Embodied-Cognition

This is not about dance. This is a field note on evaluating non-verbal, pre-linguistic social understanding in AI systems. Why the dance floor can function as an evaluation surface for AI understanding 1｜Dance is rhythmic negotiation, not instruction-following In a dance floor setting, interaction is not driven by explicit commands. Coordination emerges through shared rhythm, timing, and fluctuating tension. This interaction mode reflects a class of problems future AGI systems must handle: non-verbal, non-logical, rhythm-driven coordination under uncertainty. ...

In environments where actions carry immediate physical consequences, decision-making operates under conditions that differ fundamentally from abstract reasoning. There is no separation between intention and execution. A decision is enacted the moment it is formed, and feedback arrives without mediation or delay. However, not all physical decision environments share the same structure. Different combat systems cultivate distinct modes of decision-making. For example, striking-based systems such as Muay Thai emphasize range control, accumulated damage, and durability under sustained pressure. Decision-making unfolds through continuous exchange, where timing errors compound gradually and resilience becomes a strategic variable. ...

My engagement with dance did not precede my work in computer science. It came after years of thinking in terms of formal systems, execution models, and computational control. This ordering matters. Social dance — particularly partner dance with explicit leading and following — exposed the limits of output-driven, predictive coordination in a way that abstract agent models could not. In social dance, stable coordination does not emerge from faster inference or earlier decision-making. It emerges from maintaining a shared temporal envelope — a co-semantic session — where neither party collapses the interaction into unilateral control. ...