64 research outputs found
Conscious machines: memory, melody and muscular imagination
No full textA great deal of effort has been, and continues to be, devoted to developing consciousness artificially (A small selection of the many authors writing in this area includes: Cotterill (J Conscious Stud 2:290–311, 1995, 1998), Haikonen (2003), Aleksander and Dunmall (J Conscious Stud 10:7–18, 2003), Sloman (2004, 2005), Aleksander (2005), Holland and Knight (2006), and Chella and Manzotti (2007)), and yet a similar amount of effort has gone in to demonstrating the infeasibility of the whole enterprise (Most notably: Dreyfus (1972/1979, 1992, 1998), Searle (1980), Harnad (J Conscious Stud 10:67–75, 2003), and Sternberg (2007), but there are a great many others). My concern in this paper is to steer some navigable channel between the two positions, laying out the necessary pre-conditions for consciousness in an artificial system, and concentrating on what needs to hold for the system to perform as a human being or other phenomenally conscious agent in an intersubjectively-demanding social and moral environment. By adopting a thick notion of embodiment—one that is bound up with the concepts of the lived body and autopoiesis (Maturana and Varela 1980; Varela et al. 2003; and Ziemke 2003, 2007a, J Conscious Stud 14(7):167–179, 2007b)—I will argue that machine phenomenology is only possible within an embodied distributed system that possesses a richly affective musculature and a nervous system such that it can, through action and repetition, develop its tactile-kinaesthetic memory, individual kinaesthetic melodies pertaining to habitual practices, and an anticipatory enactive kinaesthetic imagination. Without these capacities the system would remain unconscious, unaware of itself embodied within a world. Finally, and following on from Damasio’s (1991, 1994, 1999, 2003) claims for the necessity of pre-reflective conscious, emotional, bodily responses for the development of an organism’s core and extended consciousness, I will argue that without these capacities any agent would be incapable of developing the sorts of somatic markers or saliency tags that enable affective reactions, and which are indispensable for effective decision-making and subsequent survival. My position, as presented here, remains agnostic about whether or not the creation of artificial consciousness is an attainable goal
The union of two nervous systems: neurophenomenology, enkinaesthesia, and the Alexander technique
No full textThis paper presents an hypothesis, along with the appropriate theoretical and methodological underpinnings for analyzing the feasibility of the hypothesis as the fulcrum of a potential neurophenomenological project. The hypothesis states that if, in the effective practice of Alexander Technique, there is a union of two nervous systems, it should be visible neurologically and affective phenomenologically, and thus it should be possible to investigate both its neural and phenomenal signatures.
A significant aspect of the originality of this endeavour is that it draws together a range of perspectives within the study of experience, and gives each a non-reductive parity in the ensuing discussion of the correlation and observation of the spatio-temporal dynamics of synchronized neural sets.
The overall aim is to present a method for examining possible correlations of neurodynamic and phenodynamic structures within the structurally-coupled work of Alexander Technique practitioners with their pupils. This paper includes the development of an enkinaesthetic explanatory framework, an overview of the salient aspects of the Alexander Technique, and the presentation of an elicitation interview technique as part of a neurophenomenological method.
This has important ramifications for somatic education and therapies, for establishing frameworks of co-engagement and care in health-care situations, and for understanding empathy
Notions of cultural sociology to explain the scientific and research training comparative analysis [Nociones de la sociolog�a cultural que explican el trabajo cient�fico y la formaci�n de investigadores un an�lisis comparative]
No full textThis article presents an exercise of constrast between the cultural History, the Sociology of knowledge and the epistemic cultures in order to explain the scientific work and the training of researchers; through those aspects of cultural sociology the author analyzes some of the notions of territory, context and media for the learning of academic staff, which allows to interpret the appointed processes and the cognitive-intellectual influences that can be observed in some spaces and times. More than suggesting to choose one of those axes, the paper has as purpose to show its analytical richness, the possibilities of conjugation and distancing about what is the scientific work and how it works, so that they present the approchements and the tensions that exist between them, the differences in the proposed notions, the critic ways they suggest and their similarities and/or proximities of study about the matter of the cultures
Notions of cultural sociology to explain the scientific and research training comparative analysis [Nociones de la sociología cultural que explican el trabajo científico y la formación de investigadores un análisis comparative]
No full textThis article presents an exercise of constrast between the cultural History, the Sociology of knowledge and the epistemic cultures in order to explain the scientific work and the training of researchers; through those aspects of cultural sociology the author analyzes some of the notions of territory, context and media for the learning of academic staff, which allows to interpret the appointed processes and the cognitive-intellectual influences that can be observed in some spaces and times. More than suggesting to choose one of those axes, the paper has as purpose to show its analytical richness, the possibilities of conjugation and distancing about what is the scientific work and how it works, so that they present the approchements and the tensions that exist between them, the differences in the proposed notions, the critic ways they suggest and their similarities and/or proximities of study about the matter of the cultures
The Roots of Morality - a review
No full textThe Roots of Morality completes a trilogy of ‘Roots’ books, the other two being The Roots of Thinking (1990) and The Roots of Power (1994). In The Roots of Thinking Sheets-Johnstone investi- gates the origin of concepts, like our being sound makers and enumer- ators with a punctuated existence, in the living body and as part of the reciprocal relationship between hominid thinking and evolution. Each great insight at this foundational level, she argues, has its roots in the tactile-kinesthetic experience of the agent and not in some abstract, in-the-head, rational non-world-related conceptualisation. In The Roots of Power, subtitled ‘Animate Form and Gendered Bodies’, the author examines corporeal archetypes — for example, staring and averting eye contact — with respect to our phylogenetic heritage, and how they become transformed into cultural archetypes with respect to power and the patriarchal power relations of Western civilization. ‘[I]n corporeal matters of fact lie dimensions of ourselves that are at once both personal and political’ (p.1) whether they be our similarities or the roots of our differences. In The Roots of Morality her concern is with providing a foundationalist ethics grounded, once again, in the nature of human being; ‘Its guiding thesis is that a bona fide ethics rests on bona fide understandings of what it is to be human, and in consequence, on bona fide explorations of human experience, of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic heritages of humans, of the human psy- che, and of elemental facets of human existence.’ (2008, p. 1)
The Roots of Morality - a review
No full textThe Roots of Morality completes a trilogy of ‘Roots’ books, the other two being The Roots of Thinking (1990) and The Roots of Power (1994). In The Roots of Thinking Sheets-Johnstone investi- gates the origin of concepts, like our being sound makers and enumer- ators with a punctuated existence, in the living body and as part of the reciprocal relationship between hominid thinking and evolution. Each great insight at this foundational level, she argues, has its roots in the tactile-kinesthetic experience of the agent and not in some abstract, in-the-head, rational non-world-related conceptualisation. In The Roots of Power, subtitled ‘Animate Form and Gendered Bodies’, the author examines corporeal archetypes — for example, staring and averting eye contact — with respect to our phylogenetic heritage, and how they become transformed into cultural archetypes with respect to power and the patriarchal power relations of Western civilization. ‘[I]n corporeal matters of fact lie dimensions of ourselves that are at once both personal and political’ (p.1) whether they be our similarities or the roots of our differences. In The Roots of Morality her concern is with providing a foundationalist ethics grounded, once again, in the nature of human being; ‘Its guiding thesis is that a bona fide ethics rests on bona fide understandings of what it is to be human, and in consequence, on bona fide explorations of human experience, of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic heritages of humans, of the human psy- che, and of elemental facets of human existence.’ (2008, p. 1)
The development of potential models of advance directives in mental health care
No full textBackground: The review of mental health law in the UK has involved consideration of mechanisms for advance directives in mental health care.
Aims: To develop potential models of advance directives based on the views of stakeholders in mental health services in Scotland.
Methods: Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with service users, professionals and carers who had an interest in advance directives. Leaflets and policy documents from campaign groups and voluntary organisations were collected and along with data generated in interview and group discussion were analysed for themes.
Results: Six potential models were developed that highlighted the overarching themes of co-operation versus autonomy and the legal status of any directive.
Conclusions: There is a wide variety of opinion about what advance directives could or should bring to mental health care, they are not all achievable through the use of any one model
The mindsized mashup mind isn’t supersized after all
No full textI rather like Andy Clark’s book, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, but it certainly hasn’t put my mind at rest. As always Clark’s writing is uncomplicated and energetic, managing to make everything, from the physiology of the moving body, through an analysis of the scaffolding role, he maintains is, played by language, to the strategic use of representation, computation and control by the biological brain, both intelligible and interesting. And I have a great deal of sympathy with his main thesis: that we must consider the whole body, rather than merely the brain, as the locus where sensing and acting are synthesized and through which cognitive systems can engage with their world. But still I find that I have a couple of rather fundamental reservations, alongside a number of ancillary comments that arise from my own puzzlement with some – of what can at first glance seem – disarmingly simple claims
A radical notion of embeddedness a logically necessary precondition for agency and self-awareness
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