Sensory Augmentation, Synthetic Phenomenology and Interactive Empiricism

1
Sensory Augmentation,Synthetic Phenomenology
andInteractive 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

2
Overview

• Sensory Augmentation as Prosthetic Artificial
  Consciousness
• Foundational issues
• Why it matters (to me)
• Science Synthetic phenomenology
• Philosophy Interactive empiricism

3
Part 1

• Sensory Augmentation as Prosthetic Artificial
  Consciousness

4
Artificial Consciousness

• The attempt to build artefacts that have, or help
  us understand, consciousness
• Sometimes referred to as machine consciousness
• Epistemological problem Gap between
  third-person engineering and first-person
  consciousness
• How is the approach supposed to work?
• How to measure progress?
• How can one know if one has succeeded?

5
Autonomous vs. ProstheticArtificial
Consciousness (AC)

• 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.

6
Sensory Augmentation asProsthetic 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

7
Part 2

• Foundational issues

8
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 non-conceptual
  content

9
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

10
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 closure

11
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 done
• Why?

12
Part 3

• Why it matters (to me)

13
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

14
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)

15
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

16
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)

17
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

18
The limits ofpropositional 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

19
The limits ofpropositional 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 wont just
  find it lying around." (Nagel 1998)

20
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

21
Beyond concept empiricismInteractive 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)

22
Concept acquisition asnon-propositional activity

• Concepts are skills, and and at least some skills
  cannot be acquired propositionally, in the sense
  above
• (E.g., Cant learn to ride a bicycle solely by
  reading about it.)

23
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)

24
Three ways to engineer for conceptual change

• 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)

25
The enactive torch andconcepts 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

26
Engineering conceptual changeToward an
empirical study

• Proposal Empirically measure the extent to which
  experience with a sensory substitution device can
  change ones 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

27
Empirical studies of conceptual change New
methodology

• Problem How to measure changes in concepts?
• Cant 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

28
References

• 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 11. http//www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/user
  s/ronc/papers/synthetic-phenomenology-ijmc.pdf
• Chrisley, R. (2009c, in preparation) "Synthetic
  phenomenology". Scholarpedia. http//www.scholarpe
  dia.org/article/Synthetic_phenomenology.
• Chrisley, R. (2008) "Philosophical foundations of
  artificial consciousness". Artificial
  Intelligence In Medicine 44119-137.
  doi10.1016/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/p
  apers/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/pap
  ers/ae-embodiment.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.

29
Thank You

• More information on the enactive torch is
  available at http//enactivetorch.wordpress.com
• See also the multimedia files available at
  http//e-asterisk.blogspot.com
• Comments welcome
• ronc_at_sussex.ac.uk