"The End of The (Dreyfus) Affair": (Post)Heideggerian Meditations on Man, Machine, and Meaning

In this paper, the possibility of developing a Heideggerian solution to the Schizophrenia Problem associated with Cognitive Technology is investigated. This problem arises as a result of the computer bracketing emotion from cognition during human-computer interaction and results in human psychic self-amputation. It is argued that in order to solve the Schizophrenia Problem, it is necessary to first solve the 'hard problem' of consciousness since emotion is at least partially experiential. Heidegger's thought, particularly as interpreted by Hubert Dreyfus, appears relevant in this regard since it ostensibly provides the basis for solving the 'hard problem' via the construction of artificial systems capable of the emergent generation of conscious experience. However, it will be shown that Heidegger's commitment to a non-experiential conception of nature renders this whole approach problematic, thereby necessitating consideration of alternative, post-Heideggerian approaches to solving the Schizophrenia Problem.

[1]  Jorge Luis Nobo,et al.  Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem , 1999, Process Studies.

[2]  Syed Mustafa Ali.  The concept of Poiesis and its application in a Heideggarian critique of computationally emergent artificiality , 1999 .

[3]  R. W. Janney.  The prosthesis as partner: pragmatics and the human-computer interface , 1997, Proceedings Second International Conference on Cognitive Technology Humanizing the Information Age.

[4]  R. Hepburn,et al.  BEING AND TIME , 2010 .

[5]  Frederick A. Olafson,et al.  Heidegger à la Wittgenstein or ‘coping’ with Professor Dreyfus , 1994 .

[6]  Carleton B. Christensen,et al.  Heidegger's Representationalism , 1997 .

[7]  A. Clark.  Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again , 1996 .

[8]  Hubert L. Dreyfus,et al.  What computers still can't do - a critique of artificial reason , 1992 .

[9]  M. Heidegger.  The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays , 1977 .

[10]  Carleton B. Christensen,et al.  Getting Heidegger Off the West Coast , 1998 .

[11]  Terry Winograd,et al.  Understanding computers and cognition - a new foundation for design , 1987 .

[12]  Joseph P. Fell,et al.  THE FAMILIAR AND THE STRANGE: ON THE LIMITS OF PRAXIS IN THE EARLY HEIDEGGER , 1990 .

[13]  D. Haraway.  A manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s , 1987 .

[14]  D. Krell,et al.  Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy , 1992 .

[15]  G. Globus.  The Postmodern Brain , 1995 .

[16]  Rosalind W. Picard.  Affective computing: (526112012-054) , 1997 .

[17]  Joseph P. Fell,et al.  Heidegger and Sartre: An Essay on Being and Place , 1983 .

[18]  D. Chalmers.  The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory , 1996 .

[19]  Georgi Stojanov,et al.  Computer Interfaces: From Communication to Mind-Prosthesis Metaphor , 2001, Cognitive Technology.

[20]  Erich Prem,et al.  Epistemic Autonomy in Models of Living Systems , 1997 .

[21]  Дрейфус Хьюберт,et al.  Чего не могут вычислительные машины: Критика искусственного разума. (What computers cant do: A critique of artificial reason) , 1978 .

[22]  Jean Ladrière.  The Technical Universe in an Ontological Perspective , 1998 .

[23]  Rosalind W. Picard.  Affective Computing , 1997 .

[24]  Terrence A. Brooks,et al.  Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age: From Method to Metaphor, by Richard Coyne , 1996, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..