Mereotopology and Computational Representations of the Body

Mereotopology is a philosophically motivated approach to space originating in the work of A. N. Whitehead. Instead of taking space to be constructed from infinitesimally small points, mereotopology starts with regions which can experienced by humans. The most common computational models of space, in particular coordinate geometry, are however essentially based on points, which raises the question of their suitability for computational representations of the phenomenological body or for computational representations of experiential space. An alternative to these models is the computational representation of mereotopology, known as Qualitative Spatial Representation (QSR). This essay considers whether QSR could be used to provide a computational representation of the body which is closer to the body as experienced rather than the body as an object of scientific observation. A review of the origins of mereotopology is provided together with an explanation of the need to distinguish it from topology in its usual mathematical sense of point-set topology. The computational counterpart of mereotopology is introduced in the form of the Region-Connection Calculus. This contrasts with the ‘mereotopological lens’ used by Stamatia Portanova in her analysis of `virtual choreographic objects’. The question of how computation and some form of mereotopological lens might combine to represent the body is explored using ideas from the qualitative treatment of time as well as space. Iris Young described how, in the context of female experience, the lived-body leaves evidence of subjective experience through the way it moves in the world. This raises the possibility of using QSR to represent this experience and the essay concludes with the possibility of combining qualitative and quantitative computation to explore this.