Susan A. J. Stuart

Digital identity matters

Digital objects or entities present us with particular problems of an acute nature. The most acute of these are the issues surrounding what constitutes identity within the digital world and between digital entities. These are problems that are important in many contexts but, when dealing with digital texts, documents, and certification, an understanding of them becomes vital legally, philosophically, and historically. Legally, the central issues are those of authorship, authenticity, and ownership; philosophically, we must be concerned with the sorts of logical relations that hold between objects and in determining the ontological nature of the object; and historically, our concern centers around our interest in chronology and the recording of progress, adaptation, change, and provenance. Our purpose is to emphasize why questions of digital identity matter and how we might address and respond to some of them. We will begin by examining the lines along which we draw a distinction between the digital and the physical context and how, by importing notions of transitivity and symmetry from the domain of mathematical logic, we might attempt to provide at least interim resolutions of these questions.

The Self as an Embedded Agent

In this paper we consider the concept of a self-aware agent. In cognitive science agents are seen as embodied and interactively situated in worlds. We analyse the meanings attached to these terms in cognitive science and robotics, proposing a set of conditions for situatedness and embodiment, and examine the claim that internal representational schemas are largely unnecessary for intelligent behaviour in animats. We maintain that current situated and embodied animats cannot be ascribed even minimal self-awareness, and offer a six point definition of embeddedness, constituting minimal conditions for the evolution of a sense of self. This leads to further analysis of the nature of embodiment and situatedness, and a consideration of whether virtual animats in virtual worlds could count as situated and embodied. We propose that self-aware agents must possess complex structures of self-directed goals; multi-modal sensory systems and a rich repertoire of interactions with their worlds. Finally, we argue that embedded agents will possess or evolve local co-ordinate systems, or points of view, relative to their current positions in space and time, and have a capacity to develop an egocentric space. None of these capabilities are possible without powerful internal representational capacities.

Enkinaesthesia: The Essential Sensuous Background for Co-Agency

The primary aim of this chapter is to present a case for a heavily revised notion of heterophenomenology. 1 will refer to the revised notion as ‘enkinaesthesia’ because of its dependence on the experiential entanglement of our own and the other’s felt action as the sensory background within which all other experience is possible. Enkinaesthesia1 emphasizes two things: (i) the neuromuscular dynamics of the agent, including the givenness and ownership of its experience and (ii) the entwined, blended and situated co-affective feeling of the presence of the other(s), agential (for example, human, horse, cat, beetle) and non-agential (for example, cup, bed, apple, paper) and, where appropriate, the anticipated arc of the other’s action or movement, including, again where appropriate, the other’s intentionality. When the ‘other’ is also a sensing and experiencing agent it is their — in this case, the pair’s — affective intentional reciprocity, their folding, enfolding and unfolding, which co-constitutes the conscious relation and the experientially recursive temporal dynamics that lead to the formation and maintenance of the deep integral enkinaesthetic structures and melodies which bind us together, even when they pull us apart. Such deeply felt enkinaesthetic melodies emphasize the dialogical nature of the backgrounded feeling of being.

From agency to apperception: through kinaesthesia to cognition and creation

My aim in this paper is to go some way towards showing that the maintenance of hard and fast dichotomies, like those between mind and body, and the real and the virtual, is untenable, and that technological advance cannot occur with being cognisant of its reciprocal ethical implications. In their place I will present a softer enactivist ontology through which I examine the nature of our engagement with technology in general and with virtual realities in particular. This softer ontology is one to which I will commit Kant, and from which, I will show, certain critical moral and emotional consequences arise. It is my contention that Kant’s logical subject is necessarily embedded in the world and that Kant, himself, would be content with this view as an expression of his inspired response to the “scandal to philosophy… that the existence of things outside us… must be accepted merely on faith” [Bxl]. In keeping with his arguments for the a priori framing of intuition, the a priori structuring of experience through the spontaneous application of the categories, the synthesis of the experiential manifold, and the necessity of a unity of apperception, I will present an enactivist account of agency in the world, and argue that it is our embodied and embedded kinaesthetic engagement in our world which makes possible the syntheses of apprehension, reproduction and recognition, and which, in turn, make possible the activity of the reproductive or creative imagination.

Issues in the development of advance directives in mental health care

Background: Interest in advance directives in mental health care is growing internationally. There is no clear universal agreement as to what such an advance directive is or how it should function. Aim: To describe the range of issues embodied in the development of advance directives in mental health care. Method: The literature on advance directives is examined to highlight the pros and cons of different versions of advance directive. Results: Themes emerged around issues of terminology, competency and consent, the legal status of advance directives independent or collaborative directives and their content. Opinions vary between a unilateral legally enforceable instrument to a care plan agreed between patient and clinician. Conclusion: There is immediate appeal in a liberal democracy that values individual freedom and autonomy in giving weight to advance directives in mental health care. They do not, however, solve all the problems of enforced treatment and early access to treatment. They also raise new issues and highlight persistent problems. Declaration of interest: The research was funded by the Nuffield Foundation grant number MNH/00015G.

A Radical Notion of EmbeddednessA Logically Necessary Precondition for Agency and Self‐Awareness

The aim of this essay is to establish the logically necessary preconditions for the existence of self-awareness in an artificial or a natural agent. It examines the terms agent, situated, embodied, embedded, and representation as employed ubiquitously in cognitive science, attempting to clarify their meaning and the limits of their use. It discusses the minimal conditions for an agent’s environment constituting a ‘world’ and rejects most, though not all, types of virtual world. It argues that to qualify as genuinely situated an agent should function in real time within the dynamic world we inhabit, or some close simulacrum of it. It shows that embodied agents will possess or evolve local coordinate systems, or points of view, locating, identifying, and interacting with objects relative to their current position in space-time, and it discusses various types of embodiment, arguing that most current situated and embodied systems are too limited to be candidates for even the most minimal claim to self-identity. It argues that a truly autonomous agent has to be active in its participation with the world, able to synthesize and order its internal representations from its own point of view, and that to do this effectively the agent will have to be embedded. To this end it proposes a six-point definition of embeddedness. Ultimately it argues for a philosophical-cum-cognitive-science model of the self that satisfies essential elements of both sets of definitions of the term.

The development of potential models of advance directives in mental health care

Background: The review of mental health law in the UK has involved consideration of mechanisms for advance directives in mental health care. Aims: To develop potential models of advance directives based on the views of stakeholders in mental health services in Scotland. Methods: Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with service users, professionals and carers who had an interest in advance directives. Leaflets and policy documents from campaign groups and voluntary organisations were collected and along with data generated in interview and group discussion were analysed for themes. Results: Six potential models were developed that highlighted the overarching themes of co-operation versus autonomy and the legal status of any directive. Conclusions: There is a wide variety of opinion about what advance directives could or should bring to mental health care, they are not all achievable through the use of any one model. Declaration of Interest: The research was funded by the Nuffield Foundation grant number MNH/00015/G.

Enkinaesthesia: The fundamental challenge for machine consciousness

In this short paper I will introduce an idea which, I will argue, presents a fundamental additional challenge to the machine consciousness community. The idea takes the questions surrounding phenomenology, qualia and phenomenality one step further into the realm of intersubjectivity but with a twist, and the twist is this: that an agents intersubjective experience is deeply felt and necessarily co-affective; it is enkinaesthetic, and only through enkinaesthetic awareness can we establish the affective enfolding which enables first the perturbation, and then the balance and counter-balance, the attunement and co-ordination of whole-body interaction through reciprocal adaptation.

Alvin I. Goldman, Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience of Mindreading

The opening statement in the Preface of this fascinating book refers to how the understanding of the self and others, the identification of ‘‘the feelings, thoughts, and designs that compose our own daily lives and those of our neighbors, lovers, and foes’’ (p. vii), is a perennial problem in the philosophy of mind. Goldman’s aim in Simulating Minds is twofold: (i) to provide a summary and review of the ‘mindreading’ work since a trio of papers in the 1980s (Robert Gordon 1986, Jane Heal 1986, and Goldman 1989) presented an alternative, in the form of simulation theory, to the functionalist and ‘theory–theory’ accounts that were then prevalent, and (ii) to present his own form of simulation theory or simulationism. There are 11 rich chapters. The first offers some philosophical and scientific background to our capacity to mentalize, and from there the next four chapters take us through a conceptualization of simulation theory, an account of the rather heavily metaphysical rationality theory, the child-scientist or theory–theory account, and an amended form of theory–theory specified as the modularity theory. It is with simulation theory that Goldman has the greatest sympathy, so it is merely introduced and conceptualized as straightforwardly plausible in Chap. 2. Rationality theory fails on three rather fundamental counts: third-person attribution, first-person attribution, and because it only deals with propositional attitudes, and is, thus, ruled out of any further serious consideration by page 67. The child-scientist or theory–theory account claims that action depends on guidance afforded by the innate causal principles of folk psychology, but it is not so much that which sinks it but the fact that it must account for the shift from the non-representational conception of belief in the 3 year-old, who has a conceptual deficit and is unable to pass the false belief test, to the representational conceptual capacity of the 4 yearold. As Goldman says it is this ‘‘claim which has become a lightning rod for

Authenticity: a red herring?

Abstract Authenticity is a difficult and taxing notion in both the digital and the analogue world. It is a retrospective and by implication dynamic notion, a reaction to whether or not we are dealing with the genuine article, that an object is what it purports to be at a moment in time and its content can be validated using available technology. It is not an end in itself like a fresh herring, but a red herring which, because of the pungent smell of the smokehouse, can put the hounds off the scent. Moreover it is not an absolute: an object that might appear perfectly authentic from one perspective may be considered to lack sufficient tokens of authenticity in another, and may later from both viewpoints be considered invalid. Content change may be captured in technologies, but does it necessarily follow that the intellectual content remains the same? Revolutions in technology may change the ‘container’ (for example a card catalogue becomes a database), but how do such migrations affect content and the procedures and practices that surround it? Is entering entities in a database the same as filling in cards? Distribution channels have always influenced structure and form without necessarily changing intellectual content or associated practice. In addressing such issues we warn against the ever present danger of a collapse into technological determinism with an accompanying utopian optimism [P. Flichy, The Internet Imaginaire, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007, Liz Carrey-Libbrecht. (trans.)]. We propose that discussion of identity needs to shift away from discussion of technologies for preserving information towards characterisation of the persistent intellectual content. In the migration to the digital we are especially concerned with four separate but related issues of identity from this perspective: • functionally identical replicas • superficially identical replicas • similar objects • earlier/later versions We conclude that identity is not a technical issue: notions of identity, like authenticity, are dynamic and have to deal with the non-transitive relations in stages of documents and objects. We are convinced that only by adopting such a stance can any progress be made in the sterile debate about digital preservation which logically must be downstream from the resolution of notions of authenticity that themselves are reactive to issues of intellectual content and available technology that following Aristotle we characterise as techne.