The Intentional Basis of Presence

Presence is the experience of being somewhere arising from the interplay of technological, psychological and bodily factors. Experiences, generally – though there are exceptionsTPPT, are a consequence of interactions with things and events in the world. Thus to experience is to experience something. Ordinarily these somethings are objects and events in the world but in presence research these are presented by way of technology. Either way, to understand an experience is to understand both the psychological and bodily states of the experiencer and the objects and events which give rise to the experience. Most, if not all, of these psychological and bodily factors are intentional. Intentionality refers to the about-ness or directed-ness of these states rather than the sense of being deliberate. The experience of presence is intentional. However, intentionality is better thought of as an arc connecting us with the world and consequentially giving rise to a range of experiences including the sense of presence. In order to understand this we must include both the embodied, psychological being at one end of the arc and the things, events and people at the other end. It is proposed that this external aspect of presence can be thought of as a meshwork of affordances. Thus the sense of presence is the product of an intentionality-affordance dynamic. Keywords--intentionality, affordance, experience.