epistemology

• Index
• What Is It Like to Be Artificial General Intelligence?
• Phenomenology of Machine Perception
• The Architecture of a Mind

Phenomeology of Machine Perception

Sensation in AGI

Language co-constitutes our embodied being-in-the-world. Similarly, one could argue that AGI’s particular linguistic form, whether that’s the coding languages used in its programming or any natural language processing capabilities it possesses, would shape its “subjectivity”, if it ever emerges. Machine intelligence might necessarily be influenced by its linguistic form in ways analogous to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s view that perception is inseparable from the body’s engagement with the world. Any intelligence, whether human or artificial, is inherently tied to its embodied existence it operates in - a purely abstract or “general” intelligence divorced from such particularities seems questionable given the complexities of defining sensation. Merleau-Ponty takes the phenomenological approach in Phenomenology of Perception to investigate the body and the world’s interconnectedness. The sensory apparatus isn’t a message conductor but is but is already situated in relations, even at the periphery, challenging the constancy hypothesis, which posits a point-by-point correspondence and constant connection between stimuli and perceptions by showing the perceptual field’s importance in shaping our experiences. The argument that the apprehension of a quality like size, is bound up with a whole perceptual background further supports the view of perception as an integrated process rather than simple external stimuli transmission, questioning sensation’s physiological definition. It’s a late product of thought directed towards objects and the last element in the world’s construction by positive science. This perspective contrasts with the phenomenological approach which redefines perception by going back to the experiences to which terms like feeling, seeing, and hearing refer than science’s construction of a semblance of subjectivity and introduction of sensations as things, where experience shows meaningful patterns inherent to the human organism’s objectification and perception’s reduction to a physical system undergoing stimuli. The objective science’s investigations construct only a semblance of subjectivity, introducing sensations as objects, and forcing the phenomenal universe into categories that make sense only within the scientific framework. The perceived admits ambiguity according to the context-dependent perception. The examples provided, like the Müller-Lyer’s illusion where a line becomes ‘different’ rather than ‘unequal,’ show perception’s multiple meanings, which the traditional sensation theory, purged of ambiguity, fails to capture. Images projected by instinct or dreams, and the difficulty of separating true, present, and explicit perception from phantasms highlights the genuine perception’s gradual differentiation from other projected experience forms.

Spatiality and Touch in Embodied AGI

How might AGI engage with space if it were to possess embodiment? How might it perform action analogously to human touching? Merleau-Ponty’s patient fluidly executes concrete movements, even in response to orders. This reveals bodily space and intentional action’s unity.