To anthropomorphize – is the human ability to experience sentience and agency in another being (or object). It is the ability to sense another “self” in the one she meets. If she loses that ability, she gets disconnected from her own context, her own environment (including anyone being or object within it). Then everyone becomes objects – and the possibility to intersubjectivity (meetings between subjects/individuals) disappears. The ability to have shared experiences disappear. When this happens, you lose your personhood, and you are not able to grant personhood to someone else, regardless of if this being is a human, a horse, a computer.

To be able to anthropomorphize is to have the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It is the ability to understand that they have another perspective, come from somewhere else, share the same world as you do, on a physical level, but lives in another world, their world, their umwelt. No matter if it is a human, a horse (and yes, or a computer).

Regarding the computer, we know and intellectually understand that a computer IS an object, but it does not stop us from many times treating it as if it is an agent, with its own will. We have a relationship with our computer (many of us), we get angry at it, impatient with it, frustrated with it – or happy with it – but for now – I will leave our human relationships with computers outside of this post).

There is a lot of talk about embodiment these days. But what we forget is what I call “emplacement”. Where we live, in what environment we live in. And how that affects us.

We too come from nature - we are nature...

I study Cognitive Science – and one branch of it is called 4E Cognition. It stands for embodied, embedded, extended and enactive. Some also add “ecological”, turning it into 5E Cognition.

A dual process…

In February this year, just before the Corona took over the world – I was in UK. We had given two trainings, but also manged so squeeze in one visit to the Exmoors and one to Wicken Fen, to see horses who live more or less in a semi-feral way.

We went to Wicken Fen the last day before I returned to Sweden. I have waited to write much about that visit, because I did not know how to. Now I have been sitting with the dual processes that took place (or there were more than two – but these two signifies the main themes of my visit there).

The Imitation Game is a Perception Game…

(And bear with me... this is about horses - and horse-human interaction, too.... I am stumbleing around about in this post - the text is not crystal clear - yet - I wanted to share it - something is forming in me, about the importance of embodiment, the shared nature of perception, how we form our beliefs as humans - how horses can help us see this - by being them.)

The imitation I talk about here has nothing to do with copying or imitating for its own sake. Imitation is an important way to, and of learning. You find imitation (of various kind; mimicking, mirroring, emulation, “true” imitation, teaching, schooling/herd/group behavior) in social learning, in language learning, in so called situated learning – as e.g. in apprenticeship models, etc. Imitation is also an important tool when to getting to know someone (as in the chameleon effect – which is about creating/ “achieving” liking each other – and in creating a common ground of understanding and communicating with each other – creating social contracts). Imitation is so much more than copying – and play a big role in all mammals’ development and growth into adults, but also in adult life. It is a corner stone of how we interact with each other, albeit often imitation is not conscious, it can be looked at, made conscious, and experimented with.