‘Is it possible to learn how to see the softness of wood shavings?’

Current research into embodied metaphor appreciation by AI provides two dimensional outputs based on two-dimensional, unfiltered data input, algorithmic comparisons between myriad text and image. Such pathways of vokenization may lead to an understanding of what a relationship is but it could never relate and will always fall short.

The presentation understands embodiment as situated, with knowledge intrinsically experienced through the physical contexts we act in connecting our embodied engagement within our spatial and cultural surroundings to language.

Providing an understanding of how human beings develop multi modal concepts to express our existence, through a fictional narrative, we propose that similar opportunities have been denied AI, and that the true benefits of any language only come through creative freedom and conversation.

Conceptual thinking is not binary but experiential and multimodal, and this presentation asks, in a continuation of Merleau-Ponty’s discussions on embodiment, ‘Is it possible to learn how to see the softness of wood shavings?’