Abstract
Galit Wellner’s exploration of new kinds of digital technologies employing AI algorithms that simulate features and functions of the human imagination leads her to propose a conceptual analysis of the imagination as a composite of perception and memory. Wellner poses the question of whether the output of such technological applications might be regarded as not merely simulating creative activity but as truly imaginative in their own right. Wellner concludes with a qualified “no.” The use of AI algorithms in conjunction with human cognitive activity, conceived in terms of a layered architecture of the faculties in question, can in fact be understood as an essential component of imaginative, and thus creative, production, but humans are still needed in the mix. To the extent that the AI-algorithm-enhanced human system is capable of imagining and creating works of art, imagination can be extended to AI algorithms. But, the algorithms sans humans are not themselves imaginers. For Wellner, AI algorithms can augment and enhance human imaginative efforts, equipping us with a richer and vastly wider array of possibilities and options for aesthetic consideration, but ultimately, the human is the essential element. However, once the door is opened to accepting algorithmically determined alternatives as capable of successfully achieving desired results within a field of possible outcomes, it seems possible that the activities of connecting, coordinating, or meaningfully linking, combining, and establishing new imaginative layers that Wellner reserves as requiring humans to enact might also be programmable, algorithmically achievable tasks that instantiate genuine aesthetic decision making.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The recent of work of Andrew Lapworth (2015; 2016) theorizes the practice of “bioart,” following the thinking of Gilbert Simondon and his philosophy of individuation. This is a new movement in artistic activity that forces an encounter with a form of art that conjoins vital and material entities (e.g., bone cells and biodegradable polymers) into meaningful forms and real-life scenarios through technological intervention. This area of artistic endeavor fulfills Wellner’s conception of posthuman art.
Here I use the term "imaginary,” or “social imaginary,” to refer to “‘the set of values, institutions, laws, and symbols common to a particular social group and the corresponding society through which people imagine their social whole.’ But…imaginaries are more than that. Social imaginaries ‘are ways of understanding the social that become social entities themselves, mediating collective life’ and shaping the way we live now and into the future” (Nerlich 2015, para. 3).
Computer scientists have now developed algorithms that can empower computers to learn on their own. The latest iterations in this area of computer programming known as machine learning are modeled after the way human brains process information by constructing interconnected networks of nodes called “neurons” or “perceptrons” known as neural networks, which not only store but learn from data outputs, in much the same way that humans learn from experience. Deep learning is a type of machine learning in which “neural networks are arranged into sprawling networks with a large number of layers that are trained using massive amounts of data”. Deep learning differs from most other kinds of machine learning that require structured or labeled data input in that deep-learning systems operate on unlabeled data and manage to determine important characteristics of the data on their own, without needing specific instructions at each step. While basic machine learning requires significant programmer (human) monitoring at each new phase of the learning process, a deep-learning system can execute learning functions on its own (Deangelis 2014).
This was not one of Wellner’s examples and indeed pre-dates the kind of advanced machine learning used in the cases she presents. Referred to here is the work of David Cope, emeritus professor of music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who created a computer program, which he named, “Emily Howell,” that produced an original sonata (with six movements) that has been recorded and publicly performed. Interestingly, although the immediate audience response to Emily’s composition, From Darkness, Light, noted the piece’s strong emotional impact, the general critical response was quite negative, claiming that the piece was insipid and lacked the essential feel of “genuine humanity” (Adams 2010).
Stiegler speaks of a noetic loop: “The noetic loop is a spiral, and it forms the spiral of hubris within which is produced an exosomatic drift, a transformation of the world and the milieus of life by organological production (and not just organic production)” (2017b, p. 94).
It is interesting to note that Ihde says something similar in his exploration of experiential phenomenology: “The phenomenological deconstruction, which throws doubt upon the primacy of empirical order, achieves two results. The role of context and sedimentation emerges as a possible theme for investigation; the gradual constitution of topographical possibilities frees the noema to assume its full richness and complexity” (Idhe 2012a, p. 73).
This goes back to the earlier reference to Heidegger’s description of the imagination as the highest faculty of Da-Sein.
References
Assis, P. (2018). Transduction and the Body as a Transducer, in Logic of Experimentation, Chap. 5. Leuven University Press. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv6zdcpg.9.
Ayas, T. (2015). Reflections on Kant’s View of the Imagination. Ideas y Valores, 64(157), 53–69.
Deangelis, S.F. (2014) Artificial Intelligence: How Algorithms Make Systems Smart. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/09/artificial-intelligence-algorithms-2/.
Ginsborg, H. (1997). Lawfulness Without a Law: Kant on the Free play of Imagination and Understanding. Philosophical Topics, 25(1), 37–81.
Heidegger, M. (1999). Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ihde, D. (2009). From Da Vinci to CAD and Beyond. Synthese, 168, 453–467. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-008-9445-0.
Ihde, D. (2012a). Experimental Phenomenology: Multistabilities. Albany: SUNY Press.
Ihde, D. (2012b). 'Cartesianism' Redux or Situated Knowledges. Foundations of Science, 17(4), 369–372. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-011-9243-x.
Ihde, D. (2016). Husserl’s Missing Technologies. NY: Fordham University Press.
Kant, I. (1922). Critique of Pure Reason. (F. Max Müller, Trans.) New York: The Macmillan Company. Retreived from https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1442.
Kant, I. (1987). Critique of Judgment. (W. S. Pluhar, Trans.) Indianopolis: Hackett. Retrieved from https://monoskop.org/images/7/77/Kant_Immanuel_Critique_of_Judgment_1987.pdf.
Kelly, S. D. (2019, February 21). A Philosopher Argues that an AI Can't Be an Artist. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612913/a-philosopher-argues-that-an-ai-can-never-be-an-artist/.
Knight, W. (2015). This AI Algorithm Learns Simple Tasks as Fast As We Do. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/544376/this-ai-algorithm-learns-simple-tasks-as-fast-as-we-do/.
Lake, B. M., Salakhutdinov, R., & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2015). Human-Level Concept Learning Through Probabilistic Program Induction. Science, 350, 1332–1338. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab3050.
Lapworth, A. (2015). Habit, Art, and the Plasticity of the Subject: The Ontogenetic Shock of the Bioart Encounter. Cultural Geographies, 22(1), 85–102.
Lapworth, A. (2016). Theorizing Bioart Encounters After Gilbert Simondon. Theory, Culture & Society, 33(3), 33–150.
Matherne, S. (2016). Kant’s Theory of the Imagination. In A. Kind (Ed.), Routledge handbook of the imagination. London: Routledge.
Michaelian, K., & Sant’Anna, A. (2019). Memory Without Content: Radical Enactivism and (Post)Causal Theories of Memory. Synthese. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02119-7.
Moore, G. (2017). On the Origin of Aisthesis by Means of Artificial Selection or the Preservations of Favored Traces in the Stuggle for Existence. Boundary 2, 44(1), 191–212.
Nerlich, B. (2015, April 23). Imagining Imaginaries. Making Science Public. Retrieved from http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/makingsciencepublic/2015/04/23/imagining-imaginaries/.
Schaper, E. (1964). Kant’s Schematism Reconsidered. The Review of Metaphysics 18 (2), pp 267–292. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/20124056.
Stiegler, B. (2014a). Digital Humanities. (Daniel Ross, Trans). Retrieved from https://worldpece.org/sites/default/files/artifacts/media/pdf/bernard_stiegler_digital_humanities_2014.pdf , 1–16.
Stiegler, B. (2014b). Organology of Dreams and Archi-Cinema. The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 47, 7–37.
Stiegler, B. (2017a). The Proletarianization of Sensibility. Boundary 2, 44(1), 5–18.
Stiegler, B. (2017b). The New Conflict of the Faculties and Functions: Quasi-Causality and Serendipity in the Anthropocene. Qui Parle, 26(1), 79–99.
Wellner, G. (2018). Posthuman Imagination: From Modernity to Augmented Reality. Journal of Posthuman Studies, 2(1), 45–66.
Adams, T. (2010, July 10). David Cope: You Pushed the Button and Out Came Hundreds and Thousands of Sonatas. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jul/11/david-cope-computer-composer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Campbell, M. Unfolding the Layers of Mind and World: Wellner’s Posthuman Digital Imagination. Found Sci 27, 1371–1380 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09767-w
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09767-w