ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore the role of embodiment in British cybernetics, specifically in the works of Grey Walter and Ross Ashby, both of whom have had a distinctive influence on later research in embodied cognition. The chapter will also consider the relationship between Alan Turing and the British cyberneticists, and contrast Turing’s work on computation with the contributions of Walter and Ashby. Contemporary ‘embodied’ approaches to cognitive science are often contrasted with computational approaches, with the latter being seen as emphasizing abstract, ‘disembodied’ theories of mind. At their most extreme, proponents of embodied cognition have rejected computational explanations entirely, as is the case with the enactivist tradition. This chapter will conclude by suggesting that the work of the British cyberneticists, which combined computational principles with embodied models, offers a potential route to resolving some of these tensions between embodied and computational approaches to the mind.
