Action, Embodied Mind, and Life World

Action, Embodied Mind, and Life World combines embodied consciousness research, existential phenomenology, Gendlin's &quote;focusing&quote; concept, and recent self-organizational work on basic emotions (e.g., Panksepp, Frijda), to explore the way patterns of motivated action shape our interpretations of reality-personally, biologically, and within a sociopolitical community. Like a bat projecting sonar, we understand our world by sensing patterns of resistance against our own self-initiated actions. If hammering is the action, we find &quote;nails&quote; and &quote;non-nails.&quote; Actions in turn express a self-organizing process rooted in motivational structures that presuppose values. These patterns of motivation therefore prefigure the shape of what we think or perceive. But the emotions, feelings, &quote;sensings&quote; through which we discern motivation are never just about what they seem, especially given ample incentives to distortion and self-deception. The &quote;trigger&quote; is the tip of an iceberg. This book works toward a coherent method for getting at the basement level of the action trajectories that motivate exploration, selective attention, and thus interpretations of reality-a crucial question in an age of motivated disinformation.