Prosthetic touch?

Whilst watching Ichi, a 2008 movie about a blind swordswoman, it occurred to me that the relationship between prosthetics and sensation was never explicitly addressed in this text.  In this movie, the protagonist proclaims,

While we do see her learn about the world around her through touches other than that produced by the blade of her katana, rarely are they not filtered through prostheses of various kinds.  This got me thinking about both the relationship between knowledge and sensation/perception, if they can indeed be parsed, as well as the mediation of sensation through other objects.  Aristotle writes of the sense organ of touch as being interior rather than the skin, which is rather the medium through which the sensation is made detectable.  As such, all touch is prosthetic for Aristotle, and he was perhaps the first to arrive at the concept that Derrida referred to as the body’s “originary technicity”.

“It is in the imperceptible space between that which touches and that which is touched that the body can be felt, no matter how closely, to be different from another” (Heller-Roazen 2009: 27).  With regard to the very perceptible spaces of material aids does the body simply extend?

The timing of perception

“Until about 20 years ago, science neglected the field of consciousness, saying it was too subjective for precise scientific examination.” The belief in the subjectiveness of consciousness has aparently been overturned as this article explains…

Now you see it, now you know you see it

What intrigued me about the study was how nicely it went with this weeks readings. For the unnamed author, consciousness is only ever discussed by way of the “conscious mind” (which they localize to the brain). Tracing the discussion of mind by way of Heller-Roazen’s index, it appears that such localization didn’t appear prior to Descartes’ splitting of mind from body. Aristotle, it seems, was not interested in localizing the common sense, or unified faculty of perception, into one part of the body. It was, instead, a point in time (55). If one takes the statement “the reception of the sensation occurs in the present” (52) to mean that it occurs simultaneous with the existence of the sensible thing, then it appears that Aristotle posits perception in a way contrary to the findings of this study. However, it seems that his focus lies more on sensation itself than the causes of sensation, and for this reason, his approach to time differs significantly. Instead of being interested in the prior-to of sensation, Aristotle concerns himself with the perception of it, the ways in which sensations are felt in undivided instants, felt for however long the stimulus is hitting the organ of sense, and continuing to be felt afterward as it haunts the unified faculty of perception (54, 69). Time, however, is a perception itself also felt through the master perceptual faculty (43), and thus, counts among the possible sensations, but is also the sensation through which other sensations are perceived. Time, however, “cannot admit of varieties of itself” (55), and at no time is this more the case than the present, as electronic equipment such as cellphones and computers are all updated to the official time provided by atomic clocks. As our experience of time becomes crisper, the question of delay arises.

Enter the Tel Aviv psychologists. Leibniz echoes throughout their study as they look at how “conscious perception” arises from out of “unconscious perception” (one might substitute apperception and perception here). The length of time it takes to cross into the “conscious mind” they conclude, depends on the “complexity of the stimulus”, though they do not define the parameters by which they measure complexity. Such a framing of what becomes consciously felt seems to suggest that sensations that are too complex could conceivably never be felt by the conscious mind as the length of time it would take to pass this threshold would be too long for the human-mind to register. This, and I recognize that the study is dealing in miliseconds but I nonetheless do not consider this unfeasable, would rework Leibniz’s doctrine of small perceptions into a doctrine of extreme perceptions, entering into the conscious mind from either side of the continuum from thorns to sledgehammers.

in a roundabout way….

What life is is a question predominantly addressed by biologists and philosophers. Increasingly, however, it is one that is being reflected by products being designed to simulate life both for consumers and industries alike. Take, for example, this “emotional robot” designed to replace human contact.

Click on the link below to access the streaming video.  Warning: Creepiness alert!

Functiontide\’s human blob

This particular human-like design does not purport to be a life-form, but posits itself as a life-form replacement. The idea of replacing humans has at its core, a strong belief on the part of the designer that they know, at least in part, what a human is, both in order to create an effective simulation, and to make a claim to what a human needs. Interestingly, this replacement posits “snuggles” as a basic requirement of human biology. As the website notes, it is designed to “provide the owner with an atmosphere of presence”, in ways that an inanimate object supposedly cannot.

Immediately this inserts a subject/object divide into the question of stimuli within a milieu. This brings me to Canguilhem’s reading of Uexkull. He argues that within the behavioral milieu “proper” to humans, it is necessary for the stimulus to be noticed. Perhaps it is these odd squirming motions of the Funktionide that make the shift from unstimulating pillow to stimulating companion-replacement. Canguilhem goes on to note that the act of noticing presupposes an orientation of the human’s interest arguing that “the stimulus does not proceed from the object, but from this interest. It is necessary, in other words, for the stimulus to be effective, that it be anticipated by the subject’s attitude” (2001: 19). Thus, snuggles are not just a biological need, but one that is actively sought presumably through choice. This is one of the favorable circumstances that Uexkull argues exist only in relation to a specific living thing (2001: 20). Should this technology gain popularity, I’m sure Dawkins would consider it one of those unfortunate genetic predictions that, like saccharine and masturbation, were not anticipated (2006: 57). Such an understanding of the milieu could be seen as both affirming and contesting Dawkins characterization of life as revolving around genetic coding that determines a series of behaviors in advance through the process of evolutionary fitness. On the one hand, we could see this as proof positive of a genetically determined requirement of physical touch, that has taken on different meanings due to ineffective predictions. On the other hand, this mechanistic understanding of human behavior precludes adding new technologies that change the way we view what is available to humans. Indeed this technology questions the notion that there is a “proper” behavioral milieu at all, adding credence to Febvre’s argument that “man has no pure physical milieu. Man is obviously subject to a determinism, but it is the determinism of artificial constructions (in Canguilhem 2001: 18).

Renderings²

It is interesting to note that reactions to this video varied widely, with some displaying marked degrees of disgust

To a behavioral ecology argument for replacement humans to give back proper sensory stimuli to societies burdened by sensory overload

To the suggestion that it should be used as a biomedical/social supplement for infants

Jacob writes of the definition of life, “we can conceive the establishment of systems possessing certain properties of life, such as the ability to react to certain stimuli, to assimilate, to breathe or even to grow – but not to reproduce. Can they be called living systems?” (1973: 4,5). The Funktionide does two of the above list (or at least it pretends to): breathing and moving. By including these two qualities in this human-replacement model, designer Stefan Ulrich is making a statement about which qualities of animal life matter. Despite the fixation of biologists on reproduction, this activity is evidently not a prioritized aspect of liveliness for everyone. Perhaps Heller-Roazen will weigh in on this next week.