Recent Talk – “Beliefs, Learning and Embodied Experience” at Oxford University

06Nov09

Beliefs, Learning and Embodied Experience

Abstract

Authors: Dr Blay Whitby and Anna Dumitriu

A belief can usually only be considered knowledge if it can be scientifically justified and a false belief can never be considered knowledge. The construction of a belief is a kind of learning process very similar to that of knowledge acquisition but tending to be reliant on the assimilation of values and prejudices within a social group. This is then compounded by our human desire to continually substantiate those prejudices, leading to continuing difficulties in reconciling first-person experience with scientific evidence.

One area where scientific evidence that values, assumptions, and beliefs shape our experience can be found is the investigation of aviation accidents.  Of particular interest here is the so-called ‘false hypothesis accident’ (Hurst and Hurst, 1982). This is characterized by an individual or an entire crew misperceiving a considerable amount of sensory input over a period of time, often hours, because of shared incorrect beliefs. This is a well-researched and very extreme example of confirmation bias, leading to our view that experience is as real or as constructed as Dennett claims beliefs to be (Dennett, 1991).

Contemporary advances in neuroscience offer a way in to understanding these issues, but the complexity of the problem requires a fully transdisciplinary approach. The “Emergence of Consciousness” project draws together rigorous practice-based artistic methodologies and scientific research to attempt to investigate the notion of conscious experience from a philosophical point of view, inspired by perspectives of embodiment (Varela, Thomson and Rosch, 1992) and situatedness (Brooks, 1991) in evolutionary robotics  and neural network learning systems.

An outcome will be a new performance artwork using sensory and movement deprivation (e.g. blindfolds, physical restraints etc) and augmentation to reflect physical developments in the human body (from infancy to old age). It will create an embodied representation of how experience might be constructed, through physical interaction with the environment and other performers, and the emergence of shared beliefs.

By taking on the role of a robotic agent the artist will try to begin to understand her own mind in new ways and by working with a scientist and a philosopher meaningful interactions can develop with the potential to produce innovative outcomes.

References

BROOKS, R. (1991) Intelligence Without Representation. Artificial Intelligence, 139 159

DENNETT, D. (1991) Real Patterns. Journal of Philosophy, LXXXVIII 27-51.

HURST, R. & HURST, L. (1982) Pilot Error, the Human Factors, London, Granada.

VARELA, F., THOMSON, E. & ROSCH, E. (1992) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, MIT Press.

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