Seeing Isn't Believing: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, AI, and the Limits of Vision
The Lived Body and the Illusion of Objective Seeing
Can a machine truly see the world as we do? While Artificial Intelligence achieves incredible feats in image recognition, does it replicate the richness of human perception? Join us as we explore this profound question through the lens of 20th-century philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and his revolutionary ideas about embodied perception.
In this episode, we delve into Merleau-Ponty's concept of the 'lived body' (le corps vécu) – the idea that we don't just have bodies, we are our bodies, and this shapes everything we perceive. For Merleau-Ponty, our perception is not a passive reception of sensory data. Instead, it’s an active, embodied engagement with the world. Our experience of color, form, and depth are intrinsically linked to our physical presence and our history of interaction with the environment.
AI's Pattern Recognition vs. Human Embodied Perception
We'll contrast this with how AI like Google's SpeciesNet processes visual information, highlighting the crucial differences. AI, however sophisticated, operates on algorithms and data. It identifies patterns based on pre-defined parameters. Consider a system trained to identify cats. It might learn to recognize certain features: pointed ears, specific eye shapes, etc. However, this recognition remains fundamentally different from the embodied experience of seeing a cat, feeling its fur, hearing its purr, and understanding its behavior within the context of a lived environment.
Discover why phenomena like adversarial attacks fool AI but not humans, and why autonomous vehicles struggle with real-world nuance. AI can be easily tricked by cleverly crafted images designed to exploit its algorithmic vulnerabilities. Humans, however, with our embodied understanding of context and intention, are far less susceptible to such deception.
Intercorporeality and the Flesh of the World: Shared Reality and Disembodied AI
We'll explore Merleau-Ponty's further concepts of 'intercorporeality' (how our perception is shaped by others) and the 'flesh of the world,' questioning if a disembodied AI can ever truly participate in the shared reality that grounds human seeing. For Merleau-Ponty, our perception is always influenced by our interactions with others, our shared cultural understanding, and our understanding of the physical world. This shared understanding is not something that can be simply programmed.
The concepts of 'intercorporeality' and the 'flesh of the world' suggest that our understanding of the world is intertwined with our physical being and our relationships with others. The video linked below further explores this perspective.
Consider watching:
The Future of Vision and Intelligence
This isn't just about technology; it's about understanding the very nature of consciousness, reality, and what it means to be human.
Are we building truly seeing machines, or just incredibly sophisticated pattern recognizers? What does philosophy teach us about the future of AI and our own unique place in the world?
Seeing, for Merleau-Ponty, is not a passive process. It is an active, embodied engagement with the world that AI, in its current form, struggles to replicate.
“The world is not what I think, but what I live.” – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Watch now to challenge your understanding of vision and intelligence.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! What aspects of your lived experience shape your perception? Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell icon for more deep dives!