Mechanology, Mindstorms, and the Genesis of Robots

2018 ◽  
pp. 120-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Chesher
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Educational Robotics ◽  
Learning Mathematics ◽  
Robotics Concepts ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Gilbert Simondon

This chapter examines the emergence of educational robotics, drawing on the philosophy of technology of Gilbert Simondon. In the 1950s, Simondon argued that the dominant understandings of technology are personified in the popular imaginings of the robot. These attitudes are polarised between simple instrumentalism, and dystopian anxiety about technology overcoming humankind. To improve the conceptualisation of technics he took an approach called mechanology, developing a suite of concepts that grasped technology in new ways: technological genesis; the margin of indetermination; lineages of abstract and concrete technologies; and the associated milieu. These concepts are useful in understanding the tradition of educational robotics starting in the 1970s, with Seymour Papert's ‘turtle' robot serving as a resource for learning mathematics. Since the 1980s, LEGO's Mindstorms kits have introduced learners and consumers to robotics concepts. Since the 1990s, theorists of embodied cognition in the 2000s have made use of Mindstorms to draw attention to the limits of symbolic intelligence.

Concretization, Associated Milieus and Aestheticization of Objects in Bio-Art

Leonardo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-193
Author(s):  
Jongcheon Shin ◽  
Joonsung Yoon
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
Biological Objects ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Aesthetic Values ◽  
Gilbert Simondon

This article explores an ensemble of technical objects and biological objects in bio-art and proposes aesthetic values that the ensemble reveals. French philosopher Gilbert Simondon considered technical objects carefully in the 1950s. In his study, he was alert to an assimilation of technical objects to biological objects. In our time, the development of molecular biology and genetic engineering offers evidence that technical objects are closely linked to biological objects. The process of concretizing technical objects and biological objects is latent in works of bio-art, which therefore can realize aesthetic potentials that technical objects and biological objects imply.

scholarly journals Hacking into Cybertherapy: Considering a Gesture-enhanced Therapy with Avatars (g+TA)

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-87
Author(s):  
Alexander Matthias Gerner
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Auditory Stimulation ◽  
Extended Version ◽  
Treatment Resistant ◽  
4E Cognition ◽  
Embodied Rhetorics ◽  
The Voice

Abstract This paper will philosophically extend Julian Leff’s Avatar therapy paradigm (AT) for voice-like hallucinations that was initially proposed for treatment-resistant Schizophrenia patients into the realm of gesture-enhanced embodied cognition and Virtual Reality (VR), entitled g+TA (gesture-enhanced Avatar Therapy). I propose an philosophy of technology approach of embodied rhetorics of triadic kinetic “actions” in the sense of Charles Sanders Peirce that transforms the voice hallucination incorporated by an avatar- and that can confront acousmatic voice-like hallucinations with a method of gesture synchronization and dyssynchronization and gestural refusal of interaction that the player with the Avatar can resist in full embodiment. This paper therefore introduces a gesture-enhanced, extended version of Cybertherapy with Avatars that tackle multimodal bodily experience of voice-like hallucinations beyond mere visual or auditory stimulation. This is put forward theoretically in a 4E-cognition approach that expands Avatar Therapy with gestures into VR.

scholarly journals French Biological Philosophy of Technology as a Candidate Perspective Furthering Design Methodology

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1493-1502
Author(s):  
Sander Mulder
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Artificial Kidney ◽  
Real Case ◽  
Design Team ◽  
Generative Design ◽  
Perspective Drawing ◽  
Human Intention ◽  
Domestic Setting ◽  
Gilbert Simondon

AbstractA first exploration is conducted to what the French biological philosophy of technology perspective has to offer to the field of design methodology. If this French perspective is combined with contemporary speculative pragmatism a generative design methodology emerges offering novelty in what is sensed as important in a design situation. Within this perspective, drawing upon the late French philosopher Gilbert Simondon, technical objects have their own mode of existence and their own trajectory of development apart from human intention.Designers working with such a generative design methodology follow the constitutive value of openness and attune to the regulative value of techno-aesthetic judgments. By way of a 'vignette+', a paradigmatic example from a real case, a more encompassing argument is made towards design situations where a sophisticated machine is 'inserted' into a domestic setting.The example taken is the use of an artificial kidney machine in a domestic setting and the development of a novel machine with a design team. Four aspects were sensed as important in the unfolding design situation and directions for further research are discussed.

On Cosmotechnics

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuk Hui ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Work Culture ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Ontological Turn ◽  
Crisis Of Modernity ◽  
Gilbert Simondon

This article aims to bring forward a critical reflection on a renewed relation between nature and technology in the Anthropocene, by contextualizing the question around the recent debates on the “ontological turn” in Anthropology, which attempts to go beyond the nature and culture dualism analysed as the crisis of modernity. The “politics of ontologies” associated with this movement in anthropology opens up the question of participation of non-humans. This article contrasts this anthropological attempt with the work of the philosopher Gilbert Simondon, who wants to overcome the antagonism between culture and technics. According to Simondon, this antagonism results from the technological rupture of modernity at the end of the eighteenth century. This paper analyses the differences of the oppositions presenting their work: culture vs. nature, culture vs. technics, to show that a dialogue between anthropology of nature (illustrated through the work of Philippe Descola) and philosophy of technology (illustrated through the work of Simondon) will be fruitful to conceptualize a renewed relation between nature and technology. One way to initiate such a conversation as well as to think about the reconciliation between nature and technology, this article tries to show, is to develop the concept of cosmotechnics as the denominator of these two trends of thinking.

Rethinking the 1950s

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Delton
Keyword(s):  
The 1950S

„Embodied Cognition”

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 120-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sian L. Beilock ◽  
Tanja Hohmann
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition

Zusammenfassung. Im Gegensatz zu traditionellen Ansätzen, in denen das Gehirn als abstrakter Informationsprozessor gesehen wurde, gehen aktuelle Theorien davon aus, dass unsere Repräsentationen von Objekten und Ereignissen in einem engen Zusammenhang mit den damit verbundenen Handlungsmöglichkeiten stehen (sog. „embodied cognition”). Unsere Kognitionen, d. h. wie wir Objekte oder auch Ereignisse in der Umwelt repräsentieren, hängen demnach von den eigenen Handlungserfahrungen ab. Das Ziel dieses Übersichtsartikels besteht darin, aktuelle Ergebnisse sowohl aus der verhaltens- als auch der neurowissenschaftlichen Forschung zu dokumentieren. Diese zeigen, dass sensomotorische Erfahrungen die Kognitionen beeinflussen. Bewegungserfahrung spielt deshalb eine zentrale Rolle innerhalb des „embodied cognition Ansatzes”. Aus diesem Grund erscheint es sinnvoll, dass Forscher aus den Bereichen der Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften sowie der Sportpsychologie und Motorikforschung zusammenarbeiten, um die Theorien zu „embodied cognition” weiter voran zu bringen.

On the Individual

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 205-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Magnusson
Keyword(s):  
School Psychologist ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Developmental Research ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time

A description of two cases from my time as a school psychologist in the middle of the 1950s forms the background to the following question: Has anything important happened since then in psychological research to help us to a better understanding of how and why individuals think, feel, act, and react as they do in real life and how they develop over time? The studies serve as a background for some general propositions about the nature of the phenomena that concerns us in developmental research, for a summary description of the developments in psychological research over the last 40 years as I see them, and for some suggestions about future directions.

Exploring the Boundaries of the Number–Temporal Order Association

2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Ganor-Stern
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Numerical Comparison ◽  
Negative Number ◽  
Comparison Task ◽  
Negative Numbers ◽  
The Past

Past research has shown that numbers are associated with order in time such that performance in a numerical comparison task is enhanced when number pairs appear in ascending order, when the larger number follows the smaller one. This was found in the past for the integers 1–9 ( Ben-Meir, Ganor-Stern, & Tzelgov, 2013 ; Müller & Schwarz, 2008 ). In the present study we explored whether the advantage for processing numbers in ascending order exists also for fractions and negative numbers. The results demonstrate this advantage for fraction pairs and for integer-fraction pairs. However, the opposite advantage for descending order was found for negative numbers and for positive-negative number pairs. These findings are interpreted in the context of embodied cognition approaches and current theories on the mental representation of fractions and negative numbers.

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