Embodiment and bionic restoration of vision
RIS ID
103617
Abstract
The problem of Embodiment is particularly important in the exploration and critique of biomedical research involved in the field of perception. Embodiment is perennially sensitive to perspectives that challenge the presumptions that link the mind to the body. Even the very basis of knowledge can yield to this sensitivity. For example the epistemological approach of Husserlian Phenomenology holds that what we know is grounded in the Ego, but Merleau-Ponty with the aid of Embodiment explains that there remains inherent ambiguity. Further, what can be known of being is problematic according to Heidegger and requires an exploration of the horizon of time, and yet the bionic points to another horizon that Embodiment may be called on to explore and critique. That is, if the neuro-bionic correlates of a vision restoration device are seeing the world, identifying perceptual ambiguity, and resolving or maintain that ambiguity and passing that information on to perception, then the recipient is no longer only seeing through the aid of a device but perceiving visually together with the aid of a bionic device. Thus, bionic vision restoration could mean that we are a species in search of a horizon... or are we simply underestimating the implications of Embodiment?
Publication Details
T. Cleary, "Embodiment and bionic restoration of vision", 10th Conference of the Australian Society of Cognitive Science Conference. (2014)