Session 3 - Phenomenology of perception - VR and body perception

In this session, we approached the perception of the body from two different angles: the phenomenological one and the empirical one.

Merleau-Ponty: Experience and objective thought, the problem of the body

In Phenomenology of Perception (p. 90-108) Merleau-Ponty addresses the special status of the body within the phenomenological paradigm.

VR and self-perception: Seeing your own body from another's perspective

Despite our own body being just another an object among many, we find it difficult to perceive it as such in normal circumstances with it being the center of our world. Even watching ourselves in film or photograph is not enough to get rid of this privileged perspective: what we are seeing is just a reproduction which does not clash with our self-perception in the present. However, by using VR it's possible to utterly disrupt this present self-perception through a body-swapping experience. Two people in a room take turns into observing each other from the other's perspective. Their body finally becomes an object in the present world that they may gaze upon, giving rise to a strange and powerful feeling. The people participating in the body-swapping experience reportedly came out of it with the sensation of knowing themselves and each other better; in one case, going through it even helped a couple overcome an issue concerning a woman's self-perception clashing with her partner's.