Phenomenology In Modern Artificial Intelligence

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In a world of over seven billion people, one can often feel alone due to factors such as social isolation, lack of intimate connections, and general stress. This feeling of loneliness is often times made worse by the presumed understanding that these seven billion people are alive and conscious. But why is it that humans assume anyone aside from themselves possess true consciousness and a developed mind? This idea that everyone has a mind is not, in fact, inborn. Children do not exhibit development of a theory of mind, the understanding that other humans possess thoughts, consciousness and intentionality, until around the ages of three or four. Past this age, those questioning whether others could have a mind are considered to be either philosophers …show more content…

Though not a fixed, philosophical movement, phenomenology acts in contrast to the Cartesian method which sees objects as acting and reacting with one another. Phenomenologists utilize five basic assumptions in their studies: objective research is not possible; analyzing human behavior can help understand their consciousness; people can be examined in the ways they reflect the society in which they live; conscious experience is prefered to data; and phenomenology should be more so focused on discovery than anything else. From this field comes the idea of intentionality, the topic often discussed in modern artificial intelligence (AI). Intentionality is the idea that consciousness is always consciousness of something, or that consciousness is always about some object. This phenomenological idea contrasts a traditional theory of consciousness which states that consciousness cannot be fully studied as reality is only grasped in perceptions, not in anything concrete. Similarly to cognitive psychological approaches, the most mainstream methods utilized by phenomenologists have subjects describe phenomena as the phenomena are perceived. While the field’s father, Husserl, believed consciousness to be the essence of the mind, others within the field, such as Martin Heidegger, thought consciousness is not the primary aspect of one’s existence, and so the mind is more of an effect of a being among stimuli. This shift from the philosophical-psychological study to philosophical-ontological study altered the future of the field and allowed for the rise of ideas such as the unconscious

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