Sensory Augmentation,Synthetic Phenomenology and

Interactive Empiricism

Workshop on Key Issues in Sensory Augmentation

University of Sussex

26th-27th March 2009

Ron ChrisleyCentre for Research in Cognitive Science

Department of InformaticsUniversity of Sussex, Brighton, UK

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 1Sensory Augmentation as Prosthetic

Artificial Consciousness

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?

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.”

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

Part 2Foundational 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 non-conceptual 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 closure

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?

Part 3Why 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 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

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 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 asnon-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

• 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 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

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 methodologyProblem: 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• 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/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.

Thank YouMore 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@sussex.ac.uk