Anticipation
Artificial neural networks (ANNs) provide a formal analogy:
- Learning is realized through iterative micro-adjustments of distributed weights, paralleling the body’s iterative sensorimotor adaptation.
- Anticipation in ANNs is not programmed top-down, but emerges from the history of interactions—mirroring the teleological, generative aspect of motor intentionality.
- The “goal-directedness” of the network is an a posteriori interpretation of its inner emergent, distributed and iterative (not generative) quasi-analogical dynamics.
This computational perspective supports the phenomenological claim that meaning and anticipation are not centralized, but arise from the system’s history and structure.
The Enactive Paradigm: Cognition as Embodied Sense-Making
The enactive paradigm (Varela, Thompson, Rosch) synthesizes and extends these insights:
- Cognition is not the manipulation of internal representations but the enactment of meaning through sensorimotor coupling with the environment.
- Organism and world are co-determined in a history of structural coupling; perception and action are inseparable.
- The body is not a passive medium, but the locus of emergence for sense, anticipation, and rationality.
Conclusion: Toward a Computational Phenomenology of Embodied Cognition
The convergence of phenomenology, ecological psychology, enaction, and neural modeling yields a powerful thesis:
Movement is not mere reaction or simple adaptation, but the creative, embodied genesis of meaning; a dynamic, distributed process where body, world, and consciousness co-emerge.
This synthesis invites a new science of consciousness—computational phenomenology—that is attentive to both the lived dynamics of the body and the distributed, emergent properties of adaptive systems. It challenges us to rethink cognition as a process of enactive sense-making, irreducible to either subjective introspection or disembodied computation.
