‘Experience’

I found this weeks course material to be particularly interesting as it focused on the notion of the ‘extended mind,’ or ‘consciousness.’ To start, I found that the video of Alan Kay teaching tennis fascinating and it seemed to sum up the notion of experience quite well.

 

Alva Noe spoke of consciousness and movement in his video, ‘dance as a way of knowing. I interpreted his theory as, without movement we would not understand or be conscious or aware. Alva Noe explains, “experience is something we do, that we achieve actively.” If we move back to Kay’s video on tennis it is interesting first of to hear this idea that, “anyone is able to learn how to have a decent game of tennis in under half an hour.” The immediate response that I had was that this is a ridiculous notion, simply because everyone is different and a large percentage of people would not have the co-ordination, movement or understanding to play the game in that short amount of time. What was interesting about the lesson though was the focus Kay had on movement and contact. Rather than analysing the specific actions in the game the instructor just asked the woman who was selected to watch the ball and say “bounce” when the ball hit the ground and “hit” when she thinks she would make contact with racquet and ball. The same went for her serve, Kay making her sing “da-da-dum” to the motion of a serve. Whilst her first few attempts were fairly basic, after a while you began to see the theory working the action of swinging at the ball being controlled by the body rather than the brain.

Looking at Dalton S’ video ‘E Sense,’ we begin to see a connection between all three readings thus far, in the sense that all theorists had a strong idea about the nature of movement and experience. The video documents a new technology aimed at those who are visually impaired. The invention acts as a sensory guide, using pads wrapped around the stomach and waist, vibrations on different areas of the device providing a spacial guide to where objects may be in relation to the participant. This means when a ball is rolled towards the person using the device vibrations are able to guide them towards where the ball is.

Ultimately these theorists highlight the importance of the relationship between movement and the human consciousness, illuminating the idea that our experience is reliant on a combination of these two elements.