An algebraic interpretation of multigraph networks is introduced in relation to conscious experience, brain and body. These multigraphs have the ability to merge by an associative binary operator \(\odot \), accounting for biological composition. We also study a mathematical formulation of splitting layers, resulting in a formal analysis of the transition from conscious to non-conscious activity. From this construction, we recover core structures for conscious experience, dynamical content and causal constraints that conscious interactions may impose. An important result is the (...) prediction of structural topological changes after conscious interactions. These results may inspire further use of formal mathematics to describe and predict new features of conscious experience while aligning well with formal tries to mathematize phenomenology, phenomenological tradition and applications to artificial consciousness. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus has argued recently that the frame problem, discussion of which has fallen out of favour in the AI community, is still a deal breaker for the majority of AI projects, despite the fact that the logical version of it has been solved. (Shanahan 1997, Thielscher 1998). Dreyfus thinks that the frame problem will disappear only once we abandon the Cartesian foundations from which it stems and adopt, instead, a thoroughly Heideggerian model of cognition, in particular one that does (...) not appeal to representations. I argue that Dreyfus is too hasty in his condemnation of all representational views; the argument he provides licenses only a rejection of disembodied models of cognition. In casting his net too broadly, Dreyfus circumscribes the cognitive playing field so closely that one is left wondering how his Heideggerian alternative could ever provide a foundation explanatorily robust enough for a theory of cognition. As a consequence, he dilutes the force of his legitimate conclusion, that disembodied cognitive models will not work, and this conclusion needs to be heard. By disentangling the ideas of embodiment and representation, at least with respect to Dreyfus‘ frame problem argument, the real locus of the general polemic between traditional computational/representational cognitive science and the more recent embodied approaches is revealed. From this, I hope that productive debate will ensue. (shrink)

The development of artificial intelligence necessarily implies the anthropological question of the difference between human and artificial intelligence for two reasons: on the one hand artificial intelligence tends to be conceived on the model of human intelligence, on the other hand, a large part of types of artificial intelligence are designed in order to exhibit at least some features of what is conceived as being human intelligence. In this article I address this anthropological question in two parts. First I bring (...) into review and classify some of the main answers that have been proposed until now to this question. I argue that these variety of answers can be broadly classified in three categories, namely a (1) behaviorist, (2) a representational, and (3) a holistic understanding of human intelligence. In a second moment I propose an alternative way of understanding the difference between human and artificial intelligence, which is not essentialist but contextualist and content-related. Contrary to possible answers that I analyse in the first section, this alternative model does not aim at grasping the essence of human intelligence, which could or could not be reproduced in principle by artificial intelligence. It situates rather the fundamental differences between human and artificial intelligence in the context of human existence and the conceptual content of human intelligence, following the phenomenological description of one of its most fundamental features, namely its life-world. Grounding on this approach, it is possible to argue that human and artificial intelligence could be distinct, even if one could prove that they are eidetically, i.e. by their essence, identical. (shrink)

This study is an exploration of the place of perspectivism in the philosophy of Henri Bergson. His work is compared with that of Thomas Nagel in terms of the mutual concern of these two philosophers to reconcile our increasingly objecti vist and impersonal understanding of reality with the perspectival apprehension of the world that living and conscious beings instantiate. It argues that Bergson's philosophy of time holds the key both to comprehending and to balancing the demands made upon us by (...) these conflicting interests. It is seldom that Bergson's name is thought of in this connection, his concerns more often than not being identified with some thesis about time, movement, or vital forces. One purpose of the present work, therefore, is to contest this interpretive slant, not merely by offering an alternative image of Bergson, but also by critically exploring his employment of perspectivism (both positive and negative). We pursue this goal through the double strategy of both unravelling the inconsistencies in Bergson's· treatment of perspective and separating his own argument from the multitude of myths, opinions, and interpretations, sympathetic and unsympathetic, that have arisen around what is currently understood by "Bergsonism". In retrieving his thought from such philosophical ghettoes as "vitalism," "spiritualism," and "psychologism," we will argue for a Bergsonian perspectivism which ultimately resides in a thesis propounding the primacy of perception. One consequence of this is the demotion of memory's importance within his thought. Not that the orthodox image of Bergsonism that retains the privileged place of memory is wrong. Rather, we argue that there is enough in Bergson's peculiar picture of perception to obviate the need for memory in his philosophy, and, moreover, that it is actually more Bergsonian that memory should be so discharged. (shrink)

The work of Hubert Dreyfus interweaves productively ideas from, among others, Heidegger and Wittgenstein. A central element in Dreyfus' hugely influential interpretation of the former is the proposal that, if we are to—in some sense—'make sense' of intentionality, then we must recognize what Dreyfus calls the 'background'. Though Dreyfus has, over the years, put the notion of the 'background' to a variety of philosophical uses,1 considerations familiar from the literature inspired by Wittgenstein's reflections on rule-following have played an important role (...) in motivating the case for believing that we need to recognize the 'background' and thus also in identifying precisely what it is about the intentional that supposedly needs to be 'made sense of'. Dreyfus argues that what he calls 'representationalism' will land us with an unstoppable 'regress of rules'. In this paper, I first argue that there are actually two different arguments that Dreyfus invokes; I then go on to evaluate quite how, in the light of the problems that those arguments reveal, our position might be thought to be improved by our recognizing the 'background'. Given that various philosophical positions designed to deal with these problems have emerged within the Wittgensteinian literature, an obvious question to ask is whether the position that Dreyfus would have us adopt is essentially one of those positions. If it isn't, then how does it differ? There is surely a variety of ways in which such a comparison might be carried out and what I offer is only one. I argue that if, through a recognition of the 'background', we are thought to have acquired solutions to those problems, then it's not at all clear that the supposed solutions that emerge work. So I explore instead the possibility that that recognition forms part of an attempt to 'dissolve' those problems. In order to bring some clarity to that possibility I consider a number of different ways in which Dreyfus' proposals might be interpreted by drawing on ideas set out by John McDowell (and I suggest that his view of one of the 'regress' arguments is anticipated by Heidegger himself). I then identify and assess some of the consequences of adopting such McDowellian readings. My sense is that Dreyfus is on the side of the angels, so to speak. But if what is right in his proposals is to become clear, and if he is to be spared some obvious objections that those proposals may elicit, we need to be clear about just what kind of contribution those proposals are meant to make. In pursuing that clarity, I am attempting to follow through on the comparison of Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian ideas that Dreyfus and his supporters have initiated: what has yet to be clarified is how and why recognizing the 'background' will allow us to 'cope better' with the puzzles in the rule-following literature that they have cited in making a case for the need to recognize the 'background'. Ultimately, I will argue that assessing this matter may require a yet broader comparison of Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian themes, one which raises questions about what we take 'doing ontology' and 'doing phenomenology' to be. (shrink)