Sensory Augmentation,
Synthetic Phenomenology and
Interactive Empiricism
Ron Chrisley
Centre for Research in Cognitive Science
Department of Informatics
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Workshop on Key Issues in Sensory Augmentation
University of Sussex
26th-27th March 2009
Overview
1. Sensory Augmentation as Prosthetic
Artificial Consciousness
2. Foundational issues
3. Why it matters (to me)
a) Science: Synthetic phenomenology
b) Philosophy: Interactive empiricism
Part 1
Sensory Augmentation as Prosthetic
Artificial Consciousness
Artificial Consciousness
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The attempt to build artefacts that have, or help
us understand, consciousness
Sometimes referred to as machine consciousness
Epistemological problem: Gap between thirdperson engineering and first-person
consciousness
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How is the approach supposed to work?
How to measure progress?
How can one know if one has succeeded?
Autonomous vs. Prosthetic
Artificial Consciousness (AC)
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Proposal: AC community should stop focussing
exclusively on autonomous AC
Prosthetic AC creates new experiences by
altering or extending the agent-based processes
that enable them
E.g., (Chrisley 2008): “AC might contribute to
our understanding of consciousness as much by
systematically altering or extending it as by
replicating it.”
Sensory Augmentation as
Prosthetic Artificial Consciousness
• Sensory augmentation designers:
You are engaging in Prosthetic
AC!
• So you have a lot to contribute to,
and benefit from, other research
into the nature of consciousness
• A call for collaboration
Part 2
Foundational issues
What is sensory augmentation?
• Prior questions: What is a sense
modality? What is perception?
– Not having an answer can lead to some
problematic views
– E.g. Millikan: Language as a form of direct
perception
– What is wrong with this picture?
– Proposal: Perception requires a particular
relation between conceptual and nonconceptual content
Andy Clark on sensory
modalities
• Qualia-based view is that there is a
principled distinction between sensory
modalities
• We should resist the temptation of this
view, and instead adopt a solely
content-based view of perception
• Thus, distinction between modalities is
only a matter of degree
Sensory modalities:
Rejecting the dichotomy
• Can do justice to the intuition that there
is a principled, qualitative distinction
between sensory modalities
• Without having to embrace the
problematic notion of qualia
• Instead: There are principled, qualitative
distinctions between the contents
delivered by perception
• One idea: imaginative/epistemic
Sensory modalities as contents
closed under imagination
• A set S of contents are in the same
modality if and only if, for all contents c
in S, knowing, for all d in S ≠c, what it
would be like to have experiences with
the contents d, implies knowledge of
what it would be like to have an
experience with content c
• A first pass, so probably not correct
• But an example of what needs to be
Part 3
Why it matters (to me)
a) Sensory augmentation &
science
• In particular, a science of consciousness
• Need non-linguistic ways for scientists to specify
particular conscious experiences (Chrisley 1995)
• That is, need to develop means of specification
that exploit the (non-conceptual contents of) the
scientists’ experiences
Synthetic Phenomenology
• Synthetic phenomenology: using artefacts to to
specify conscious experiences (Chrisley 2009)
• Given enactive nature of experience, artefacts will
have to be enactive (e.g., robots; Chrisley &
Parthemore 2007)
Synthetic Phenomenology and
sensory augmentation
• Problem: the range of experience any
given scientist may have is a subjective
matter, whereas science aims at
objectivity
• Sensory augmentation and substitution
can allow this limitation to be
overcome
b) Sensory augmentation &
philosophy
• Philosophy provides methods for
conceptual analysis and development
• (Focus in this lecture is on the method
of analytic philosophy, or at least what
it is conventionally believed to be)
Analysis is propositional
• Problem solving within the analytic method
is (taken to be) exclusively propositional:
– Assumes a static stock C of basic concepts
– Emphasis on creation of new propositions out
of C
– If new concepts are proposed, these are logical
combinations of concepts in C
The limits of
propositional analysis
• Solving some conceptual problems requires
concepts not in C, nor equal to some logical
combination of concepts in C
• If so, then solution of these problems
requires methods not currently taken to be
part of analytic philosophy
The limits of
propositional analysis
• E.g., the mind/body problem can't be solved with
only our current concepts of mental and physical:
"[We] may hope and ought to try as part of a
scientific theory of mind to form a third
conception that does directly entail both the
mental and the physical, and through which their
actual necessary connection with one another can
therefore become transparent to us. Such a
conception will have to be created; we won’t just
find it lying around." (Nagel 1998)
Extending the analytic method
• This is not to say that the required new
methods are not philosophical
• Since these methods will have the function
of providing the right concepts for resolving
philosophical, conceptual problems, it is
right to see them as philosophical
• Rather, the current view of the method of
analytical philosophy, either as it is, or as it
could be, is incomplete
Beyond concept empiricism:
Interactive Empiricism
• Concept empiricism:
– The acquisition of (some) concepts requires
having (certain kinds of) experience
• Interactive empiricism:
– Concept empiricism, plus:
– The acknowledgement that the required
experiences are typically interactive
– The experiences are not just sets of “input”, but
a dynamic coupling between action and
perception. (cf Held and Hein)
Concept acquisition as
non-propositional activity
• Concepts are skills, and and at least some
skills cannot be acquired propositionally, in
the sense above
• (E.g., Can’t learn to ride a bicycle solely by
reading about it.)
A role for engineering and design
in philosophy
• Cf first two sentences of (Sloman and Chrisley
2003):
• “Replication or even modelling of consciousness in
machines requires some clarifications and refinements of
our concept of consciousness. Design of, construction of,
and interaction with artificial systems can itself assist in
this conceptual development.”
• Had autonomous AC in mind, but can also involve
prosthetic AC: The enactive torch (Froese and Spiers
2007; Chrisley, Froese & Spiers 2008)
Three ways to engineer for
conceptual change
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Design loop: Design and build artefacts that do
X so that the experience of designing itself
produces new concepts of X (et al)
Use loop 1: Design and build artefacts the use of
which produce new experiences of Y, that in turn
prompt new concepts of Y
Use loop 2: Design and build artefacts the use of
which produce new experiences of Y, that in turn
prompt new concepts of experience itself (Z)
The enactive torch and
concepts of perception
• Conceptual problems in the philosophy of
perception
• E.g. "Is perception independent of action?"
• Traditionally: Yes
• Enactive theories of perception: No
• Latter can be hard to grasp, understand, or
motivate
• Experience of using (or designing!) the enactive
torch may assist this conceptual shift
Engineering conceptual change:
Toward an empirical study
• Proposal: Empirically measure the extent to which
experience with a sensory substitution device can
change one’s concepts of perception
• Method: Ask subjects to indicate their degree of
assent to statements about perception and action
before and after use of enactive torch
• Controls: use of normal torch (and reading
philosophy texts about perception?)
• Similar to experimental philosophy, but emphasis
on conceptual change, and engineering
Empirical studies of conceptual
change: New methodology
Problem: How to measure changes in concepts?
Can’t just ask: Linguistically expressible changes in
concepts indicate propositional conceptual change
Instead, observe behaviour with respect to the
domain: changes in reaction time, or degrees of
assent/confidence
References
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Chrisley, R. (2009a, in press). "Interactive empiricism: the philosopher in the machine, in: McCarthy, N. (ed.), Philosophy of
Engineering: Proceedings of a Series of Seminars held at The Royal Academy of Engineering. London: Royal Academy of
Engineering. http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ronc/papers/interactive-empiricism.pdf
Chrisley, R. (2009b, in press) "Synthetic Phenomenology", International Journal of Machine Consciousness 1:1.
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ronc/papers/synthetic-phenomenology-ijmc.pdf
Chrisley, R. (2009c, in preparation) "Synthetic phenomenology". Scholarpedia.
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Synthetic_phenomenology.
Chrisley, R. (2008) "Philosophical foundations of artificial consciousness". Artificial Intelligence In Medicine 44:119-137.
doi:10.1016/j.artmed.2008.07.011; http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ronc/papers/phil-founds-artificial-consciousness.pdf
Chrisley, R. Froese, T., Spiers, A (2008) "Engineering conceptual change: The Enactive Torch" Abstract of talk given November
11th, 2008, at the Royal Academy of Engineering as part of the 2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ronc/e-asterisk/WPE2008-Chrisley.pdf
Chrisley, R. and Parthemore, J. (2007a) "Robotic specification of the non-conceptual content of visual experience". In Proceedings
of the AAAI Fall Symposium on "Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence: Theoretical foundations and current approaches". AAAI
Press. http://www.consciousness.it/CAI/online_papers/Chrisley.pdf
Chrisley, R. and Parthemore, J. (2007b) "Synthetic phenomenology: Exploiting embodiment to specify the non-conceptual content of
visual experience". Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 pp. 44-58.
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ronc/papers/ChrisleyandParthemore-SyntheticPhenomenology.pdf
Chrisley, R. (1995) "Taking Embodiment Seriously: Non-conceptual Content and Robotics," in Ford, K., Glymour, C. and Hayes, P.
(eds.) Android Epistemology. Cambridge: AAAI/MIT Press, pp 141-166. http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ronc/papers/aeembodiment.pdf
Froese, T. & Spiers, A. (2007). “Toward a Phenomenological Pragmatics of Enactive Perception”, in: Proc. of the 4th Int. Conf. on
Enactive Interfaces, Grenoble, France: Association ACROE, pp. 105-108.
Thank You
More information on the enactive torch is available at:
http://enactivetorch.wordpress.com
See also the multimedia files available at: http://easterisk.blogspot.com
Comments welcome:
ronc@sussex.ac.uk