I'm not sure that I understand your statement that a dualistic point
of view leads to seeing ourselves as machines. I am artist in
residence at one of the worlds largest artificial life research
centres (the CCNR at Sussex). The work there is founded on
embodiment, interactionism and connectionism yet most of my colleagues
(and I) would see ourselves as machines. Very sophisticated machines
with aspects that may not be deducible/reducible but machines
nevertheless. Surely the only alternative is to invoke some agency
like creationism or 'intelligent design' which I for one (and I
suspect most of my colleagues) would certainly reject as superstition.
Paul
On 4 Dec 2008, at 17:25, Kristina Höök wrote:
> In fact, in our work, we try to implement what we name an
> interactional approach to emotion in human-machine interaction. An
> interactional approach to design:
>
> 1. Recognizes affect as an embodied social, bodily and cultural
> product
> 2. Relies on and supports interpretive flexibility
> 3. Is non-reductionist
> 4. Supports an expanded range of communication acts
> 5. Focuses on people using systems to experience and understand
> emotions
> 6. Designs systems that stimulate reflection on and awareness of
> affect
>
> (see academic papers on this by Höök et al.,2008 or Boehner et al.
> 2005).
>
> That is we are not tring to make machines that interpret, but to
> reflect data back to users so that they can make their own stories
> or dreams about themselves. And we are not only showing biodata but
> also other kinds of data, putting together for a collage of scraps
> and bits of your life - but as a user you have to create the story
> that joins all those parts. It is not the system that does this.
>
> But my question was perhaps more to do with how our culture has
> enforced a dualistic point of view for centuries and how this has,
> perhaps, been internalised with our own understanding of our selves
> so strongly that anything the "measures" some aspect of your body is
> something that we will immideately use to look at our bodies as
> objects or machines? Is it possible to design something that bridges
> that gap and makes people see themselves a wholes?
>
> Kia
>
>>
>
>> This seems to me to be an important question, but once again should
>> we not first be asking whether it is possible to map this data so
>> that it represents emotion? It strikes me that we often take time
>> to work out the emotions that we are experiencing ourselves, why is
>> it that a series of data streams looking at things such as heart
>> rate and galvanic skin response should reveal these things more
>> quickly? I don't know if there was ever a robotic psychoanalyst in
>> a Woody Allen movie but this seems to me what is being suggested
>> here. Emotions alter qualitatively and wrap themselves around
>> things and each other, emotion can colour a day and make me view
>> the world differently. There also seems to be an assumption of a
>> teleological trajectory here, emotion affects bio function, which
>> can be mapped via its data. I have days when things such as my
>> health affects my mood, here we might claim emotion 'maps'
>> physiology....
>>
>
> Kristina Höök
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Professor at Stockholm University
> Lab manager at SICS
> Leads Mobile Life center: www.mobile-life.org
====
Paul Brown - based in the UK Aug-Dec 2008
mailto:[log in to unmask] == http://www.paul-brown.com
UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
Skype paul-g-brown
====
Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====
====
Paul Brown - based in the UK Aug-Dec 2008
mailto:[log in to unmask] == http://www.paul-brown.com
UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
Skype paul-g-brown
====
Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====
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