Monday, January 24, 2011

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Around Simulation II - Simulating Empathy and Subjective Experience

The Artifact turned to be Responsive. the passive Marcel Duchamp's
readymade "La Fontaine" evolved to La iFontaine, -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc6xjKQ0mkI
an interactive ready made with awareness and empathy to users and other
linked objects. Symbiosis of Artifact and Art consumer in cybernetic
holistic rhizome.
The surfer (art consumer) implementing digital gadgets is witnessing Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin's "noosphere", the "sphere of human thought" as it
grows towards a greater integration and unification, culminating in the
'Omega Point'- the maximum level of complexity and consciousness to which
the universe seems to be evolving.
Avi.

-----Original Message-----
From: yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr
[mailto:yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr] On Behalf Of Jennifer
Kanary Nikolov(a)
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 7:44 PM
To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Around Simulation II - Simulating Empathy
and Subjective Experience

Dear All,

In the meantime, I apologise if my own posts have actually contributed to
the rise to confusion :) Here is a post about the simulation of subjective
experience. Its in addition to my previous posts.

Like I stated before, I'm interested in the Simulation of Empathy, well
known in humans, but considered impossible in computers (for AI purposes).
Empathy being the mental simulation of the experience of the other. When we
know how our own empathy systems work, and what role our own senses play in
this, we might learn more about how this could be evoked in digital systems,
AI and Robotics. This is strongly related to the theory of mirror neurons
(it is also where we left off at the last discussion with Derrick De
Kerckhoves contribution). I am interested in how artists knowledge about how
to evoke subjective experiences in humans could contribute to our
understanding as to how to evoke such experiences in AI systems and
robotics. I'm interested in the role art experiences play in evoking
empathy, how it jiggles our neurons and is there a form of programmability
to this?


For one to experience empathy, to have a sense as to what the other is
feeling, one must have an idea or awareness that there is an other and one
must have an inner archive of subjective experiences and believe that the
other feels. I use the word subjective experience to separate the subjective
aspect of a sensation, a signal of the sense organ, and its emotional
affect. I experience a signal, I experience the signal as pain, I experience
fear. A digital system can sense the signal, but as far as we know, does not
have a sensation about this signal, not does it compare it to our signals.

Some believe that it is impossible for AI to feel, subjective experience is
ambiguous and ambiguity causes error in a computers calculations. Some
believe that subjective experience comes from a heart and soul, and that
computers do not have a soul and thus can never experience subjectivity. As
an artist interested in scientific speculations I wonder how to change our
perspective in this thinking. This changes dramatically when scientific
speculations rise like The Universe is a Quantum Computer. In such a world
Simulation is Life. We are Avatars creating Avatars. We are Worlds creating
Worlds. The Simulated Simulate in an ongoing cycle of many layers. It gives
a whole new meaning to concepts of God as a Creator, God residing in All of
us, God made man in his own image. It is a very cybernetic approach, that
everything is computed.

For me Simulation is Computation, be it by my brain, by a digital or
analogue or quantum computer. I'm interested in how technology and art are
used as a tools of empathy. I am interested in how subjective experience is
generated by all technologies. I'm interested in how qbits might solve the
issue of ambiguation causing error in computations of classical computers.

Our senses play a big role in how we empathise. We sense muscles tensions
in the faces of others, we learn to 'read' such faces and make conclusions
about how the other is feeling, we compare it to how we feel when our
muscles are like that. In our current society we do not take several of our
senses seriously. We need to focus on how our all our senses can be
simulated with digital computers and how the data, the incoming signals of
sensors interfere and affect interpretation.


How our senses dance a dance of signals that triggers our neurons. If we
know how it is evoked in brains with the use of technology, we will learn
more about how to evoke it in computers. In particular from the view that we
are all jiggling atoms ;) How to make my Avatar/Robot feel? How to put the
Gaia in the world of my Avatar/Robot?


Jennifer
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