May 29, 2003
The Meaning of Presence
Terminological and other confusions about what comprises presence, and what does not, have impeded progress in the field. In this speculative short paper we suggest that presence has a biological purpose and that a consideration of this purpose may provide a way forward. We see presence as the feeling a conscious organism experiences when immersed in a concrete external world. This feeling must be distinguishable from engagement in internally constructed mental worlds, in organisms equipped to construct such inner realities. Presence depends on the form of the media, because form determines whether a world must be constructed internally or can be said to exist outside the perceiver. From this claim, we speculate on possible future ways of applying presence in psychotherapy and the arts. In viewing presence this way we are adopting an experiential realist position, one that sees meaning as residing ultimately in concrete experiences of external worlds, real or virtual – in other words, in presence.
by Prof. John A WaterWorth on Presence-Connect
Posted by sfisher at May 29, 2003 09:45 PM
