Space, Perception, Action

Abstract

This paper focuses on the concept of action and on the reversal of the process of perception-action operated by the phenomenological tradition (Merleau-Ponty), which has been confirmed in more or less recent neuroscientific evidences (Berthoz, Decety, Jeannerod). The text presents a quick historical overview on the concepts of space, perception, action, introducing the concept of Umwelt. The umwelt is, a dynamic, interactive concept that defines the relations between the physical world and living organisms, and constitutes the basis and the assumption of intersubjectivity. The subject builds up his world in accordance with his basic necessities and his tools of action. The chapter introduces the perspective of Alain Berthoz, who proposes a vision in which the subject navigates in his own umwelt led by a series of simplifying principles that optimize the process of perception - action and minimize the need for computation. This is coherent with the vision of Gell-Mann, according to whom an adaptive complex system (such as, for example, a living being) receives a data stream, and identifies the perceived regularity in the data stream, compresses their description in a schema, and then uses this schema for the description, the prediction or the action. According to this idea, the body in action resolves complexity in a process of perception-action which is reversed with respect to the cognitivist paradigm: “what happens in perception can be understood in terms of action”.