Friday, September 21, 2018
Kendo and Karate Kata (Forms) as Self Seeing Robots
You practice the forms. Eventually they come naturally. Miyanaga claims that there is an intermediate or parallel ability to visualise the forms in her paper on robots.
The paper in English comments on the similarity between form mastering Japanese, and form mastering robots
Miyanaga, K. (1985). POPULARITY OF ROBOTS IN JAPAN── Tradition in Modernization──. 国際基督教大学学報. II-B, 社会科学ジャーナル, 24(1), 111-123.
icu.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=366...
However in section 4, entitled "Image and Action," of her paper in Japanese Miyanaga (1987) explains how it is an ability to generate an integrate *image* of ones behaviour, through the practice of forms, that enables Japanese humans (but perhaps* not robots) to move from doing things by rote to doing things freely and naturally.
宮永國子. (1987). 日本のロボットと土着文化 (「ロボット・人間」). 社会心理学研究, 2(2), 7-13.
www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jssp/2/2/2_KJ00003724946/_pd...
This Miyanaga's assertion is at the centre of my understanding of Japanese culture and therefore the best Nihonjinron (other than my own!) that I know.
* There is work to create robots with autoscopy
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326998491_The_Synthetic_Psychology_of_the_Self
Cyberdyne?
Labels: autoscopy, japanese culture, martial art, Nacalian, nacalianism, nihonbunka
This blog represents the opinions of the author, Timothy Takemoto, and not the opinions of his employer.