Limits of Formalization. Which Aspects of Human Experience Can Enter AI Models? Marianne Broeker

Computational psychiatry is a quickly evolving discipline that aims to understand psychopathology in terms of algorithmic processes. While cognitive phenomena, especially beliefs or ways of “reasoning”, can more easily be formalized, meaning re-described in mathematical terms and then entered computational models, there is speculation as to whether phenomenology might be formalizable too. Here, we explore the possibility of formalizing and modeling a phenomenological account of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, using concepts from phenomenology, such as of “minimal self” and “intentionality”. We then try to apply the concepts to a computational logic, to test whether an AI can "possess" them. Overall, we are asking via what conditions phenomenology can enter a computational logic.

Marianne D. Broeker is a 3rd year PhD student at the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. Her research looks at changes in conscious in psychosis and takes place at the intersection of clinical psychology and philosophy. However, she is also very interested and in the philosophy of psychiatry and social sciences related to psychiatry, as well as political activism. She has written about and critiqued computational approaches to understanding psychiatric categories and other complex psychological phenomena. Next to her academic work, she works as a existential-analytic psychotherapist in a practice in London.

Recent publications:

Broeker M.D., Broome, M.: Delusions in Psychosis. E. Sullivan-Bissett, (ed.) (2024). Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Delusion. Routledge.

Marianne D. Broeker & Sarah Arnaud (25 Sep 2024): Countering essentialism in psychiatric narratives, Philosophical Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2024.2407502

Broeker, M. D., & Broome, M. R. (2024). “Minimal self” locked into a model: exploring the prospect of formalizing intentionality in schizophrenia. Philosophical Psychology, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2024...