Traditionally, materialism reduces embodiment to static physical characteristics. Such an ontology is “dead” insofar as no reference to the life of a body is required to comprehend it. By contrast, I argue that we need to embrace a living materialism. To be embodied is to have a life. On this view, the claim that the gods and we are embodied is not a metaphysical claim about the ontology of the mind and body but rather a claim about the kind of life we lead.

R. Dennis Potter