Sensorimotor incorporation: an operational definition

Abstract Sensorimotor incorporation is the most intimate form of environmental dependence; it transforms external objects into an integral part of ourselves, often changing our agency irreversibly. Existing accounts oscillate between excessively strong conceptions, which limit incorporation to body-part-like objects, and weaker views, which equate it with skillful tool use. Building on enactive ideas, we propose an operational definition of incorporation that avoids these extremes by emphasizing two key features: portability, the capacity to use the incorporated object across contexts, and irreversibility, the transformation of agency such that the object becomes central to the agent’s viability. An object is central when its loss renders the agent’s form of life unviable or requires significant adaptive effort to restore viability, in either case affecting her identity. We further argue that only concrete objects—those whose potentialities are actualized through interaction—can be incorporated. Incorporation, thus, forms an integrated agential system that is portable, versatile, and operationally dependent on the incorporated object. While the incorporated object becomes central for a given agent’s form of life, it can still be replaced by another particular object, provided it can be equivalently concretized. This account clarifies the nature and apparent paradoxes of incorporation and its role in shaping sensorimotor agency.