COGNITIVE REVOLUTION, VIRTUALITY AND GOOD LIFE
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
School of Innovation, Design and Engineering
Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden
Abstract
We are living in an era in which the focus is shifting from performing and physical to controlling and cognitive/informational. This emerging increasingly informational world is our new ecology, an infosphere that presents the grounds for a cognitive revolution based on interactionsin networks of biological and artificial intelligent agents. After industrial revolution which extended human body with the mechanical machinery, cognitive revolution extends human mind with the information processing machinery. Those novel circumstances come with new qualities and preferences which demand new conceptualizations. We have a work ahead on establishing value systems and practices extended from the real to the virtual or info-computational.
This paper first presents current view of the virtual versusthe real and then offers an interpretation framework based on info-computational understanding of cognition in which the agency implies computational processing of informational structures of the world as an infosphere. The notion of good life is discussed in the light of different ideals of well-being in the infosphere, connecting virtuality as a space of potential and alternative worlds for an agent for whom the reality is a space of actual experiences. The conclusion is that by building around an elaborate info-computational infrastructure as a cocoon may isolate us from the reality of immediate experiences of the world. The biggest challenges of cognitive revolution might not be technological, but ethical, they are about the nature of being human and its values.
Introduction
It is a common place that ICT is revolutionarily changing our lives on a global scale and in number of dimensions. As (Floridi, 2007) rightly proclaims:
“... in information societies, the threshold between online and offline will soon disappear, and that once there is no difference, we shall become not cyborgs but rather inforgs, that is, connected informational organisms.”
This revolution is at least as radical as the industrial revolution, and its far-reaching consequences we can still only speculate about. The basic reason is the “phase transition” from slow and predominantly localcontacts and information processing to practically instantaneous communication on the global scale, supported by unprecedented capacities of massive information processing – computation and storage. Single human’s cognitive capacities are extended bylargenetworks of humans and machines. Those networks include among others research (CERN was the birth-place of the World Wide Web), education, commerce, business, government (e-government, still local), and virtual(often global) teams in business, communications and entertainment (an industry of worldwide proportions engagingvast resources). Present-day networks of users and computing machinery both in social networking services (Facebook, Twitter, Google+), virtual worlds (Second Life, World of Warcraft, virtual education environments, e-commerce, medical) are obviously just a beginning in the development ofcomputational networks and environments supporting globally extended cognition. The next step isanenvisaged internet of things connectingvirtual and real objects,whichwill be an epoch-making change in human relationships with the world, both in terms of extended cognition and enhanced decision-making and impact capabilities. Up to now we have witnessed only the verybeginning of cognitive revolution.
In this context understanding of cognition is central as very much of information-processing technology provides inputs to human cognition,and old understanding of human as a dual system consisting of physical body and a non-physicalmind does not suffice. The dichotomy between body and mind is echoed in the dichotomy between nature and culture which according to (Latour,1993) is a fundamental maxim of modernity which he rightly questions in his actor theory. Latour describes the endlessly ongoing concurrent processof shaping and being shaped betweennatureand humans(culture, technology) in complex interacting networks, where each element is an actor.
This paper presentsa contemporary view of virtual worlds and offers an interpretation framework based on info-computational understanding of cognition in which the world, real as well as virtual is a source of information for an agent. Agency implies information processing. Through interactions – both with the environment (including other agents) and by interactive information processing within agents cognitive apparatus, information is structured, and the relationships between different informational structures established.
The info-computational approach goes a step further from Latour’s hybridization. Not only nature and culture shape each other, producing hybrids, but there are concurrent ongoing “virtual” processes on many levels of organization of the reality which interact with physical processes and which shape each other in feedback loops going from space-time-matter-energy to elementary particles up. Thus unlike Laturian hybrid is not a top-down view of the world – it is bottom-up.
It starts from the elementary observations of the world as a complex multi-layered network of physical phenomena constituting more and more complex phenomena – from elementary constituents of space-time-matter-energy to elementary particles, atoms, molecules, liquids, crystals, compounds, colloids, which in organic matter build cells, tissues, organs, organisms, eco-systems and in case of social animals even social systems. On the level of artifacts, there are also complex structures, and cultures are such complex artifactual structures. Everything in this construction is informational structure, from the primary information or proto-information which is the world in itself and a source of information for agents, and then secondary information which is the information about primary (proto-)information and tertiary information which is the information about secondary information and so on. The culture is the result of information communication and processing in multiple layers of physical reality and it necessarily interact with nature through complex structures informational structures shaped by computational processes. Computation in this sense is in general information processing, symbolic, as well as sub-symbolic.
This interactivist, autopoetic (Maturana, Varela), constructivist understanding of cognition has consequences for our view of socio-technical systems, including computer aided cognition and virtual reality. Info-computational framework is used to elucidate mechanisms of information processing in the virtual and their consequences for the real, as a basis for understanding values of the virtual as related to the real. The idea of good life is discussed in the light of different dimensions of well-being – economy of fun (Castronova, 2007) and sensemaking (Fiss and Hirsch, 2005).
What is a Virtual World? The Nature of Virtuality
The term ‘virtuality’ is used by (Introna, 2008) to refer to “the mediation of interaction through an electronic medium between humans as well as between humans and machines.” The taxonomy of virtualitysuggested by(Søraker, 2010)identifies the following types (p. 56): virtual reality “a three-dimensional interactive computer generated environment that incorporates a first-person perspective” (Brey, 1999); multi-access virtual reality; virtual worlds; virtual environments; virtual communities and virtual institutions (banks, libraries, universities, museums, galleries, experiments, enterprises, businesses). Yet another way to delineate virtuality is through the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research,which featuressuch phenomena as cultures of virtual worlds, pedagogy, education and innovation in virtual worlds, virtual worlds for health and healthcare, technology, economy and standards in virtual worlds, virtual economies, virtual goods and service delivery in virtual worlds, and consumer behaviour in virtual worlds - among others. The list shows that the popular idea of virtual worlds as “the pearly gates of cyberspace” and the return to medieval, spiritual concerns,proposed by (Wertheim, 1999) is representative of only a fraction of virtual worlds today.Equally partial is the viewof the virtual as a global shopping mall(Dibbell, 1998).
Heim(Heim, 1993)identifies seven divergent topics dominating virtual reality: simulation, interaction, artificiality, networked communication, telepresence and immersion. Simulation and generative modelling has become a major research field with wide range of applications - from sciences to movie industry.
An interesting process of integration of the virtual and the real is going on, both literally in the form of ubiquitous computing and hybrid spaces (Aliaga, 1997), as well as conceptually. The idea of hybrid space is that the virtual objects are created that interact with the real objects with equally realistic feel. Holographic 3D environments are an example of this physical hybridization between the real and the virtual.The nature of virtuality as an increasingly pervasive phenomenon, is addressed in(Poulymenakou et al., 2007) and (Tsekeris, 2008). For (de Souza e Silva, 2004)the idea of cyberspace actualizes the question to what degree the mental image corresponds to the real world.Importantly, de Souza e Silva argues that the concept of the virtual changes, since “it can no longer be considered independently from physical space; rather, it belongs to it.”
In his Difference and Repetition, Deleuze offers the following essential distinction:
“The virtual is opposed not to the real but to the actual. The virtual is fully real in so far as it is virtual. Exactly what Proust said of states of resonance must be said of the virtual: 'Real without being actual, ideal without being abstract'; and symbolic without being fictional.”(Deleuze, 1994)
For Deleuze, the reality of the virtual is its structure.The structure (a pattern) as essential for understanding the virtual is also supported by (Petry, 2010)who points to the Wittgenstein’s claim from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that patterns are minimal elements of a cognitive structure that enable understanding.
Cognitively, the difference between real and virtual is not as sharp as one might believe. Minsky, in Societies of Mind, proposes a mechanismthat helps us understand the relationship between the real and the virtual. Understanding human mind as a complex system of dynamical processes composed of many interacting mindless agents whoseinteractions constitute a “society of mind”, Minsky explains:
„But then, what makes some recollections seem so real? The secret is that real-time experience is just as indirect! The closest we can come to apprehending the world, in any case, is through descriptions which our agents make. In fact, if we inquire, instead, about why real things seem so real, we'll see that it depends, as well, on memories of things we've known before!“(Minsky, 1988) p.155
Memories as well as anticipations and fantasies, along with perception constitute the basis of both the real and the virtual experience.
Info-computational Framework for understanding Virtualityand Reality
In order to analyze the functioning of virtual worlds as systems made to provide for a user an experience of being present in the virtual, the info-computationalism offers a suitable framework.On the basic level, within this approach, information is the stuff of the universe (structures) while computation is its dynamics (processes). The universe is a network of computing processes and its phenomena are fundamentally info-computational: continuous as well as discrete, analogue as well as digital. The absolute distinction between physical and mental is dissolved as both the real world as the virtual onespresent different types of relationships between info-computational agents on different levels of organization. (Dodig Crnkovic and Müller, 2009)
Info-computationalism (Dodig Crnkovic, 2006 and 2009) is a synthesis of two existing cosmologies,of the informational and the computational universe. It unifies Informationalism (Informational Structural Realism) of Floridi (2008); Informational Realism of Sayre (1976) and (Ladyman et al., 2007) - with the Naturalist Computationalism/ Pancomputationalism of among others Zuse, Fredkin, Wolfram, Chaitin, and Lloyd. Info-computationalist naturalism interprets the dynamics of informational structures as computation. (Dodig Crnkovic, 2011a)
Info-computationalist understandingof cognitionprovidesa framework for unification of knowledgefrom computing, neuroscience, cognitive science, biology, artificial intelligence, philosophy and number of other research fields.(Dodig-Crnkovic, 2009 and 2010)It is a way of naturalizing epistemologyby connectingtwo previously incompatible views: a symbolic, explicit and static notion of representation (mind as a mirror of the world) and implicit and dynamic (interactive) one. Within info-computational framework, classical symbolic and connectionist (sub-symbolic) views are reconciled and used to describe different aspects of cognition. Naturalizing of epistemology is possible by defining cognition as information processing based on the development of multilevel dynamical computational models and simulations of intelligent systems. This approach has consequences for among others conceptual analysis of artificial intelligence and artificial life.(Dodig Crnkovic and Müller, 2009)
Starting from the assumption that cognition by nature is an info-computational phenomenon makes it easier to understand and analyze the situation where human cognition is aided by computing machinery. It should be emphasized that in info-computationalism, both information and computation are given broader meaning than in conventional computationalism. This approach answers Weizenbaum’s criticism:
“Still, the extreme or hardcore wing of the artificial intelligentsia will insist that the whole man, to again use Simon’s expression, is after all an information processor, and that an information –processing theory of man must therefore be adequate to account for his behaviour in its entirety. We may agree with the major premise without necessarily drawing the indicated conclusion. We have already observed that a portion of the information that human “processes” is kinesthetic, that it is “stored” in his muscles and joints. It is simply not clear that such information, and the processing associated with it, can be represented in the form of computer programs and data structures at all.
It may, of course, be argued that it is in principle possible for a computer to simulate the entire network of cells that constitutes the human body. But that would introduce a theory of information processing entirely different from any which has so far been advanced.” (Weizenbaum, 1976) p. 213
That is exactly this entirely different theory of information (from sub-symbolic to symbolic) and entirely different understanding of computation (natural computation going on in both brain and muscles, on different levels of complexity) that are fundamental for info-computationalism. Yes, humans (and other living organisms) are information processing systems! They exist through information for each other, and the world as a totality exists through information exchanged by computational processes.
Within info-computationalism, all characteristics of the cognitive revolutionaccording to (Pinker, 2003) are accounted for: 1. the mental world is grounded in the physical world by the concepts of informationand computation, with feedback as a (self-reflective) computational process; 2. an unlimited repertoire of behavioursare generated by finite informational structures of the embodied (and embedded) brain in the interaction with the environment; 3. universal info-computational mechanisms underlie variation across cultures; 4. the mind is a complex system of dynamical processescomposed of many interacting mindless agents in a sense of Minsky, withinteractions constituting a “society of mind”.
At this stage of the development we are still capable of making clear distinctions between the perceptions coming from the real and those from the virtual. However, our memories, thoughtsand feelings about the real and virtual may be much closer in flavour and sometimes even indistinguishable. With the development of the virtual towards with increasing realism, technology might enable so realistic perceptions that it will be more and more difficult to make the distinction even on the basic level of experience. That is one of the reasons why it is so important to understand the role of virtual worlds and their impact on the development of society as they are graduallybecoming indistinguishable and “hybridized”.
Computer Aided Cognition, Distributed Cognition and Beyond
Hutchins made in the mid 1980s an important contribution to cognitive science by developing the framework, (not a method!) ofdistributed cognition, which involves interplay between (groups of) agents and the environment. It presupposes embodiment of information in representations of interactions, coordination among (embodied) agents and a cognitive ecosystem.
”The nearly perfect mirror symmetry of thetitles of Vygotsky’s (Mind in Society)and Minsky’s (Society of Mind)books suggests that something special might behappening in systems of distributed processing, whether the processors areneurons, connectionist nodes, areas of a brain, whole persons, groups of persons,or groups of groups of persons.” Hutchins,
Cognition in the society is distributed through the process of information exchange (communication). ICT enables dramatic increase in communications globally. Computational artifacts have always extended human cognition, but the importance of that extension grows dramatically with ubiquitous computing and the development of social computing and virtual organizations connected in global networks. In the area of computer aided cognition, computer scientists typically are focusing on the computing technologies, while other researchers (cognitive scientists, sociologists, human-machine experts etc) are studying the impact of the computational technology such as computational artefacts designed to enhance human perception, reasoning capacity, learning and performance.
Entertainment is one of the most important fields of global communication, and an example of distributed cognition.One may wonder(Castronova, 2007) about the effects of the fact that millions of people are daily spending hours in virtual spacesand fantasy worlds that provide amusement and excitement. Castronova talks about the Exodus to the Virtual World. People spend their spare time playing games or in social networking (on a global level) that in previous decadeswas spent watching TV (typically on a national level), while historically entertainment was on a village or town-level of social organization. Not only that the size of the social group have increased together with the distance between the participants but also a level of virtuality. When talking about exodus, it may be understood as an escape into the virtual world of fun:
”We are witnessing the birth of a new science, the practical science of giving people the sensation of fun through the design of social institutions. This new science will play an ever more significant role in public affairs during the course of twenty-first century. As the exodus to the virtual world proceeds, more and more people will come to view the tenets of this new science as practical rules for running the real world. Those tenets have already been developed, and at the moment, they are all rules of some game.” p. 111