This paper is a solid and readable introduction to the concepts. The abstract does it more justice than I would:
The emerging viewpoint of embodied cognition holds that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body’s interactions with the world. This position actually houses a number of distinct claims, some of which are more controversial than others. This paper distinguishes and evaluates the following six claims: (1) cognition is situated; (2) cognition is time-pressured; (3) we off-load cognitive work onto the environment; (4) the environment is part of the cognitive system; (5) cognition is for action; (6) offline cognition is body based. Of these, the first three and the fifth appear to be at least partially true, and their usefulness is best evaluated in terms of the range of their applicability. The fourth claim, I argue, is deeply problematic. The sixth claim has received the least attention in the literature on embodied cognition, but it may in fact be the best documented and most powerful of the six claims.
For something more in depth, Andy Clark’s (of Surfing Uncertainty) Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension should be legible and appealing to a LW reader.
Here’s a quick TLDR:
The 4E approach views cognition as Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, and Extended, meaning that cognition is realized through a living system’s body, environment, and ongoing activity within that environment. The 4E view treats these as constitutive, not derivative qualities of cognition. The classical definitions are as follows:
• Embodied: Cognition is shaped by the physical body and sensorimotor experience.
• Embedded: Cognitive processes are inseparable from environmental interactions.
• Enacted: Cognition emerges through a history of structural coupling with the environment.
• Extended: Cognitive processes can extend beyond biological boundaries into tools and the environment.
If you’re curious, here’s a draft of my connection to alignment/subjecthood. If you come from an ML angle, it might be easier to interpret; there is indeed an epistemic move to make to understand the 4E thread.
My response here is aimed at the vibe of your post because you’re sharing a personal struggle, so I kind of “talk past” the contents. I’m sorry for that, but I believe what I’m saying might genuinely help.
You’re running into the bounds of rationalism as a lived perspective. Alienated in a cold, merciless world with only grinding harder and “smarter”, leaning harder into the framework you inhabit as possibilities for moving forward, to realizing your potential, having an impact, etc.
These issues are endemic to any developmental stage: it provides an epistomology that isn’t complete and taken to the limit the gaps are supersalient. But seeing the gaps happens through the only lens available—the developmental stage’s—so they appear irreconcilable. They are irreconcilable from inside that stance.
Particularly relevant, since your post is an articulation of how you feel more than object level concerns, know that liminality always has the flavor you describe. Difficult and seemingly insurmountable challenges that resemble horror when experienced (foundational frames pushed to their limits), a felt sense of being boxed in (perspective has been explored and doesn’t afford new avenues to resolution).
Post-rationalism is a real thing, a stance that can be inhabited as fully as rationalism can, and it resolves your asymptotic rationalist horror. It doesn’t involve negating rationalism or discarding its tools. Like any developmental move, the primitives of the next thing feel repulsive, incoherent, and worthy of condemnation, because a developmental move is roughly a pendulation away from the pillars of the last thing. Discerning signal in the next thing, while experiencing the brutality of seeing only through that natural defensive mechanism, is the challenge of development.
You can grid your teeth and plant your feet harder, but, speaking from experience, the feeling you’re overwhelmed by will never resolve, regardless of what material success you obtain in the world.