Clowes R. W. & Chrisley R. (2012) Virtualist representation. International Journal of Machine Consciousness 4(2): 503–522. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/5069
This paper seeks to identify, clarify, and perhaps rehabilitate the virtual reality metaphor as applied to the goal of understanding consciousness. Some proponents of the metaphor apply it in a way that implies a representational view of experience of a particular, extreme form that is indirect, internal and inactive (what we call “presentational virtualism”). In opposition to this is an application of the metaphor that eschews representation, instead preferring to view experience as direct, external and enactive (“enactive virtualism”). This paper seeks to examine some of the strengths and weaknesses of these virtuality-based positions in order to assist the development of a related, but independent view of experience: virtualist representationalism. Like presentational virtualism, this third view is representational, but like enactive virtualism, it places action centre stage, and does not require, in accounting for the richness of visual experience, global representational “snapshots” corresponding to the entire visual field to be tokened at any one time.
De Loor P., Manac’h K. & Tisseau J. (2009) Enaction-based artificial intelligence: Toward co-evolution with humans in the loop. Minds & Machines 19(3): 319–343. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/4547
This article deals with the links between the enaction paradigm and artificial intelligence. Enaction is considered a metaphor for artificial intelligence, as a number of the notions which it deals with are deemed incompatible with the phenomenal field of the virtual. After explaining this stance, we shall review previous works regarding this issue in terms of artificial life and robotics. We shall focus on the lack of recognition of co-evolution at the heart of these approaches. We propose to explicitly integrate the evolution of the environment into our approach in order to refine the ontogenesis of the artificial system, and to compare it with the enaction paradigm. The growing complexity of the ontogenetic mechanisms to be activated can therefore be compensated by an interactive guidance system emanating from the environment. This proposition does not however, resolve that of the relevance of the meaning created by the machine (sense-making) Such reflections lead us to integrate human interaction into this environment in order to construct relevant meaning in terms of participative artificial intelligence. This raises a number of questions with regards to setting up an enactive interaction. The article concludes by exploring a number of issues, thereby enabling us to associate current approaches with the principles of morphogenesis, guidance, the phenomenology of interactions and the use of minimal enactive interfaces in setting up experiments which will deal with the problem of artificial intelligence in a variety of enaction-based ways.
Gaugusch A. (2001) (Re)constructing (virtual) reality. In: Riegler A., Peschl M., Edlinger K., Fleck G. & Feigl W. (eds.) Virtual reality: Cognitive foundations, technological issues & philosophical implications\>Virtual reality: Cognitive foundations, technological issues & philosophical implications. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main: 221–230. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/4253
One of the central questions of present-day philosophy concerns the link between “language” and “world.” The aim of this essay is to question this link and its assumptions and to develop a non-dualistic view within the context of “virtual reality.” The utility of such a non-dualism is demonstrated in an interdisciplinary discourse in the context of the epistemology of radical constructivism, in the context of current reflection on “consciousness,” and in the context of the neuroscientific and philosophical question of how it is possible that the on/off-principle of neurones conveys “consciousness of something.”
Kauffman L. H. (1999) Virtual logic – The Matrix. Cybernetics & Human Knowing 6(3): 65–69. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/3135
This is column number nine in the series. We take as our theme the recent movie “The Matrix.” The Matrix is a cinematic exercise in virtual reality and virtual logic. It is not necessary to have seen the film to read this essay. The Matrix is all around you. It is in the air you breathe, in the ground you walk on, in the sights you see and in the feelings that you feel. You yourself are composed of it just as much as it is composed of you. You imagine yourself to be an observer independent of the Matrix, but the very possibility of your observation, your sense of Self and World is produced by the Matrix.
Kenny V. (2009) “There’s Nothing Like the Real Thing”. Revisiting the Need for a Third-Order Cybernetics. Constructivist Foundations 4(2): 100–111. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/130
Purpose: To argue for the need to generate a third-order cybernetics to deal with the problematics of second-order cybernetics. Problem: The recent exponential increase in the use of the internet and other “media” to influence and shape dominant cultural experiences via “virtual reality” exploits a core facility of human psychology - that of being able to accept “substitutions” for the “Real Thing.” In this paper, I want to raise some basic questions and dilemmas for our living in the space of a third-order contextualisation that uses “virtuality” in an ever-increasing manner for the configuring and homogenisation of human experiences. In doing so, I also raise the question of the need for us to develop an adequate model of a “third-order cybernetics” for dealing with the ways in which human experience is contextualised and configured by phenomena that constitute the third-order system. Solution: Ernst von Glasersfeld’s work makes it clear that psychologists and others enter into a great deal of confusion when they use terms like “self,” “consciousness,” “emotions,” “memory,” “the environment,” and even “experience,” because, as he points out, there is no convincing model for any of these commonly taken-for-granted phenomena of human living. His writings are taken as a unique source for the generation of an effective third-order cybernetics where the need for constant self-critical monitoring in regard to psychological praxis and third-order phenomena may take place. “Self-critical monitoring” means, in the first place, monitoring in a critical manner our tendencies to take for granted the notion of “self.” One of the main problematics to deal with in second-order cybernetics is the way that “subjectivity” is taken for granted. Benefits: The temptation to collapse back down from a second-order cybernetics to first-order cybernetics will be resolved by creating an effective platform for third-order cybernetics that problematises the issue of “subjectivity” of the observer in the second-order cybernetics framework. This involves putting into question many of the common assumptions held about “who” it is that makes the observations at the second-order cybernetics. In other words, I attempt to highlight what is problematic regarding the observer’s subjectivity and how this analysis of what is taken for granted by the second-order cybernetics framework creates the basis of a framework for a third-order cybernetics.
Maturana H. R. (2008) The Biological Foundations of Virtual Realities and Their Implications for Human Existence. Constructivist Foundations 3(2): 109–114. Fulltext at https://cepa.info/84
Purpose: To consider the implications of the operation of the nervous system – and of the constitution of cultures as closed networks of languaging and emotioning – for how we understand and generate so-called “virtual realities.” Findings: The nervous system is a detector of configurations within itself and thus cannot represent reality. The distinction between virtual and non-virtual realities does not apply to the operation of the nervous system; rather it pertains to the operation of the observer as a languaging being. Our human existence has changed as virtual realities have become non-virtual through their systemic cultural inclusion in the realization of our biological human manner of living. Implications: Virtual realities are never trivial, because we always become transformed as we live them according to the emotioning of the psychic space that they bring about in our living, and this is so regardless of whether we like it or not.
Excerpt: Is Josef Mitterer’s non-dualizing philosophy yet another philosophical flavor, of which there are so many in the academic world? Yet another philosophical trinket that arouses the short-lived attention of some people and disappears quickly thereafter? Yet another dalliance without implications either for philosophy or for science? We are convinced of the contrary. For many years Mitterer has steadily built up a reputation as an innovative but at the same time also very careful thinker. His claims have been discussed in various circles, but, unfortunately, this has so far happened in German- and Polish-speaking countries only. Meanwhile “take your time” has taken time and Mitterer celebrated his 60th birthday in July 2008, an opportunity we used to gather connoisseurs of his work to discuss, for the first time in the English language, his achievements and impact. The result is in no relation to the limited spread of his ideas so far. We have collected some 22 contributions covering a large variety of intellectual terrain and pointing out the potential impact of his philosophy from now on.