As may be seen from some of my previous posts, I consider the
concept of embodiment to be a key one in both the understanding
of neural intelligence and cognition, but also in the creation
of artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics. The question
of what embodiment actually means is thus a vital initial step.
This paper, by Sharkey and Ziemke (ref at end of post),
distinguishes two types of embodiment, mechanistic and
phenomenal, which lie at opposite ends of a continuum, and
assess whether either, given current robotic technologies, are
sufficient for creating strong AI (defined by Searle, strong AI
is the claim that "the implemented program, by itself, is
constitutive of having a mind. The implemented program, by
itself, guarantees mental life." - Searle, 1997). • Is the view
that "cognition is embodied in the control architecture of a
sensing and acting machine." This is the entirety of the agent:
there is nothing separable from this mechanism - no internal
representations or symbols (the symbol grou