Holarchic HCI and Augmented Psychology ("AugPsy")
Suraj Sood
PsyArXiv April 20, 2021 preprint DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/cp7ke (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Qualitative |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that consciousness and experience lie on a spectrum, with awareness quantifiable as greater or lesser, and that experience serves as the basic unit of analysis for phenomenology. Proposes that immersion in something greater than the self can lead the self to emerge greater than before, connecting this to positive psychology's flow, and suggests optimal flow may only be quantifiable as infinitely enjoyable, enriching, engaging, or meaningful. |
Abstract
Consciousness enables experience, and each can be placed on a spectrum [1, 14]. Experience is more robust andmultidirectional, though the possibility exists for it to be bidirectional (particularly for the geometrician working along a line, but also generally when considering between two given options). Consciousness is synonymous informally with awareness. When one is conscious, they are aware, and vice versa. Awareness can be quantified in terms of being “greater” or “lesser”. For example, one may be more aware of certain aspects of experience than others given selective attention.Experience is the basic unit of analysis for phenomenology. While experience may be operationalized as qualia to address“what things are like” [20], the former may also be treated as a formal primitive. Phenomena are events as they appear to orpresent themselves for conscious perceivers. In ordinary use, experiences are assumed to be significant events or happenings.Phenomenal experience is qualitative. It is characterized as such by description through adjectives (e.g., “good” or “bad”).Experiences can be categorized into types, e.g. into the learning kind (as in the “learning experience”). If an experience is rich,then it has richness that may be qualified—described further in terms of what makes it so—or quantified. Growth may result from the victorious experience. This is so in battle-based role playing games (RPGs), where successfully defeating one’s opponent earns experience points that contribute to the possible level-up of one or more of the player’s team members (as in Pokémon and Fire Emblem, two of the most popular Japanese action-adventure RPG series).It is posited that the self, after being immersed in something greater than it, has potential to emerge greater than it was prior [2, 3]. Positive psychology recognizes such an immersed state as being one of flow or engagement. Subjective immersion [6] can be reported on to certain extents of meaningfulness and accuracy. Immersion can be qualified, e.g. via description of an activity’s meaning to the human actor, or perhaps quantified. Perhaps the optimal flow experience is only quantifiable as being infinitelyenjoyable, enriching, engaging, and/or meaningful, among other possible measures.