momscript

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my name is Alvin Noah I'm the
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philosopher I write about perception and
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consciousness and we're beginning a
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conversation about dance my starting
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point is the idea that consciousness
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experience even in life isn't something
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that goes on inside of us where happens
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in us where happens to us I think of
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experience as something we achieve
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something we do actively experience is a
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temporally extended involvement so
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experience consciousness is always
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necessarily embodied it's always
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necessarily environmentally situated
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it's always necessarily spread out in
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time and dynamic
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taking it to a slightly more precise
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level if you think of sensor perceptual
01:19
experience seeing hearing touching these
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are whatever else is true of receivers
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this is true movement produces sensory
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change when you approach an objective
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looms when you when you move your hand
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across its surface you have a range of
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sensation so whatever else is true about
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receivers they need to have a kind of
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understanding of of familiarity with or
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even a kind of control over the sensory
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consequences of what they do the sensory
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transparencies of their own movement
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perception has at its very starting
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point the perceivers knowledge of the
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way movement affects sensory change
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weight movement affects sensation so
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what is seeing seeing is a certain kind
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of temporally extended interaction with
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the environment making use of that
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understanding putting that understanding
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to work so in a traditional
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philosophical and sort of scientific
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framework you might have thought of this
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perception over here and then this
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action over there we perceive in order
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to act when we act we made use of what
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we perceive but they're destroyed in my
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approach
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but sort of skillful ability to move is
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at the very core of what it is to be a
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conscious proceeding agent so that
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although one can see while you're
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sitting still and although you can move
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without paying attention to what you're
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saying ultimately the capacity to move
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the capacity to see our internal event
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and in fact just the capacity to to move
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it's understanding and understanding the
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century of X so one of the one of the
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things that I've come to investigate is
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the way in which using that kind of
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sensory motor understanding is what
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greetin's the world into focus for
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consciousness imagine you go to a museum
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and you look at a painting by an artist
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in an unfamiliar style
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maybe it's an artist you've never seen
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before sometimes you have the experience
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of you look at it you see it and you
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just not forget it it's flat it's a pig
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but you look at it maybe talk about it
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with your friend and you just think
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about it and you start to notice
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patterns and connections you notice
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parallels you notice structure and now
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this remarkable thing happens all of a
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sudden you can see the paint getting
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different than you've heard at the
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beginning it hasn't changed
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it's just a surface in the wall and yet
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you experience it differently yet that
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change is not merely a sort of
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difference in the way you feel about it
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you are now able finally to perceive it
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in a way that you couldn't perceive it
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before it comes into focus because you
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now have a kind of a comprehension of it
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what I think in getting in the case of
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that's an example of looking at painting
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but that sort of summarizes the
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structure of all human perceptual
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consciousness the world comes into focus
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as a kind of dynamic of trying to make
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and and particularly the bodily
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understanding plays a crucial role so
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you can see us trying to lead up to the
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way in which the way I think about what
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human consciousness is in a way it's
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dance the dance is if you like the if
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you figure of Dance in the sense of
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performance a dance is if you like an
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enactment or a modeling of this
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fundamental fact about a relation to the
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world around us and here we are we got
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never they drop with it and the the
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seeing the perceiving is is not
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something detached from that couple yeah
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that's what in that listeners an
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interview is called moving viewers I I
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wrote an essay when it's a short little
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essay called I think it was called what
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do you see when you look at a dance and
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that was actually a phrase I heard
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leasing these words and I wanted to you
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know take a little bit of the time to
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bring the context of that really
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interesting encounter that actually you
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know led to all this kind of common
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interest yes
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one of the things that our if you
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approach perception as I do if you think
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of it as a kind of temporary extended
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pattern of skillful activity then we
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have a question what would our studying
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I've experienced but what would a study
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of perception be what would to use a
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term that philosophers like to use what
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would phenomenology
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what would an investigation of the
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nature of experience big see in a kind
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of traditional picture you might think
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it's introspection looking in mind but
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that's not where you find the experience
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you find experience in the dance you
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need to look at the world you need to
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look at your partner you need to listen
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to the silence and you need to pay
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attention to what you're doing to
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understand the dance so in a way the
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question of one of the one of the first
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questions I asked myself about dance and
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philosophy of mind which is what I do is
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how can we think about dance as
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providing a research tool how can we
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think I mean this is this is something I
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learned as I were done to look at all
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this but this is the way dancers do
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think dancers do think of dance as
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research not merely as well I don't know
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what that would be opposition of it but
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for me that was very interested that the
07:40
gondola dance could or indeed I would
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say art in general could be used to help
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make a theoretical contribution into
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knowledge to theoretical knowledge not
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really to in fact the knowledge
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representation or knowledge oh look at
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the metaphor of this or that is
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literally I call it disembodied
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phenomenology practically
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yeah that's a good expression I mean you
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see most scientists who were interested
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in dance in the arts what they like to
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do is explain dance in the audience like
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to tell you what's happening in your
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brain when you enjoy watching a dancer
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or tell you what's happening in the
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brain we're having an aesthetic
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experience where they like to tell you
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why certain cultural or psychoanalytic
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or whatever facts about you explain why
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we do this in that but what I was
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interested in is well what can science
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learn from dance not making dance the
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subject for us yeah but how can we
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collaborate how can we really
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collaborate and so that was the setting
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which I met Lisa we actually did a joint
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workshop together where the group of
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dancers brought together in Toronto and
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part of the day was spent talking and
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part of the day was spent doing Lisa's
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very evolved and sophisticated tunings
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for dance practice she she doesn't I'm
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not sure I'm not sure how comfortable
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she uses the word improvisational cos
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it's it's this she's not really
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interested in that she's interested in
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well it was a question for me but she
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was interested in and one of the
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questions was I tried to understand well
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what is it you see when you look at a
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dance whether you're in the audience or
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whether you were the dancers what what
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is going on here what is the subject
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matter and I knew that Lisa had bad
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Gibson JJ Gibson the crepe
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psychologists experimental psychologists
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so I came to think that essentially what
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is going on I don't know right I think
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Lisa would accept this characterization
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she certainly never criticized me for
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putting it this way I started to see
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what there were sections she would be
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doing was creating a situation in which
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one would establish the image space you
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set up a sort of a set of calls that
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sort of give cues for sort of the
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evolution of the dance and what she was
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really doing was creating an environment
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and creating a problem the problem of
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survival in the environment you've got
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multiple dancers and they've got to cope
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to have to cope by the rules of the game
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how do you cope you need to learn your
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way around how do you learn your way
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around well you just need to grapple pay
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attention Vidkun stein said that what is
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understanding it's knowing your way
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around and Vicarstown often use the
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example of think of a strange state of a
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big city like London or a city that's
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ancient that has actually grown up from
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separate villages and has it developed
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at different stages in history in
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haphazard ways you know bombings
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flattened one section the city and then
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it gets rebuilt with with sort of a
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great pattern but other parts of the
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city are are completely built according
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to some other rhyme and reason based on
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an economic practice from 500 years ago
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you know where the where the animals
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were led into into town from the feelers
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outside the town and there's no system
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there's no rule there's no
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that you can break now i understand
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language
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now I understand conceptual space and
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now I understand the topography of the
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place where I live you need to learn to
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know your way around and then remarkably
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there is such a thing is knowing your
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way around London and it's not because
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you've got a map in the head although
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some you're very well trained cab
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drivers probably doing pretty good
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enough in the matter but it's knowing
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your way around it's practical skill a
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city you only have when you are there in
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the city you know that you get to that
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corner if you go right you hit that
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one-way system you go left and then
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there's the train station you may not be
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able to draw a picture of it but the
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world itself with its landmarks and its
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depositories of information and it's and
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in some it's friendly face is two
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triggers our ability to actualize
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knowing our way around so I saw that I
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saw the problem that Lisa was presenting
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in her tweeting sport
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research program was essentially in a
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dance form investigating what vintage
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time investigated in the context of
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language games so the biggest I call
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that language games you could call it
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dance games or movement gamers or
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cooping dance but I was the I was the
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only a lot of her participated Rebecca
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Todd his ever Thompson's 1f yeah and she
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is the woman who had the idea for the
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work site and she got the grant from one
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of the Canadian funding agencies to do
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it she is has been for most of her
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professional life a professional dancer
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working as choreographer working his
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performer and also working as a dance
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critic around the time when she
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organized this workshop she in effect
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had lost commitment to dance
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practice and the decided she wanted to
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move into theoretical work in cognitive
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science and so she organized this this
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workshop inviting Lisa and me and then a
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bunch of other dancers all of whom were
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professional dancers I want I won't try
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to remember all the names there's a
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whole very interesting team of people to
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me it was a actually mind-blowing
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experience because it was the first time
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I had engaged in something like contact
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improvisation but it is the way I
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philosophize I think of philosophy as a
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form of contact improvisation philosophy
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is not about the truth or the discovery
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it's about the process and it's about
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the transformation that happens in you
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as you work towards the process what is
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that transformation it's understanding
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it's seeing connections it's knowing
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your way around so um my my hope feels
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off the project was just led me to a
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position when I was waiting to have this
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experience with Lisa
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yeah and thinking a lot about depiction
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what is that what is a picture and how
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do we see pictures and I live in Germany
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at the moment and the German where the
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picture is built and they the the
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concept of the built is broader than the
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English council in the picture a
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sculpture counts ISM as a built on it
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and so so how do you how do you define
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what a picture is and one of the ideas
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I've been exploring with is well a
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picture shows you something and in that
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sense when you see a picture you see the
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you see the thing which is the picture
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but you see something further you see
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something else you see that which is
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depicted now in traditional philosophy
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in the Battle of this we see if
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something happens in your head so when I
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see the scene around us here in the room
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my mind or brain builds up an internal
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representation a picture in the head and
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so seeing the world as having a picture
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in the head my my view is is Cle is
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totally different on my view seeing is
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not representing the world in the head
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its achieving access to the world
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contact with the world a relation with
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the world seeing is access and the way
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the world shows up as presents to me in
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my experience is not as depicted it's
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not as representative depicted which has
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available as accessible as within reach
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what is the basis what is the foundation
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of accessibility or being within reach
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its bodily skill again it's
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understanding that by moving my eyes or
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my body I can bring this environment
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nearer I can I can move my mind my hand
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my body through the environment and
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that's on my temporary extended sort of
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review that is achieving access to the
16:23
environment so now coming back to
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pictures when we ask how a picture
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depicts what we really want to know is
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we asked let me ask how we see something
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in a picture the real question that we
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need to ask is how does the picture
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afford access how does the picture
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become become a way of touching
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something beyond the picture a way of
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achieving access to something beyond the
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picture the maker of a picture
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an artist is is making a bit of the
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world for you to explore now
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I'm inclined to think that we can think
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of dance as depicted in this way when I
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when I say we can take it down since
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depictive I don't mean all dads
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necessarily be there's a lot of
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different kinds of dads with many
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different kinds of objective just as
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there are many different kinds of art
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but when I look at against I don't only
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see bodies in the stage wood in a
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certain way I'm I see structures
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patterns ideas emotions i I see I'm
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shown more than just the surface of the
17:34
movements I'm I'm shown it's actually
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interesting to ask what I'm sure I'm
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sure the world
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I'm shown an environment so the
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perceiver of the dance and the dancer
17:47
and the choreographer whatever his or
17:49
her process of dance making maybe is is
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in this space of trying to make world's
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enact experience
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but always in in a way that that that
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forces us to think about or to catch
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ourselves in the act of having
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experience I think this is this
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fascinating complicated issue on the one
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hand skillful movement in whatever the
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main sports dance lighting talking
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mm-hmm because this is movement -
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they're talking this movement and I
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think this is key
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yeah does that take it at out of the
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stage that's right yeah I do me that
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sort of awaits talking up religion but
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but absolutely there any kind of
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movement requires the plot I was going
18:47
to say was requires engagement flow
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habits yeah right you meet habits of
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skill and your skills are habits on the
18:59
other hand when you're in this when
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you're in when you're confronted with
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art you're also always a little bit
19:07
detached because the art is always
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calling itself into question at least
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for me this is the idea that I'm very
19:15
struck by lately that when that you know
19:18
you say what the heck is this when
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you're looking at this performance or
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even if you're involved in the
19:24
performance and that is the experience
19:26
of dancers very often you know they're
19:28
they're trapped in Sun Prairie out of
19:30
first vision what what am i doing I was
19:32
with a dancer recently who was seeing a
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production of a show that she had been
19:38
part of the original company that first
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presented and she was now seeing at five
19:45
or ten years later I forget how long so
19:48
from the outside and she said you know
19:50
God if I had any idea that was going on
19:52
when I was in it we would have had a
19:53
different experience of what it was like
19:55
to do the dance so
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it's surprising that there's a profound
20:07
way in which were all very ignorant of
20:09
dance and the reason why that is
20:11
surprising is that we danced from the
20:16
moment were born to the moment we die
20:18
everything we do is in a way structure
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to the way dance is structured is a
20:23
dynamic of interaction a conversation or
20:25
a relationship you know in the large and
20:27
the small the society is just a constant
20:31
distributed give-and-take and flow and
20:34
then of course there's also popular
20:36
dance that you know we dance at parties
20:38
and we dance and rituals and we also see
20:43
Fred Astaire movies and hip-hop dancing
20:47
and you know jazz dancing of all
20:50
different sorts in our MTV Music Video
20:52
dancing so there's one sense in which
20:54
what is more present in a totally
20:59
relevant but in another way
21:01
dance is a kind of category which we're
21:07
interested taking risks with or really
21:09
viewing as a as a domain for any kind of
21:13
radical experimentation either from an
21:16
artistic side or from a sort of
21:18
theoretical research side if something
21:21
as a culture we're really not interested
21:22
in but what that means is if you're a
21:24
deaths producer there's no way you can
21:27
get funding period unless you're
21:32
producing entertainment so usually that
21:34
means you have to have a lot of
21:35
athleticism a lot of beautiful bodies a
21:38
lot of sex or at least the information
21:40
is X you need to have entertainment and
21:43
you need to have like you were just
21:45
saying you know the realization of the
21:48
genius choreographers ideas on a stage
21:51
whereas in a way that's no longer at
21:54
least I've never to be honest I've never
21:57
liked traditional dance I should tell
22:00
them that I don't really like pretty
22:01
Theatre that much anyway and I don't
22:02
like that where you sitting this in a
22:04
chair and you can't move it if your
22:05
compliments to the performance that's
22:07
that's not a very vibrant space I think
22:10
for for our business we need we need
22:16
more as a member of the audience you
22:19
want more freedom you want you want to
22:21
move around you want we want to be to be
22:24
taken someplace and there's very little
22:28
owned in the United States in Europe
22:31
it's different in Europe but although
22:34
it's always again the funding does
22:36
always go to two harvests I mean there's
22:43
definitely a certain hierarchical foot
22:44
after there as well I mean I should say
22:46
I'm not really a sort of a programmatic
22:47
person I know I'm that person who wants
22:50
to start a movement and philosophers of
22:52
mind and kind of science should be
22:54
studying dance then we need to sort of
22:58
team up in this kind of literature but
23:00
the thing is great dance like all great
23:04
art is there is very um you can push
23:09
against it and if you push against it if
23:11
you throw ideas out of it and you you
23:15
can learn things yeah and for me
23:18
personally I think that there's great
23:24
opportunity now to try to engage with
23:30
the problem of dance but but again you
23:34
know I'm interested particularly dancers
23:35
I'm interested in business and I'm
23:37
interested in you a loser I'm not
23:39
interested in dance in general one of
23:41
the interesting things about film and
23:44
video is it frames where you're supposed
23:47
to look before you kind of solace that
23:48
choice problem I just saw bill
23:53
Foresight's
23:54
camera camera produced in Amsterdam and
23:56
this is a performance I won't describe
24:00
it in great detail except to say that
24:02
while the performances film is being
24:05
performed it's also being videoed and
24:08
videos and all in many times by the
24:11
dancers being projected on images that
24:14
are around the stage and around the
24:16
theatre so the audience has multiple
24:20
opportunities to look at films versions
24:22
of the performance or to look at as it
24:24
were the performance of course the
24:25
performance encompasses both we're
24:27
hoping the whole thing and indeed
24:29
ultimately the performance encompasses
24:31
the audience's decision-making process
24:35
about where to look and what to think
24:36
about there's a you find yourself going
24:40
through this process if you're in the
24:41
audience you just suddenly realize that
24:43
although there's a woman standing there
24:46
dancing right in front of you you've
24:48
actually been looking at the television
24:51
monitor of her standing right in front
24:53
of you instead of at her you're seduced
24:56
by a night that I think part of the
24:57
reason is that the video monitor solves
25:00
solves that choice problem for it allows
25:02
you to be a little bit more passive but
25:06
so that what you then see in this dance
25:08
and I I assume force I was interested in
25:11
this is that the dance is forcing you as
25:15
an audience member to start thinking
25:16
about this whole problem of of where you
25:19
look and what
25:20
pay attention to what you endogenously
25:23
where you direct your attention but also
25:25
how you experience having your attention
25:28
manipulated by the dancer by the art in
25:33
some ways dance the performing arts
25:35
indeed maybe this is true of all our is
25:37
the kind of engineering of attention and
25:41
here the audience I said that start off
25:44
thinking of a traditional performance
25:46
context you're sitting in the chair
25:47
there's the stage but in fact this
25:48
dynamic is of holds true for the for the
25:54
for the dancer no less
25:56
the improvising dancer or the dance are
25:58
working in a more rigidly Corey Brown
25:59
setting and by rigid I didn't mean to be
26:01
negative in a you know in a more or less
26:03
choreograph set here is also got to make
26:08
choices got to figure out what the cues
26:11
how to utter understand the cues how to
26:13
pay attention how to communicate the
26:16
answer then communication is is is in
26:18
play just I mean forgetting forgetting
26:21
these filaments film all of a sudden you
26:23
get an extension and expansion of the
26:27
space of action by the use of technology
26:30
a lot of the a lot of the performers are
26:34
behind partitions you can't actually see
26:36
you can only see them as video as
26:39
videoed as through a live sort of
26:41
closed-circuit thing which by the way is
26:45
also being manipulated by the tech guys
26:48
so that you get there's no sense in
26:51
which it's this straightforward your
26:53
liver in some what's going on on the
26:55
other space so you get here you know in
26:58
the traditional setting audience stage
27:00
you're getting this evolution of new
27:03
spaces that are being made available to
27:04
you perceptually through the use of
27:07
digital media
27:10
and that is of course the promise that
27:12
the not just the digital media but that
27:14
all do media present for us the media
27:18
well whether they're new are old
27:20
this is true of the written word as well
27:21
it opens up a world to you it gives you
27:24
access to something you didn't have
27:26
access to before in that sense it it
27:29
extends the visible by extending where
27:31
you are by extending where you are
27:34
located where what your body is a blind
27:37
person using a stick is embodied it is
27:42
include encompasses the state of 13 in
27:45
his or her being she can feel the
27:49
texture of the street with the end of
27:51
the stick even though there in her
27:52
nerves connecting and that's an old
27:55
example that even they can't talked
27:56
about him that merely party has talked
27:58
about but you see that with all the more
28:02
drama with with with video the internet
28:07
as well as virtual reality technologies
28:12
or were actually at an example that I
28:14
like is it's so simple there was a study
28:19
done by somebody I knew it at Berkeley
28:20
of the cellphone some text messaging
28:25
behavior of Japanese teenagers and turns
28:28
out that throughout the day Japanese
28:30
teaching teenagers are constantly
28:31
texting each other and so they did a
28:33
little analysis of the texts that they
28:36
were texting and turns out there was no
28:38
information in these texts whatsoever I
28:40
mean it was hey yo over here child you
28:46
that that was kind of please like that's
28:47
poking were to use the sort of you know
28:52
this a metaphor from Sabrina there's I'm
28:54
just pinging each other and impeding
28:56
each other they're setting up a space
28:58
which where there's now unified space
29:01
that they're all within you know what
29:03
proprioceptive perceptive yes and so
29:06
that you took his very life city and
29:07
sometimes kids will commute an hour on
29:10
the train
29:10
and yet and their friends might be
29:13
community in our the other direction in
29:15
the senior for our wide city and yet
29:18
they can be together and some real
29:21
authentic sense enough together through
29:24
that kind of extension of technologies
29:26
you know one of the things that as you
29:28
were just saying artists and dancers to
29:31
there they're constantly looking for
29:34
metaphors and models to kind of frame
29:36
what they're doing not because
29:38
ultimately they're starting from those
29:40
metaphors and models but because that
29:41
those this become tools that can
29:42
bootstrap and go to new places so you
29:44
have to find a lot of of artists dancers
29:48
reading things were not in sciences and
29:50
and one of the interesting hot areas of
29:53
science these days is the cognitive
29:54
sciences so there's a tremendous
29:55
interest on the part of dancers in in
29:58
what's going on in this field one of the
30:00
things which I'm very concerned about
30:01
though and I'm so glad to have this
30:04
opportunity to express this it's
30:07
actually a theme it's the theme of my
30:09
most recent book is how deeply
30:13
problematic the the still dominant
30:16
established paradigms are in the
30:18
cognitive sciences the the the most of
30:20
the work that's going on in what's
30:21
called cognitive neuroscience looking at
30:24
the neural basis of human experience and
30:26
cognition are fundamentally committed to
30:30
the idea that inside each one of us
30:34
there is something which thinks and
30:37
feels and wants and desires and acts and
30:39
what that thing happens to be it's not a
30:42
ghost it's not a spirit it's not
30:44
something magical it turns out its
30:46
material it's called your brain each of
30:48
us is a brain and you know associated
30:51
molecules the body is well the body is a
30:56
kind of tool that the brain uses the
30:58
environment that just happens to be what
31:00
we're told by our brain we're in but but
31:04
the world is outside the world is
31:06
unknown the body is
31:08
it's unknown all we are are our brains
31:11
and that's actually the standard you
31:14
know many scientists wouldn't exactly
31:16
endorse that but in fact many would
31:20
Francis Crick wrote a book called the
31:21
astonishing hypothesis and the
31:23
astonishing the so called supposedly
31:25
astonishing hypothesis is that you are
31:27
your brain your that's all you are and a
31:30
lot of the studies they do are oriented
31:33
towards finding out the places in the
31:34
brain where consciousness happens using
31:36
functional magnetic resonance imaging
31:38
well but consciousness doesn't happen in
31:41
your brain that would be like saying
31:43
looking for the place in the in Tricia
31:46
Browns brain where the dance happens
31:48
that it doesn't happen that the dance
31:51
happens in time in space distributed
31:55
across bodies and answered as soon as
31:59
our experience so I think it's important
32:01
for for dancers who want stimulation
32:05
from things going on the cognitive
32:07
sciences to pay attention to things that
32:12
are kind of heterodox that are letting
32:15
running a little bit against this this
32:17
still dominant Cartesian again dance
32:20
because of its socialness because it's
32:22
distributed is really a I think of dance
32:25
as a beautiful as I said at the
32:27
beginning a beautiful modeling an
32:31
illustration if you like a reenactment
32:33
of of the basic
32:39
situation that we are in as as embodied
32:43
socially and environmentally situated
32:46
dynamic beings what we feel what we see
32:51
what we hear where we are what our
32:56
limits are and whether what best of the
32:58
world begins are articulated dynamically
33:01
in life and in dance so part of what
33:04
makes dance fascinating as an art form I
33:06
think part of what makes it tantalizing
33:10
and mysterious is this fact that it is
33:13
in this kind of criminal way
33:16
recapitulating this basic fact about how
33:19
we live in what we are so I mean
33:21
something I didn't say earlier is that
33:23
you know I was very excited to be
33:25
meeting with these dancers in this
33:26
workshop with Lisa I was going to be
33:28
kind of presenting this discovery and
33:30
that in my research I have made about
33:32
the fundamentally embodied dynamic
33:36
character of human consciousness and
33:38
these dancers were like exactly as you
33:41
put it tell us something we don't know
33:46
that if there's anything that we already
33:49
knew that's something you already knew
33:51
although um so there was there was the
33:55
slight feeling of embarrassment on the
33:58
other hand um yeah
34:00
as were you said before there's
34:01
different ways of knowing