Posture Addiction

It is now common sense that the mind is embodied. Only some geeks so world-disconnected can think that intelligence is a pure, Cartesian entity: like a ’80 jacket, it doesn’t suit you well. Moreover intelligence in the form experienced by human beings as a mind, is generated by an informational extension in the environment and folded recursively in itself. This is massively biological, hence bodily.

For us that means that our postures are cognitive attitudes; conversely every posture is twisted around a narrative support. Why do you need to knee for praying? It’s the perfect tension for your joints and your backbone in order to develop a fierce submission: devotion. Try to knee, squeezing out from your western stiffness some respect for your body, without hedonistic self-indulgence. It is difficult to be in a mental state with the wrong posture. And vice-versa. In the western tradition of metaphysical disembodied intelligence, like the Christian, Cartesian and ’80 Cognitive tradition, it’s easy to detach a mental state from the material carrier. Actually it is normal to think of a carrier. This opens the doors for a 3 penny philosophy: “the mental state is in the carrier”, or “the process of carrying IS the mental state”, “ the message is in the second ring of the postman”.

The fact is postures are shaping the cognitive face of a brain. The problem is that postures are addictive.

When you start to stretch your muscles, to squeeze your joints, to massage your internal organs, you feel good (which is good). The misleading of a disembodied mind is very well known in the field (pubs in down town Singapore are loaded with cognitive pirates). What is less described is that posture aren’t disembodied as well. From their narratives. When you knee, you feel a strong, warm wind of devotion coming to you: your blood circulation is reinforced by a better posture. And so are your beliefs. Submit the pride of yourself, to rise stronger as a devotional warrior. Pray and feel to be on the right side. Believe and knee, and let flow your sense of being superior.

The paradox is that “God” is closer to your knee and spinal cord than to your devotional tools (but remember that an extended mind can easily transfer power from devotional postures to devotional items!), but is absent from narrativity (authoriship is generated by the deployment of narrativity: the remembered beginning comes after it started). So when you feel God in your narratives because of your posture, it’s your posture addiction kicking in. Recreational devotion. You read it here first!