Synesthesia and Human-Robot-Interactions – How Alterity Relations shape Sensorimotor Unity

• In Event: Postphenomenological Research 1: Alterity relations, robots, and virtual others

Abstract

Focus of my presentation is on so called alterity-relations, which play a major role in postphenomenological investigations – close to hermeneutic relations, embodied relations an others. After my Lisbon and San Diego presentations in 2013, now in this Denver lecture again I want to emphasize the interrelations of material cultures, a research methodology of material hermeneutics and the relations between paleoanthropology and social robotics. Thereby, my specific new focus will be on the notion of “synesthesia”. I want to introduce this term as conceptual and methodological advancement of “alterity relations”.
The main question here is about unity of sensation, body movement or emotions. Human beings are shaped by a proprioceptive bodily unit: all specific sensory perceptions are integrated in an environmental-practice oriented bodily totality. Those totalities are also shaped by social interactions and second-person perspectives (alterity relations). I want to understand, what, and how social robots become parts of alterity relations, and how they influence synesthetic proprioceptive body units of human persons. Therefore, I want to present a hermeneutic epistemology, which integrates implicit and explicit forms of knowing, as well as cultural and bodily positions in human-robot-interactions. As result stands a heuristics, with which I want to contribute some ideas to current postphenomenological investigations about alterity relations related to practices of human-robot-interactions.

Author

• Michael Funk, TU Dresden