Modern computing is generally taken to consist primarily of symbol manipulation. But symbols are abstract, and computers are physical. How can a physical device manipulate abstract symbols? Neither Church nor Turing considered this question. My answer is that the bit, as a hardware-implemented abstract data type, serves as a bridge between materiality and abstraction. Computing also relies on three other primitive—but more straightforward—abstractions: Sequentiality, State, and Transition. These physically-implemented abstractions define the borderline between hardware and software and between physicality and (...) abstraction. At a deeper level, asking how a physical device can interact with abstract symbols is the wrong question. The relationship between symbols and physical devices begins with the realization that human beings already know what it means to manipulate symbols. We build and program computers to do what we understand to be symbol manipulation. To understand what that means, consider a light switch. A light switch doesn’t turn a light on or off. Those are abstractions. Light switches don’t operate with abstractions. We build light switches, so that when flipped, the world is changed in such a way that we understand the light to be on or off. Similarly, we build computers to perform operations that we understand as manipulating symbols. (shrink)

Embodied cognition theory posits that concept representations inherently rely on sensorimotor experiences that accompany their acquisitions. This is well established through concrete concepts. However, it is debatable whether representations of abstract concepts are based on sensorimotor representations. This study investigated the causal role of associated motor experiences that accompany concept acquisition in the involvement of the motor system in the abstract verb processing. Through two experiments, we examined the action–sentence compatibility effect, in the test phase after an increase in motor (...) features during the learning phase for abstract verbs with low motor features or novel words with no conceptual features at all. After associated motor experiences were added in the word learning phase, action–sentence compatibility effect was found in the semantic processing tasks during the test phase for abstract verbs and novel words. This was lacking in the word font color judgment task requiring no semantic processing. Coupled with our previous study, these findings suggest that motor features formed during word learning could causally affect embodiment in the motor system for abstract verbs, and reactivation of motor experiences in abstract verb processing depends on a given task’s demands. Our study supports the view that conceptual representations, even abstract concepts, can be grounded in sensorimotor experiences. (shrink)