Watch the video before you read the post. It's less than a minute long.
Something came up in a book I'm reading, Shopclass as Soulcraft, about currently en vogue models of brain function. The rise of computers has led cognitive scientists to conceive of the brain in terms of computing power, carrying out calculations at a rate of speed that is inferior to modern computers. (Interestingly enough the study of the brain has influenced computer design as well with artificial neural networks that make connections of varying strengths based on repetition of pathway usage similar to the way neurons function.) This modern conception of the brain as computer has some significant gaps I feel, failing to account for the intuitive use of the intellect by experts in their fields.
The video is a case in point. Either Roberto Carlos is a genius, making an incredible amount of calculations to hit a ball with the right amount of force, perfect initial direction, and sufficient spin to make the ball clear the wall and then curve back into the goal or something else is going on. As a former soccer player, I can tell you without a doubt something else is happening. When you go to strike the ball you look at the spot you want to put the ball and then look at the spot that you know you need to hit the ball; if all proceeds as planned you get a sense of having kicked the ball well, not of having carried out complicated computations. The brain and body seem to be intimately connected in this process somehow with practice creating the muscle memory, leg strength and the "knowledge" of how to hit the ball. When we conceive of the brain as simply an impressive, if now somewhat inferior, data processor, we really can't account for what Roberto Carlos is doing when he scores on poor Fabian Barthez (the French goalie in the clip). Man is not however an autonomous conscience that inhabits a body. One of the problems with Descartes separation of the conciousness from the body is that it uses the language of an embodied existence to describe a state in which the senses that supply our language are discarded in his program of radical scepticism. Language is built upon the senses. Even Helen Keller when learning language from her teacher Annie Sullivan thought in tactile terms: "This wetness running through my hand is related to the signs being made into my palm- water." Conciousness, if by nothing else than language, is tied to the body.
This is all to say that I really don't know what is going on with how the brain works in relation to the body in performing tasks that are accomplished intuitively, but I don't think the computational model is adequate.
Looking back at this today I realize I probably wasn't as clear as I might could have been. Chalk it up to writing late at night and really not knowing what I'm talking about I suppose. Instead of revising the post however I decided to just try and clarify things here. The mind/body seems to take cognitive leaps when performing tasks; that's to say, that it does not and cannot make the necessary complications before completing the task- kicking the ball for instance- but still somehow intuitively makes an incredibly accurate approximation of how it is to be done. Computers don't do this. They may be programmed to make approximations based on statistic and the like I suppose (I don't really know much about computers, or how the brain functions for that matter). But it seems the process being carried out by the human is different in kind rather than simply degree.
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