Embodied Cognition

One of the areas I'd like to explore in the AtB-verse setting is the idea that, before the Crash, people were able to "grow" themselves a spare body for recreational or medical reasons. In addition, these bodies could be customized in whatever way the owner wanted.

Not only could you completely change your appearance, these bodies could be hybridized with any transgenic feature you could think of. You could have a centaur body, a winged body, an amphibious body, etc. Just about anything you could think of would be possible.

One aspect I had not thought of until after watching Avatar recently was how swapping bodies would impact the human psyche. Thankfully, John Pavlus recently posted an article that takes a look at the idea of "Embodied Cognition":

...your mind-your "I"-is a function of a cephalized, bipedal, plantigrade, bilaterally symmetrical body between 1.5 and 2 meters tall with two arms terminating in five-fingered hands with opposable thumbs, two lungs, a warm-blooded vascular system, mostly hairless skin, two front-focused eyes, etc. etc. Change any aspects of that physical configuration-in subtle or radical ways-and the mind will inevitably change too.

You can read the whole article on io9.com or an earlier version on his blog.