David Ekdahl | Aarhus University (original) (raw)

Papers by David Ekdahl

Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2024

The Enhanced Games, a privately funded sporting megaevent aspiring to rival the Olympic Games, ha... more The Enhanced Games, a privately funded sporting megaevent aspiring to rival the Olympic Games, have garnered significant media attention since its public inception in 2023. This attention has primarily been driven by the Enhanced Games' embrace of performance-enhancing drugs. Lost in the public fixation on the event's green-lit drug-use, however, is the fact that the Enhanced Games distance themselves from current Olympic standards in numerous ways beyond drug-policies alone. More precisely, the Enhanced Games promote themselves as a more economically and ecologically sustainable alternative to the Olympics, as well as a megaevent that aims to put athletes and their safety front-and-center. With an eye towards current Olympic standards, we suggest that closer examination of the Enhanced Games offers novel perspectives on the future of the Olympics and global sporting events more broadly.

Philosophical Explorations, 2024

Since the advent of the internet, researchers have been interested in the intersubjective possibi... more Since the advent of the internet, researchers have been interested in the intersubjective possibilities and constraints that digital environments offer users. In the literature, we find some who argue that seemingly disembodied digitally mediated interactions are severely limited when compared to their embodied face-to-face counterparts and others who are more optimistic about the possibilities that such technologies afford. Yet, both camps tend towards offering what we see as static accounts of online intersubjectivity – accounts that attempt to determine the very possibilities and constraints of digital platforms based upon their design. What we think these approaches fail to take into account is how users’ intersubjective capabilities on digital platforms can evolve and change over time. Developmental psychology emphasises the way in which intersubjective capabilities build upon and are interrelated to one another, allowing for more sophisticated styles of intersubjectivity to emerge only once earlier stages are already in place. We find this suggestive for analysing intersubjectivity online as it provides a framework for thinking about how various an individual’s intersubjective capabilities might develop. We argue that in some cases this can happen through gradual adjustments of our basic intersubjective capabilities to digital spaces, especially those that strive to mimic established forms of offline interaction (e.g., Zoom). In other cases, this can involve more substantial processes of learning to walk and talk again online. Consequently, determining the possibilities and limits of online intersubjectivity is, at least in part, relative to a user’s skill, history, and familiarity with the technology in question.

Philosophy and Technology, 2023

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2023

This review proceeds in three sections. First, I provide a brief summary of the book’s structure,... more This review proceeds in three sections. First, I provide a brief summary of the book’s structure, including the phenomenological framework developed in it, meant as a sort of lens for exploring virtual technologies. Second, I discuss the philosophical strength of some of the book’s central arguments in defence of the claim that virtual phenomena are not perceptions. Lastly, I appraise what might be called the book’s phenomenological methodology.

Disability & Society, 2023

The notion that autistic individuals suffer from empathy deficiencies continues to be a widesprea... more The notion that autistic individuals suffer from empathy deficiencies continues to be a widespread assumption, including in many areas of philosophy and cognitive science. In response to this, Damian Milton has proposed an interactional approach to empathy, namely the theory of the double empathy problem. According to this theory, empathy is fundamentally dependent on mutual reciprocity or salience rather than individual, cognitive faculties like theory of mind. However, the theory leaves open the question of what makes any salient interaction empathic in the first place. The aim of this paper is to integrate core tenets of the theory of the double empathy problem specifically with classical, phenomenological descriptions of empathy. Such an integration provides further conceptual refinement to the theory of the double empathy problem while recognizing its core tenets, but it also introduces important considerations of neurodiversity to classic, phenomenological descriptions of empathy.

Philosophy & Technology, 2023

Critics have argued that human-controlled avatar interactions fail to facilitate the kinds of exp... more Critics have argued that human-controlled avatar interactions fail to facilitate the kinds of expressivity and social understanding afforded by our physical bodies. We identify three claims meant to justify the supposed expressive limits of avatar interactions compared to our physical interactions. First, “The Limited Expressivity Claim”: avatars have a more limited expressive range than our physical bodies. Second, “The Inputted Expressivity Claim”: any expressive avatarial behaviour must be deliberately inputted by the user. Third, “The Decoding Claim”: users must infer or figure out the expressive meaning of human-controlled avatars’ behaviour through cognitively onerous processes. With the aim of critically assessing all three claims, we analyze data collected through observations of and interviews with expert players of the avatar-based video game League of Legends. Focusing on Daniel Stern’s
(2010) notion of vitality, we analyze the participants’ descriptions of seeing and interacting with other avatars during performance. Our analysis shows that the informants experience human-based avatarial interactions as qualitatively different than interactions with bots, that the informants see the movements of other players’ avatars as having different expressive styles, and that the informants actively use and manipulate this avatarial expressivity during performance. The results of our analysis, we argue, provide reasons for loosening or resisting the three claims concerning the limits of avatarial expressivity.

Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2022

This article strives to make novel headway in the debate concerning esports' relationship to spor... more This article strives to make novel headway in the debate concerning esports' relationship to sports by focusing on the relationship between esports and physicality. More precisely, the aim of this article is to critically assess the claim that esports fails to be sports because it is never properly "direct" or "immediate" compared to physical sports. To do so, I focus on the account of physicality presented by Jason Holt, who provides a theoretical framework meant to justify the claim that esports is never properly immediate and therefore never sports. I begin by motivating Holt's account of physicality by contrasting it with a more classical way of discussing physicality and sports, namely in terms of physical motor skills. Afterwards, I introduce Holt's account of physicality as immediacy and engage with its assumptions more thoroughly to problematize the claim that esports is fundamentally indirect. Lastly, I argue that the assumption that esports necessarily lacks immediacy is based on a narrow understanding of body and, consequently, of space. In response, I offer a different way of thinking about body and space, focusing on the subjective, bodily engagement of the esports practitioners with their practice, whereby physical space and virtual space can be appreciated as immediately interconnected during performance in a hybrid manner. In providing such an account, the article contributes directly to the broader, growing discussion on the relationship between physicality and virtuality in an increasingly digital world.

Journal of Conciousness Studies, 2021

Screen-based virtual worlds have been described as fundamentally disembodying. Contrary to this, ... more Screen-based virtual worlds have been described as fundamentally disembodying. Contrary to this, the aim of this article is to provide a phenomenological analysis of bodily presence in one case of screen-based virtuality. By integrating phenomenology with qualitative research methodologies, I explore esports practitioners’ experiences of bodily presence in League of Legends (LoL). Here, descriptions from real-life esports practitioners are analyzed within the phenomenological framework of ‘incorporation’. My analysis shows that the practitioners’ experience and engage with their virtual world not just by incorporating their physical gaming equipment, but also through incorporation of virtual abilities and tools specific to the game world. Having shown that the LoL practitioner’s body spans both physical and virtual space without leaving the body behind, I situate these results within the discussion of virtual presence in video games. I claim that the practitioners’ sense of presence can be accounted for by situating the integrated physical and virtual tools and abilities within the phenomenological framework of the ‘nullpoint’, understood as a bodily field of activity shaped by our incorporated skills and tools.

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2021

As screen-based virtual worlds have gradually begun facilitating more and more of our social inte... more As screen-based virtual worlds have gradually begun facilitating more and more of our social interactions, some researchers have argued that the virtual worlds of these interactions do not allow for embodied social understanding. The aim of this article is to examine exactly the possibility of this by looking to esports practitioners’ experiences of interacting with each other during performance. By engaging in an integration of qualitative research methodologies and phenomenology, we investigate the actual first-person experiences of interaction in the virtual worlds of the popular team-based esports practices Counter Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends. Our analysis discloses how the practitioners’ interactions essentially depend on intercorporeality – understood as a form of reciprocity of bodily intentionality between the players. This is an intercorporeality that is present throughout the players’ performance, but which especially comes to the front when they engage in feinting. Acknowledging the intercorporeality integral to at least some esports practices helps fuzzying the sharp division between virtuality and embodied social understanding. Doing so highlights the fluidity of our embodied condition, and it raises interesting questions concerning the possibility of yet other forms of embodied sociality in a wider range of virtual formats in the world.

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 2019

eSports practice designates a unique set of activities tethered to competitive, virtual environme... more eSports practice designates a unique set of activities tethered to competitive, virtual environments or worlds. This correlation between eSports practitioner and virtual world, we argue, is inadequately accounted for solely in terms of something physical or intellectual. Instead, we favor a perspective on eSports practice to be analyzed as a perceptual and embodied phenomenon. In this article, we present the phenomenological approach and focus on the embodied sensations of eSports practitioners as they cope with and perceive within their virtual worlds. By approaching eSports phenomenologically, we uncover ways in which its unique forms of virtual involvement overlap with as well as differentiate themselves from traditional structures of embodiment.

TIDskrift, 2015

In this article, I set out to explore Merleau-Ponty's view of our senses and their interconnectio... more In this article, I set out to explore Merleau-Ponty's view of our senses and their interconnection with perceptual phenomena. In the spirit of Merleau-Ponty, I draw on contemporary empirical research exploring synesthesia and its importance for understanding non-synesthetic perception. Combining points from Merleau-Ponty with research from the last twenty years of synesthesia-research, which, sadly, has gone by relatively unnoticed by philosophers interested in the problem of perception, I attempt to show how a modular view of mind distorts the nature of perception. I further reject the idea that a perceived object is an empty intellectual substance or bearer of qualities, but I also reject the idea that the qualities in themselves are what truly matters in a perceived object. Instead, I advocate a more dynamic and holistic view, where the qualities of the percept entwine and saturate each other just as our senses always communicate and influence each other. This is a view where modular interpretations of our senses and perceptual qualities are viewed as perverting the primordial nature of perception itself since they overlook the dynamic way in which the living, embodied subject and perceived object are correlated. Holism in perception: Merleau-Ponty on senses and objects Object-perception is an arduous business. How do we account for perceptual constancy; the unified identity of a perceived object over time? How do we pick out one visual object amongst a whole array of visual

Thesis Chapters by David Ekdahl

Organized competitive video gaming or ‘esports’ has undergone immense growth over the past ten ye... more Organized competitive video gaming or ‘esports’ has undergone immense growth over the past ten years, into a billion-dollar industry as of 2020. Following this trend, a broad scope of research has increasingly been directed at the phenomenon as a set of novel and unique competitive, spectator platforms. Yet, little research on what kind of embodied involvement esports practice can afford has so far been conducted with actual esports practitioners. This thesis is a phenomenological interview study of esports practice, exploring and analyzing the different forms of embodied involvement esports practitioners experience during performance – primarily in the games League of Legends and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. The findings of the thesis are based on four articles that either emphasize the need for phenomenological analysis of esports practice or provide such analyses. The thesis proceeds in five parts. Outside of the overall introduction which makes up Part I, the thesis begins in Part II by providing an overview of esports practice and state-of-the-art research on esports, before engaging directly with the contemporary debate on esports’ relationship to the world of sports. Based on confusions and ambiguities in this debate, I emphasize the need for a clearer understanding of esports practice as embodied. The thesis then introduces a set of phenomenological assumptions as its epistemological roots. These phenomenological assumptions are introduced as elements that can facilitate a more direct engagement with the embodied experiences of esports practitioners. Following this, in Part III, the thesis engages in a critical methodological discussion on how to phenomenologically study the experiences of other subjects and how the interviewed informants’ descriptions can be used to expand and challenge our understanding of esports and virtual embodiment. Methodologically, these phenomenological analyses are conducted based on data generated through semi-structured, qualitative interviews with twelve talented, Danish esports practitioners. In this context, I provide a point-by-point introduction to the method. Then, in Part IV,
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the two esports games are introduced, before the phenomenological analyses of esports practice are presented and discussed. The results of these analyses show the central importance of three distinct dimensions of embodiment for the esports practitioners. These are, first, basic embodiment: The practitioners experience their virtual worlds in fundamentally embodied and practical ways. Second, incorporation: The practitioners come to integrate both the physical and the virtual tools and abilities available to them during performance into their body. Third, intercorporeality: The practitioners come to experience their own avatars and other players’ avatars reciprocally in terms of bodily intentionality. These final results are then, in Part V, critically assessed before being brought into broader perspectival considerations.