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I have identified that the screen, as a window not as a projection, has its own virtual-horizonal structure that is important to the phenomenon of virtualization.
With virtual horizons established, I want to turn my attention to another physical component of computers: the interface. Phones and tablets have touch screens, laptops and desktops have keyboards and mice/trackpads. These interfaces, again, seem to be an obvious aspect of accessing virtualization. However, again I realized that what is now obvious is the primary contributing factor to how we interact with virtualization every day. How we act on the potential represented to us by virtual horizons. Screens allow us to perceive virtuality, interfaces allow us to interact virtually with what we perceive.
The initial issue I see is where the physical computer interface (touchscreen, keyboard, mouse/trackpad) stands between the human as an embodied being, the screen as the virtual-horizonal window, and the virtualized world. As the body perceives virtual horizons, and turns away from itself to understand those horizons, how does it maintain interaction with a physical interface guiding those actions?
The interface is equivalent to a tool: the use of an object by a person. Philosophers have long thought about the use of tools by humans to accomplish tasks. Aristotle has a famous quote from his Physics, where he says “the stick moves the stone and is moved by the hand, which again is moved by the man,” implying a causal chain going human to hand to stick to stone. Within the human must be some force that moves them, or else we are left with an “unmoved mover,” an entirely unhelpful concept. Therefore, something moves the man, and so on.
In contrast to Aristotle’s is Merleau-Ponty’s picture. Merleau-Ponty argues that, say in the case of a blind person using a cane, the blind person does not move the cane which then ‘moves’ or ‘touches’ the world. Instead the cane “has become an instrument with which [they] perceive. It is an appendage of the body, or an extension of the bodily synthesis.” It would be more accurate to say then, that the blind person does not use a cane to act upon the world, but sees the world with the cane. Merleau-Ponty makes the analogy between the “analysis of motor habit as an extension of existence” into “an analysis of perceptual habit as an acquisition of the world.” That is to say, using an object such as a cane is more analogous to using our eyes than it is to Aristotle’s explanation. “Every perceptual habit,” Merleau-Ponty says, “is still a motor habit,” meaning “again the grasping of signification is accomplished by the body.” Using objects and using our eyes both allow us to grasp “signification[s],” aiding our understanding of our lived world.
Our everyday experience confirms this fact. I do not sweep a broom – I sweep the floor with a broom. If I know how to play tennis, I do not play tennis by acting upon a racket – I play tennis with a racket. I write with a pen. Objects, once we become adjusted to the “habit” of using them, take on a property of allowing us to “acquire” the world with them, just as we perceive with our eyes. As embodied beings, motor action is another part of our complete “body schema,” where the body stands as the subject of all perception.
Then the question is, how do computer interfaces compare with other types of motor habits? We certainly become adjusted to using computer interfaces – we learn to type, we learn how to use a trackpad or a mouse, or how to best use a touchscreen. But what are we “acquiring” by using a computer? What significations does a computer interface allow me to grasp?
I just pointed out how screens, and virtualization, do not have the same horizonal structure as the physical world. Does that mean that the motor habits acquired for using computers (therefore interacting on screens and with virtualization) utilize that virtual-horizonal structure? If the answer is yes, does that mean that these motor habits are comparable to the motor habits that Merleau-Ponty observes? Are they analogous to perception because they use the same physical spatial horizonal structure?
I believe our interactions with computers align with our perception of screens, and not with Merleau-Ponty’s model. We do not interact with spatial horizons, we interact with virtual ones. We still acquire these habits, and that acquisition allows for further grasping of significations. But what we grasp is virtual – it exists within the virtual world and not within the physical world where the interface exists. As with our perception of screens, the embodied nature of interaction falls away – there is no body interacting with virtual-horizons, only direct motor habits. These motor habits are not analogous to physical perception at all, nor for that matter are they analogous with other standard motor habits that have been discussed. Both standard motor habits and physical perception deal in physical, and spatial horizons. When we type or move a mouse or touch a screen we interact with the significations being presented on the screen, we turn our back to the physical world by engaging in virtual-horizons and not physical-horizons, by not utilizing the entire “body schema” as the subject of perception but relying only on our eyes and our hands.
I would never say that I type with a computer – I type on a computer. I click on things, I tap on things, I act upon the device and not with it. I go on the computer. I am on my phone. To answer my question posed before, the interface acts as the support which bridges my physicality and embodiment with the virtual-horizonal structure of virtuality, again leaving the body behind. The interface stands between the body and the virtual world, but lies securely within the virtual. The interface leaves my body as an action upon the device, not in a partnership with the object to explore the world.