In Dialogue With the World: Merleau-Ponty, Rodney Brooks and Embodied Artificial Intelligence

Author: Zebrowski, Robin

Source: Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 17, Numbers 7-8, 2010 , pp. 156-172(17)

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Abstract:

In this paper, I will be arguing that the most recent incarnation of AI research -- that of embodied robotics and situated cognition -- demonstrates a strict and remarkable parallel with the work of mid-century French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and that through this parallel we see demonstration and confirmation of ideas about minds, bodies, and what Merleau-Ponty often called a 'dialogue with the world'. Seeing these theories confirmed in AI research will ultimately provide us with evidence that suggests our traditional understanding of minds as these isolated entities shuffling symbolic representations around in the absence of interaction (with either world or other minds) is simply absurd, and in fact dialogue itself comes first -- dialogue with others and dialogue with the world itself.

Keywords: Embodiment; Robotics; Artificial Intelligence; Phenomenology; Intersubjectivity

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science, 700 College Street, Beloit College, Beloit, WI 53511, USA, Email: zebrowsr@beloit.edu

Publication date: 2010-01-01