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G. Riva, M.T. Anguera, B.K. Wiederhold and F. Mantovani (Eds.)
From Communication to Presence: Cognition, Emotions and Culture towards the
Ultimate Communicative Experience. Festschrift in honor of Luigi Anolli
IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2006, (c) All rights reserved - http://www.emergingcommunication.com
coordinated since the child can do such things as reverse roles and help the adult in
her role if needed - both necessary for engaging in joint actions embodying joint
intentions [111].
Finally, the role of shared social presence (the self and the other share the same
intention) is to identify “others that are like the self”, sharing intentions and emotions
(intentional attunement). The more the self is able to identify intentional attunement
in other selves, the more it is the possibility of successfully conducting an interaction,
thus increasing its probability of surviving.
3.5.4 From Presence and Social Presence to Communication
Till now we considered presence and social presence separately. However, they
converge and interact within the social and cooperative activities. In particular, is
through their interaction that the self improves his intentional action and interaction:
the higher is the level of presence and social presence experienced by the self, the
higher is the complexity of the expressed and recognized intentions.
In naked intentionality the structure of the intention includes action and goal only.
When the self experiences full presence and social presence he is able to express and
recognize complex intentions including subject, action, goal, way of doing and
motive.
According to Bratman [112] joint cooperative activities have three critical features
that distinguish them from social interaction in general: (1) the interactants are
mutually responsive to one another, (2) there is a shared goal in the sense that each
participant has the goal that we (in mutual knowledge) do X together, and (3) the
participants coordinate their plans of action and intentions some way down the
hierarchy - which requires that both participants understand both roles of the
interaction (role reversal) and so can at least potentially help the other with his role if
needed.
To achieve it, the self need to separate himself from the other (proto presence), to
differentiate between his action and his planned action (core presence), to recognize
the communicative intention of the other (proto social presence), to share with him
the intentional focus (joint social presence), to identify intentional attunement (shared
social presence) and to evaluate it as significant for himself (extended presence).
In this way the social and communicative exchange is created and governed by a
reciprocal intentional game between the communicators regulated by the level of
presence and social presence experienced by the interactants [92, 113]: the display
and ostension of a given intention by the speaker ("intentionalization" process) and
the ascription and attribution of a certain intention to him/her by the addressee ("re-
intentionalization" process).
For instance, when self perceives a reduction in the extended presence - e.g. the
communication is no more interesting - he can activate a new behavior - e.g. asking
for a new question - to improve it. At the same way, the self can use his perception of
other’s intentions to tune the communication. A similar mechanism is probably
behind the imitation process: without an elevated level of presence and social
presence the infant does not imitate.
The interaction between the lowest levels of presence and social presence also
allows the identification of the enemy/stranger: the other who is not a self [114].
According to Karl Schmitt the specific political distinction to which political actions
and motives can be reduced is the one between friend (amicus) and enemy (hostis). In