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What’s Wrong with the Idea of an Embodied Athlete?
Emily Ryall
University of Gloucestershire, UK
ERyall@glos.ac.uk
Abstract
The idea of an embodied athlete has been a foundational concept upon which much ethical reasoning
regarding the acceptability of technology has relied. This idea that there is a clearly defined,
delineable and discrete, self contained entity that is a person, is further reinforced by what appears to
be phenomenological evidence: “I know where my body begins and ends because I can feel and/or
control it.” This recognition of an embodied self allows a distinction to be made between technology
(as Butryn (2002) describes) that is Self technology and that which is Implement technology. As
suggested, this distinction is not merely descriptive but also ethical, on the grounds that technology
that affects the ‘self’ is fundamentally more disagreeable than technology that affects the game or
sport.
However, this paper questions the tacit assumption that there is such a thing as an embodied self. It
will draw upon evidence from contemporary neuropsychology to dispose of the idea that the self
resides within a fixed, stable and identifiable body. For instance, experiments carried out by
Ramachandran (1998) indicate that a phenomenologically detectable self can be identified (under
particular but simple conditions) within inanimate objects such as tables and chairs.
This has implications upon sport and the way that technology is viewed within sport. First, it indicates
that the tools that an athlete uses can be as much a part of the ‘self’ as is a hand or foot. Second, a
reassessment of the reasoning behind a rejection of particular technology on an account that it
compromises the very being of an athlete is required. It may be that arguments rejecting the use of
particular technology must be refocused away from the conservation of the athlete and his or her
phenomenologically ascribed ‘body’, to the preservation of the brain and neurological systems that
allow the concept of self to exist at all. In this, the distinction given by Butryn and others (between
self and not self) must be tapered to a much greater extent than it has previously been. The outcome
of such a reconceptualisation may mean that the arguments behind the rejection of particular
technologies are subsequently weakened.
This is an attempt to use contemporary psychological and neurological theory to dispose of the
assumption that the self is embodied in a fixed, discrete entity. In doing so, it will refute the
arguments provided by those who argue that there is a qualitative difference between technology
that affects the self (as internal) and technology that is external. This has further implications upon
the use and acceptance of technology from an ethical standpoint. If we can argue that the self as an
embodied athlete is non-existence then perhaps the only thing that we can / should seek to protect is
the brain from which the phenomenological account of the self arises.
Recent arguments have attempted to differentiate between internal and external technology
(Butryn). However, this paper will argue that such a distinction is contrary to evidence provided by
psychological and neuropsychological research which has suggested that the self as a discrete entity
manifested as a human body has no phenomenological grounding. For instance, Rachmanican has
repeated experiments that cause participants to feel as if their self (and body) extends to inanimate
objects such as tables. Such evidence has implications upon decisions made regarding the
acceptability of technology within sport and also highlights the philosophical question that aims to
distinguish between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’. It may explain how users of any technology in
sport, ranging from skateboards to tennis racquets to hockey sticks are able to absorb this technology
into a phenomenological account of the self whereby the surfboard is as much of the body as is the
hand or nose. Such conclusions would arguably call into question policy decisions that are made on
the ground of ethical considerations on prohibiting particular technologies.
Abstract Ends
What’s wrong with the idea of an embodied athlete? Nothing, you might say. We, as humans (and
you might want to extend that to animals also), are all embodied. Our self is contained within a clearly
delineated and concrete body: I begin and end within this skin covered structure. The general
consensus within the Western secular world is that my being – the ‘I’ as it were - does not reside
anywhere else outside my body.
What I want to do in this talk is to reject this whole idea of embodiment as a factual situation and
propose instead that embodiment and the self/not self distinction is an illusion that we maintain as
part of our attempt to make sense of the world and the human condition; that is, it is the result of the
endless confrontation with our own existence.
So what does this have to do with sport and athletes? The implications of accepting such a conclusion
– that embodiment is an illusion - will affect the justification given for the acceptance or not, of
various technology in sport. Sport traditionally aims to uphold the ideal that the natural ability of the
human should be tested and not technological innovations or the achievements of engineers or
scientists. If it can be shown that the distinction between the natural human and the external
environment is much more fluid than is granted, then the arguments resting on such a distinction
break down. This would have profound effect on sport itself as the authorities would have to accept
that decisions as to whether specific technology, objects, or devices are acceptable or not are political
and arbitrary decisions, not based on preserving a universal concept of ‘human’.
Let me give a specific example: no-one would argue that it would be acceptable to compete in the
100m sprint whilst wearing jet-powered roller skates. The use of such apparatus (providing one could
use it) would give an unfair advantage. All that it would demonstrate would be that jet-powered roller
skates are faster than a human without the roller skates. What we really want to test in the 100m
sprint is how fast a human can run ‘naturally’. Now here I could go into a discussion about whether
wearing synthetic body suits or spiked running shoes affect the concept of testing the natural
capabilities of the human but I will leave that discussion for today. The point that I want to make is
that there appears to be a clear delineation between the natural athlete and external technology.
Indeed, this is the very argument that Butryn makes in his paper entitled, ‘Cyborg Horizons: Sport and
the Ethics of Self-Technologization’. Butryn maintains that a clear distinction can be made between
self-modifying technology and the modification of the external environment. Technology such as
blood-doping, genetic modification, and even psychological interventions are the former, whereas the
development of a new tennis racquet or bicycle are the latter. Butryn later goes on to say that such a
delineation, between technology that affects the self (and that includes the body) and external
technology, provides guidance as to making ethical decisions. In other words, the development of
technology that can be considered external to the body can be dealt with via the constitutive but
arbitrary rules of that sport; whereas the development of internally affecting technology, that which
affects the athlete herself is a different kind of issue; it is not political but ethical.
Yet what I wish to argue is that this distinction between external technology and self-affecting
technology is not so straightforward. If it can be shown that the self doesn’t exist in a fixed and clearly
demarcated body, then it can be argued that the acceptability of external technology in sport is as
much or as less of an ethical issue as that which is considered ‘self-affecting’ technology. In this sense,
all technology is self-affecting technology.
One of the most controversial pieces of sporting technology in recent years was the development of
the fastskin swim suit. The suit was developed to specifically enhance performance and reduce times
by altering the surface of the skin – in fact, Speedo claims that the drag produced by the human skin is
29% of the total drag in the water. Needless to say, if the skin could be altered in some way to reduce
this drag, performance would be dramatically enhanced. It is said to improve performance by doing
two things: by compressing they body thus providing greater core stability and firmness during
competition without being restrictive, and improving muscle efficiency through a reduction of excess
muscle vibration or oscillation. It is interesting to note that on the Speedo website, when detailing the
materials used for the suit, they also say, “If only we could somehow genetically engineer these
characteristics into the athletes themselves”.1 (I don’t think that Speedo would really want this to
happen otherwise they it would detrimentally affect their business.) But what this indicates is that the
line between that which is internally affecting technology (i.e. genetic modification) and that which is
external (i.e. the development of the fastswim costume) is very thin indeed.
So let me return to the concept of ‘embodiment’. Embodiment isn’t simply an objectively granted
presence. It is a subjective account and phenomenological experience. It is the boundary where you
are able to encounter yourself.
So I can say that my ability to experience qualia – the raw sense sensations – can be found here in my
hand, and here in my nose, and here in my eyes. But I won’t say that I can experience the same qualia
in that chair. Anything that happens to that chair doesn’t happen to me. You could pick it up, throw it
against the wall and rip it apart, and I won’t feel a thing. Attempt to do the same thing to my fingers
though and the effect would either be a painful squeal, a series of expletives or a black eye
(depending on how big you are). I extend only as far as this self-contained body.
Now there have been some really interesting scientific experiments in the area of embodiment. The
most notable ones have been conducted by Ramachandran.
In 2003, Armel & Ramachandran published a paper entitled ‘Projecting Sensations to External
Objects.’2 The experiment it was based upon involved a human participant sitting in front of a table.
On this table is placed a rubber arm – the type you can get in novelty shops. The participant places
her own arm under the table so she is looking at the fake arm. The researcher then stimulates the
fake hand by a series of random strokes whilst synchronously stroking the participant’s real hand
under the table. The general result is that the participant begins to experience the fake hand as her
own.
One of the explanations attributed for this projection of sense experience onto an external object is
that the brain assimilates two pieces of information – the visual awareness that an object is being
stimulated in a particular way, and the raw-sensation that the body, i.e. the hand, is experiencing this
stimulation. The brain rationalises that such an independent occurrence is unlikely to be a
coincidence, so concludes that they must be part of the same event. And indeed, the less random the
series of strokes and taps, the less intense the experience becomes. It has been suggested, all this
experiment shows is the dominance of our visual perception over incongruent proprioceptive
information. Yet, further evidence suggests that such an illusion cannot simply be put down to the
dominance of our visual perception.
This is supported by a study by Ehrsson, Holmes, and Passingham3 who modified the experiment by
blindfolding the participants. This time, instead of the researcher stimulating the fake hand, the
participants left index finger was used instead. At the same time, the participant’s real hand was
synchronously stimulated. Again, pretty quickly, the participant began to experience the fake hand as
their own. What Ehrsson et al. concluded was that it is activity in broader areas of the brain, notably
the premotor and cerebellar regions, which manifests itself as the experience of body ownership. In
1 Speedo Aqualab on http://www.speedoaqualab.com/site.html [accessed September 15th 2007]
2 Armel, K, C., & Ramachandran, V. S. (2003) ‘Projecting Sensations to External Objects: Evidence
from Skin Conductive Response.’ The Royal Society. 29th January 2003.
3 Ehrsson, H. H., Holmes, N. P. and Passingham, R. E. (2005) ‘Touching a Rubber Hand: Feeling of Body
Ownership Is Associated with Activity in Multisensory Brain Areas’ in The Journal of Neuroscience.
November 9, 2005. 25(45). Pp10564-10573.
other words it is not simply concerned with information processed from visual representations but
the result of a variety of multi-sensory signals.
Yet Ehrsson went beyond this position to claim that there does not even have to be the typical
correlation between multisensory signals. He argued that the rubber hand illusion can be brought
about without touching the hand at all. Sometimes all that was required to elicit the feeling of bodily
ownership was that the participant looked at the fake hand for a while. The question that arises from
this is; to how far can this feeling of bodily ownership be projected? Is the illusion contained to those
things that appear to be a normal body part or could it occur in objects that bear no resemblance to
the human body?
Ramachandran has attempted to answer this question, with some surprising results. When the
experiment was conducted without the fake hand and the stimulation occurred on the table itself, the
participant began to feel that the table was part of their body. This is despite the conscious mind
knowing that it is logically absurd. Ramachandran found that the illusion was so persuasive that when
he accidently made too long a stroke on the table compared with the participant’s real hand, the
participant experienced his hand as being stretched or lengthened to abnormal proportions.
In addition to this, Ramachandran studied the effect of further manipulation to these objects. He
tested the participant’s response to shock, trauma or pain, via galvanic skin response (GSR) and
discovered that when the table was hit aggressively with a hammer, there was an enormous change
in the GSR. Ramachandran said that the participant responded as his own fingers had been hit.
What this indicates is the extent to which the participant has assimilated the object into her own
body schema. That there is a physiological response suggests that it isn’t a superficial self-denial or a
tendency towards participant bias.
Ehrsson and other researchers at UCL have gone further than getting people to believe that inanimate
objects are part of the embodied self and have been able to consistently recreate a feeling of
complete disembodiment. In this experiment, participants were filmed from behind whilst wearing
goggles that displayed the real-time footage. In essence, they saw their body a couple of meters in
front of them. At the same time, the researcher used a brush to stroke their back. The effect was an
out-of-body experience. Furthermore, when the participant was led backwards a meter or so and
then asked to step forward to their original position, the participant would always return to a position
further forward than where they were originally standing: they would return to the position where
they saw their body through the goggles, not the location where they experienced standing.
A feeling of disembodiment doesn’t have to be the result of clever visual trickery. In an account of
what it is like to be in space, the NASA astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman, states that one of the most peculiar
effects of relaxing in an environment without gravity is the feeling of disembodiment. He says, “My
favourite recreational activity in orbit was just to float freely and let every muscle in my body become
totally relaxed, so much so that I often lost the sensation of having any body at all.”4 I’m sure that
some of you have had the experience when you’ve been totally relaxed and you can’t feel your body
or parts of your body.
All of these studies and anecdotes support the notion that the concept of the embodied human is a
myth. We are victims of self-deception.
I’ll quote Ramachandran’s conclusion in full as it is expressed so eruditely:
“For your entire life, you’ve been walking around assuming that your ‘self’ is anchored to a single
body that remains stable and permanent at least until death. Indeed, the ‘loyalty’ of your self to your
own body is so axiomatic that you never even pause to think about it, let alone question it. Yet these
experiments suggest the exact opposite – that your body image, despite all its appearance of
durability, is an entirely transitory internal construct that can be profoundly modified with just a few
4 ‘Confessions of an Astronaut.’ New Scientist magazine, 05 September 2007, page 36-41
simple tricks. It is merely a shell that you’ve temporarily created for successfully passing on your
genes to your offspring.”5
So what does this mean for sport? I’m sure you’re all aware of the case of Oscar Pistorius, the South
African athlete who runs with the use of specially designed prosthetic legs. The International
Association of Athletics Federations is in the process of carrying out research as to whether the use of
such legs contravenes the rule relating to the use of technical aids during ‘able-bodied’ competition.
In particular, the study will be focused on two issues; whether Pistorius’s blades constitute an
advantage through the means of wheels, springs or other such elements over other athletes not using
the blades, and/or whether the appliance positively affects or increases the capability of other aids
beyond the level which is permitted. My understanding of this is: in the first case, the studies will
concentrate on the claim that the blades are in essence, spring-loaded, thus, for example, providing a
longer running stride for the athlete. In the second; whether any element of the appliance affects the
functioning of the prosthetic limb to such an extent that it provides an unfair advantage.
Although the IAAF explicitly states that they are not discriminating against the use of prosthetic limbs,
but rather technical aids, the rule is based on a conception of the capabilities of a typically embodied
athlete. The prosthetic limb is considered to be an extraneous object, something that is not part of
the athlete themselves. One can anticipate the defence to this view: the prosthetic limb is extraneous.
That Pistorius has a variety of lower limbs that he can pick and attach to his body as necessary
depending on what activity he is participating in, is similar to deciding whether to wear sandals, boots
or running spikes. No one would argue that footwear is part of embodiment and therefore Pistorius
blades have to be considered in the same vein.
And yet, some of those developing orthotic and prosthetic appendages are arguing that our attitudes
towards such devices will change. Hugh Herr, a professor at MIT recently wrote that such devices will
be considered ‘intimate extensions of the human body, structurally, neurologically and dynamically’6
In this sense, maintaining that such the use of prosthetic limbs constitute an unfair advantage in sport
will be as absurd as arguing that having a particular physiological or genetic makeup is an unfair
advantage. Each will be as much part of the concept of an embodied athlete.
That the body is able to adapt so quickly to changes in phenomenological perception is not a recent
discovery. Early psychologists experimented with experiments in perception by wearing visual
appliances that inverted their world. For instance, Stratton in 18967 wore such a telescope for eight
days. He adapted to a different phenomenological perspective relatively quickly. After five days he
had to consciously remember that the world was being inverted. Yet, it is with the ongoing
development of technology that is ever increasingly sensitive to our control and manipulation that
will increasingly blur the boundaries between our self and the external environment. Today’s and
tomorrow’s technology can alter all areas of our proprioception not simply our visual perception. In
their studies on the area of telepresence – that is, technology that enables the individual to perceive
themselves in an alternative location than where they are ‘really’ situated - IJsselsteijn et al8 conclude
that “provided reliable and real time intersensory correlations can be established” we will be able to
“effectively integrate the technology as a phenomenal extension of the self.”
This idea of telepresence has been further explored by the Australian born artist, Stelarc, who is best
known for his thesis that the body is obsolete. Many of his installations focus on using technology,
robotics in particular, to provide an alternative vehicle for the self. His installations include ‘The
Extended Arm’ where he added a robotic hand onto his own; the ‘Exoskeleton’ in which he rigged
himself up to a machine with pneumatic spider-like legs. A few years ago he wired his arm up to the
internet so that his movements could be manipulated via cyberspace. Okay, you might want to say –
5 Ramachandran, V.S. & Blakeslee, S. (1998) Phantoms In The Brain. London: Fourth Estate. p61-62
6 Syed, M. ‘Man with the blades aiming to cut through the red tape’ THE TIMES. April 23 2007
7 Stratton, G. M. (1896) ‘Some Preliminary Experiments on Vision’. Psychological Review, 3, 611-17.
8 IJsselsteijn, W. A., de Kort, Y. A. W., & Haans, A. ‘Is This My Hand I See Before Me? The Rubber Hand
Illusion in Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality.’ Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual
Environments. 5, 455-464. DOI 10.1162/pres.15.4.455
but at the end of the day, he can step out of this machine or disconnect the cables and he is still the
same embodied human. Stelarc would disagree; there could feasibly be a day where assimilates his
being into a permanent fusion with such objects and technology. In many of his installations he
deliberately pierces and manipulates the skin in order to show that the self/not self distinction isn’t a
fixed one. And I think you could see that it is feasible for such technology to be a permanent not a
transient state. For Stelarc, the idea that the skin represents a boundary between our self and the rest
of the world is something that he is desperately trying to eliminate. Ultimately, Stelarc’s view
indicates that technological advances will subsume our reservations about the sanctity of the physical
body so subtly that most of us probably won’t even realise it.
What Stelarc’s installations and the neuropsychological experiments by those such as Ramachandran
and Ehrsson do is to urge us to resist this traditional concept of embodiment; in that there is a ‘self’
contained within an organic flesh and blood entity.
It might be worth reiterating Merleau-Ponty’s position on embodiment here. As with other
Existentialists, Merleau-Ponty maintains that we can have no real knowledge of the body except from
the position of subjective conscious experience. Our existence is only through acquaintance with the
world – and I would argue that this means a phenomenological acquaintance. The self extends as far
as our experience with the world and is not contained within a body in the same way that water is
contained within a glass. Therefore, to talk about the world as if we are embodied minds separate to
the external environment makes no sense.
So, let’s bring all this together. What I have attempted to argue is the following:
1. The only experience of the world we have is a phenomenological one
2. The phenomenological experience of an embodied self can be artificially manipulated
3. Therefore, the traditional conception of an embodied self is an illusion
4. Sport is founded upon this traditional conception of the embodied self
5. The use of technology in sport is considered peripheral to testing and measuring the abilities
of the natural, human, embodied athlete
6. If one accepts conclusion (3) then one would have to reject premise (5)
7. This would have implications on the use of technology in sport; in that rules on the use of
technology would have to be political not ones based on ethical or ontological reasons