The paper encircles the subjectivity of drug taking as one form of contemporary practice in which fundamental theoretical issues are dealt with. In particular, following Mariana Valverde's genealogy of alcohol regulation (Valverde, 1998), the question of the free will, and the paradox of the simultaneous being and non-being of the autonomous subject, are viewed as present in various approaches to drugs. The current neo-pragmatist wave substitutes low-key practical notions of habits for a dichotomy of free will or determinism. The concept (...) of objectification promises to overcome that dichotomy by externalizing it; in terms of this concept, we can distinguish the abstract-imagined 'fix' from a genuinely transforming realization, and suggest that ours is the age of the fix, of instrumental commodities that change us in ways we do not intend. But, it is claimed, an inescapable issue of the self-dissolution of the subject remains; perhaps in the definitive shape of a suicide, or in the minor shapes of fixes such as a tactics of feigned surrender, New Age Higher Powers, or imagined communities. Determined to realize the idea of a benevolent surrender of the subject, the paper ends in an attempt to contribute to the coming to an understanding of herself and with herself of a person who finds herself at the troublesome intersection of Narcotics Anonymous and a social work development network of Copenhagen City called Wild Learning. (shrink)

This dissertation defends the reliability of first-person methods for studying consciousness, and applies first-person experiments to two philosophical problems: the experience of size and of the self. In chapter 1, I discuss the motivations for taking a first-person approach to consciousness, the background assumptions of the dissertation and some methodological preliminaries. In chapter 2, I address the claim that phenomenal judgements are far less reliable than perceptual judgements (Schwitzgebel, 2011). I argue that the main errors and limitations in making phenomenal (...) judgements are due to domain-general factors, which are shared in the formation of perceptual judgements. Phenomenal judgements may still be statistically less reliable than perceptual judgements, though I provide reasons for thinking that Schwitzgebel (2011) overstates the case for statistical unreliability. I also provide criteria for distinguishing between reliable and unreliable phenomenal judgements, hence defending phenomenal judgements against general introspective scepticism. Having identified the main errors in making phenomenal judgements, in chapter 3, I discuss how first-person experiments can be used to control for these errors. I provide examples, and discuss how they overcome attentional and conceptual errors, minimise biases, and exhibit high intersubjective reliability. In chapter 4, I investigate size experience. I use first-person experiments and empirical findings to argue that distant things looking smaller cannot be explained as an awareness of instantiated objective properties (visual angle or retinal image size). I also discuss how an awareness of uninstantiated objective properties cannot adequately account for the phenomenal character of size experience. This provides support for a subjectivist account of variance in size experience. In chapter 5, I investigate the sense of self. I distinguish between a weak sense of self (for-me-ness) and a strong sense of self in which there is a polarity between subject and object. I use first-person experiments from Douglas Harding to demonstrate an explicit strong sense of self, specifically when I point at where others see my face. I also argue that this sense of self is not explained by inference, thoughts, feelings, imagination nor the viewpoint. Rather, it is part of the structure of experience that I seem to be looking from here. Even if there is a sense of self, there may be no self. The question of chapter 6 is whether there can be a direct experience of the self. I argue that to function as a bearer of experience the subject must be single and lack sensory qualities in itself. I use Harding’s first-person experiments to investigate the visual gap where I cannot see my head. I argue that it conforms to the above criteria, and hence is a candidate for being the subject. This finding, in conjunction with the fact that I seem to be looking from the same location, provides prima facie evidence for the reality of the subject. I hold then that contrary to Hume and most philosophers since, that there can be a direct self-experience, if one knows which direction to attend. (shrink)

This thesis introduces the Problem of Consciousness as an antinomy between Physicalism and Primitivism about the phenomenal. I argue that Primitivism is implausible, but is supported by two conceptual gaps. The ‘–tivity gap’ holds that physical states are objective and phenomenal states are subjective, and that there is no entailment from the objective to the subjective. The ‘–trinsicality gap’ holds that physical properties are extrinsic and phenomenal qualities are intrinsic, and that there is no entailment from the extrinsic to the (...) intrinsic. Stoljar’s Epistemic View (EV) suggests that we have a limited conception of the physical world, and that the apparent inexplicability of consciousness is merely a symptom of our ignorance. I argue that EV must satisfy two conditions which require it to specify the content of our ignorance. EV’s best hope is a Russellian appeal to our ignorance of intrinsic physical properties. After arguing in favour of this ignorance claim, I show how it undermines the –trinsicality gap. However, I suggest that the –tivity gap cannot be dealt with by the Russellian ignorance hypothesis, nor by any other version of EV. However, I then argue that the Russellian ignorance hypothesis can still be deployed as half of a hybrid account of the phenomenal. Representationalist theories of consciousness have difficulty with the –trinsicality gap, but show promise with the –tivity gap. Specifically, Kriegel’s Self-Representationalism indicates that there can indeed be an entailment from objective physical states to subjective phenomenal states. This paves the way for my hybrid account of consciousness: the subjectivity of a phenomenal state is the product of its self-representational structure, and the qualitative character of a phenomenal state is the product of the epistemically inaccessible intrinsic physical properties involved in its implementation. (shrink)

■ Evidence from functional neuroimaging studies on resting state suggests that there are two distinct anticorrelated cortical systems that mediate conscious awareness: an “extrinsic” system that encompasses lateral fronto-parietal areas and has been linked with processes of external input (external awareness), and an “intrinsic” system which encompasses mainly medial brain areas and..

Language is a rewarding field if you are in the prediction business. A reader who is fluent in English and who knows how academic papers are typically structured will readily come up with several possible guesses as to where the title of this section could have gone, had it not been cut short by the ellipsis. Indeed, in the more natural setting of spoken language, anticipatory processing is a must: performance of machine systems for speech interpretation depends critically on the (...) availability of a good predictive model of how utterances unfold in time (Baker, 1975; Jelinek, 1990; Goodman, 2001), and there is strong evidence that prospective uncertainty affects human sentence processing too (Jurafsky, 2003; Hale, 2006; Levy, 2008). The human ability to predict where the current utterance is likely to be going is just another adaptation to the general pressure to anticipate the future (Hume, 1748; Dewey, 1910; Craik, 1943), be it in perception, thinking, or action, which is exerted on all cognitive systems by evolution (Dennett, 2003). Look-ahead in language is, however, special in one key respect: language is a medium for communication, and in communication the most interesting (that is, informative) parts of the utterance that the speaker is working through are those that cannot be predicted by the listener ahead of time. (shrink)

The mechanism by which humans perceive others differs greatly from how humans perceive inanimate objects. Unlike inanimate objects, humans have the distinct property of being “like me” in the eyes of the observer. This allows us to use the same systems that process knowledge about self-performed actions, self-conceived thoughts, and self-experienced emotions to understand actions, thoughts, and emotions in others. The authors propose that internal simulation mechanisms, such as the mirror neuron system, are necessary for normal development of recognition, imitation, (...) theory of mind, empathy, and language. Additionally, the authors suggest that dysfunctional simulation mechanisms may underlie the social and communicative deficits seen in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. (shrink)

This paper discusses essential motivational representations necessary for a comprehensive computational cognitive architecture. It hypothesizes the need for implicit drive representations, as well as explicit goal representations. Drive representations consist of primary drives — both low-level primary drives (concerned mostly with basic physiological needs) and high-level primary drives (concerned more with social needs), as well as derived (secondary) drives. On the basis of drives, explicit goals may be generated on the fly during an agent’s interaction with various situations. These motivational (...) representations help to make cognitive architectural models more comprehensive and provide deeper explanations of psychological processes. This work represents a step forward in making computational cognitive architectures better reflections of the human mind and all its motivational complexity and intricacy. (shrink)

Neuropsychological research on the neural basis of behaviour generally posits that brain mechanisms will ultimately suffice to explain all psychologically described phenomena. This assumption stems from the idea that the brain is made up entirely of material particles and fields, and that all causal mechanisms relevant to neuroscience can therefore be formulated solely in terms of properties of these elements. Thus, terms having intrinsic mentalistic and/or experiential content (e.g. ‘feeling’, ‘knowing’ and ‘effort’) are not included as primary causal factors. This (...) theoretical restriction is motivated primarily by ideas about the natural world that have been known to be fundamentally incorrect for more than three-quarters of a century. Contemporary basic physical theory differs profoundly from classic physics on the important matter of how the consciousness of human agents enters into the structure of empirical phenomena. The new principles contradict the older idea that local mechanical processes alone can account for the structure of all observed empirical data. Contemporary physical theory brings directly and irreducibly into the overall causal structure certain psychologically described choices made by human agents about how they will act. This key development in basic physical theory is applicable to neuroscience, and it provides neuroscientists and psychologists with an alternative conceptual framework for describing neural processes. Indeed, owing to certain structural features of ion channels critical to synaptic function, contemporary physical theory must in principle be used when analysing human brain dynamics. The new framework, unlike its classic-physics-based predecessor, is erected directly upon, and is compatible with, the prevailing principles of physics. It is able to represent more adequately than classic concepts the neuroplastic mechanisms relevant to the growing number of empirical studies of the capacity of directed attention and mental effort to systematically alter brain function.. (shrink)

Our goal is to investigate the biological correlates of the first-person experience of time or phenomenal time. ‘Time’ differs in various domains, such as (i) physical time (e.g., clock time), (ii) biological time, such as the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and (iii) the perceptual rate of time. One psychophysical-measure of the perceptual rate is the critical flicker frequency (CFF), in which a flashing light is perceived as unchanging. Focusing on the inability to detect change, as in CFF, may give us insight into (...) phenomenal time. CFF varies from 24 Hz for dim light and 60 Hz in bright light and is lower for colored lights. We propose that problem of the phenomenal time can be addressed using two contrasting but complementary approaches (inability to detect changes vs. ability to detect changes): (1) The soliton-catalytic model that entails invariant quantum coherent state for temporal frequencies (TFs) >= CFF, where flickering light is perceived as unchanging, similar to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). (2) Temporal frequency tuned mechanisms model, which starts with ability to detect changes for TFs < CFF and then their sensitivities decreases to zero at CFF. For a subject who has CFF of 60 Hz, the duration of one cycle or time-period of the flickering light is approximately 16.7 ms. Phenomenal time may be quantized into ‘subjective occasions of experience’ (SE), which arise out of the interaction of the individual with situation (environment). Pioneering work examining the complex interaction of neurons suggests the possibility that macroscopic quantum states similar to a BEC may also occur in the brain (Davia, 2006; Freeman & Vitiello, 2006; Georgiev, 2004; Vimal & Davia, 2008) . (shrink)

Although Whitehead’s particular style of philosophizing--looking at traditional philosophical problems in light of recent scientific advances--was part of a trend that began with the scientific revolutions in the early 20th century and continues today, he was marginalized in 20th century philosophy because of his outspoken defense of what he was doing as “metaphysics.” Metaphysics, for Whitehead, is a cross-disciplinary hermeneutic responsible for coherently integrating the perspectives of the special sciences with one another and with everyday experience. The program of such (...) a meta-discipline is challenging to philosophical orthodoxy because it enlarges, rather than narrows, the range of empirical evidence that philosophy must acknowledge. This places Whitehead’s philosophy in a perennial tradition that seeks to resolve fundamental antinomies through synthesis and reconciliation rather than reduction or elimination. (shrink)

In a commentary on Mangan's article about fringe feelings in consciousness, we argue that labeling these experiences as "non-sensory" leads to a problematic conception of consciousness as divorceable from sensation. We then compare and contrast Mangan's development of William James' ideas about fringe experiences with Damasio's development of James' ideas about the body-relatedness of emotion and feeling. We propose that fringe feelings have essential motivational properties that stem from their evolutionary origins in various problems of survival. Finally, we contrast Mangan's (...) notion of the feeling of rightness with our own conception of yedasentience, and we discuss how experiment and clinical investigation of psychopathology can inform our understanding of fringe feelings. (shrink)

In Sensation's Ghost, Mangan elaborates on James's notion of fringe. We agree with Mangan that "the most important nonsensory experience is coherence or 'rightness'". Our critique presses for a fuller analysis of what Mangan calls feelings of rightness and wrongness. We first describe different types and levels of FOR/W and how types and levels interact. We also discuss sensitivity to and intensity of FOR/W, which vary systematically, and explain some of this systematicity. Finally, our elaboration of FOR/W helps explain the (...) personal significance of non-sensory or fringe experience -- something critical for James, especially in his later writings. (shrink)

Behaviour is often described as the computation of a response to a stimulus. This description is incomplete in an important way because it only examines what occurs between the reception of stimulus information and the generation of an action. Behaviour is more correctly described as a control process where actions are performed in order to affect perceptions. This closed-loop nature of behaviour is de-emphasized in modern discussions of brain function, leading to a number of artificial mysteries. A notable example is (...) the ‘symbol grounding problem'. When behaviour is viewed as a control process, it is natural to explain how internal representations, even symbols, can have meaning for an organism, and how actions can be motivated by organic needs. (shrink)

A framework for the mind-matter problem in a holistic universe which has no parts is outlined. The conceptual structure of modern quantum theory suggests to use complementary Boolean descriptions as elements for a more comprehensive non-Boolean description of a world without an a priori mind-matter distinction. Such a description in terms of a locally Boolean but globally non-Boolean structure makes allowance for the fact that Boolean descriptions play a privileged role in science. If we accept the insight that there are (...) no ultimate building blocks, the existence of holistic correlations between contextually chosen parts is a natural consequence. The main problem of a genuinely non-Boolean description is to find an appropriate partition of the universe of discourse. If we adopt the idea that all fundamental laws of physics are invariant under time translations, then we can consider a partition of the world into a tenseless and a tensed domain.In the sense of a regulative principle, the material domain is defined as the tenseless domain with its homogeneous time. The tensed domain contains the mental domain with a tensed time characterized by a privileged position, the Now. Since this partition refers to two complementary descriptions which are not given a priori we have to expect correlations between these two domains. In physics it corresponds to Newton 's separation of universal laws of nature and contingent initial conditions Both descriptions have a non-Boolean structure and can be encompassed into a single non-Boolean description. Tensed and tenseless time can be synchronized by holistic correlations. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: In his keynote paper David Chalmers defines ‘the hard problem’ by posing certain ‘Why’ questions about consciousness? Such questions must be posed within an appropriate setting. The way of science is to try to deduce the answer to many such questions from a few well defined assumptions. Much about nature can be explained in terms of the principles of classical mechanics. The assumptions, in this explanatory scheme, are that the world is composed exclusively of particles and fields governed (...) by specified mathematical laws that refer neither to any individual person, nor to anyone’s experiences. These physical laws are supposed to be such that particles and fields, acting in concert, can form causally efficacious real functional entities such as driveshafts and propellers. Similarly, surges of electrical and mechanical activity in appropriately designed material substrates, composed of particles and fields acting in concert, could implement, in the world of matter, complex functional structures and long sequences of logical operations. Thus it is conceivable that all of our behaviour, and all of the internal processing that occurs in our bodies and brains could be deduced, at least in principle, from the principles of classical mechanics and appropriate boundary conditions. -/- Contents: 1. Introduction: Philosophical Setting 2. Quantum Model of the Mind/Brain 3. Person and Self 4. Meeting Baars's Criteria for Consciousness 5. Qualia 6. Free-Will. (shrink)

This collection of papers centres around a novel approach to the problem of phenomenal consciousness called cosmopsychism. A simple version of cosmopsychism says that the cosmos as a whole is conscious. In this collection, I focus on a comparison between arguably the most promising versions of cosmopsychism and panpsychism, called constitutive cosmopsychism and constitutive panpsychism, respectively. -/- The first paper, ‘A Blueprint for Cosmopsychism’ offers a blueprint for a cosmopsychist approach, comparing it to the panpsychist approach. It highlights how following (...) the blueprint allows one to sidestep the most serious of panpsychism’s problems, the combination problem, while also avoiding the problem of infinite decomposition. However, it notes that the approach must address a serious problem of its own in the derivation problem. -/- The second paper, ‘Beyond Panpsychism and Cosmopsychism? Focuses’ on two related views that reject subjects of experience at the fundamental level, thus avoiding the subject aspects of the combination and derivation problems. Albahari’s perennialism is touted as the natural successor to cosmopsychism; avoiding its subject derivation problem while maintaining a cosmic consciousness. Meanwhile, Coleman’s panqualityism is touted as a natural successor to panpsychism; avoiding its combination problem while maintaining that phenomenality is present at the level of microphysical ultimates. However, I show both views seem to face problems equal in measure to those they seek to avoid. -/- The third paper, ‘The Subject Problem for Panpsychism and Cosmopsychism’ targets the hardest problems for constitutive panpsychism and constitutive cosmopsychism; the subject combination problem and the subject derivation problem, respectively. I show that the two problems are almost identical, both hinging on the entailment of what I call synchronous perspectives scenarios. I formulate broad arguments from metaphysical impossibility and epistemic implausibility against both views, based on such scenarios. However, I provide a possible model of how to understand synchronous perspective scenarios unproblematically. I also provide several alternative responses. -/- The fourth, and final, paper in the collection provides an account of, and motivation for, a version of cosmopsychism I call CRP cosmopsychism. This version of cosmopsychism is created on the priority cosmopsychism blueprint and has three further key commitments: simple panpsychism, priority monism and Russellian monism. The paper motivates each of these commitments both in isolation and in partnership, before responding to each of the derivation problems; the subject derivation problem, the quality derivation problem and the structure derivation problem. Furthermore, I argue that cosmopsychism should be preferred over panpsychism owing to considerations concerning internal relations. (shrink)

from non-conscious components by positing that consciousness is a universal primitive. For example, the double aspect theory of information holds that infor- mation has a phenomenal aspect. How then do you get from phenomenal infor- mation to human consciousness? This paper proposes that an entity is conscious to the extent it amplifies information, first by trapping and integrating it through closure, and second by maintaining dynamics at the edge of chaos through simul- taneous processes of divergence and convergence. The origin (...) of life through autocatalytic closure, and the origin of an interconnected worldview through conceptual closure, induced phase transitions in the degree to which informa- tion, and thus consciousness, is locally amplified. Divergence and convergence of cognitive information may involve phenomena observed in light e.g. focusing, interference, and resonance. By making information flow inward- biased, clo- sure shields us from external consciousness; thus the paucity of consciousness may be an illusion. (shrink)

The model of consciousness developed here is a cooperative venture between mind, brain, body, nature, culture, community, and family. The overall unity of consciousness is provided by the loop of engagement that conducts intentional action into the ambient. Each successive round of engagement between subject and world generates a gap of disparity between remembrance of purpose or intent and the effect achieved on the operative level of understanding within a larger taxonomic scheme in experience. That gap sends a delta signal (...) that arouses various parameters of motivation to form a configuration that constitutes a felt situation within subjective experience. That delta signal and felt situation are nothing other than our subjective experience of consciousness. Situated intelligence is the first-person awareness stimulated by a particular complement of motivational parameters. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore mechanistic and teleological explanations of consciousness. In terms of mechanistic explanations, it critiques various existing views, especially those embodied by existing computational cognitive models. In this regard, the paper argues in favor of the explanation based on the distinction between localist (symbolic) representation and distributed representation (as formulated in the connectionist literature), which reduces the phenomenological difference to a mechanistic difference. Furthermore, to establish a teleological explanation of consciousness, the paper discusses the issue of the (...) functional role of consciousness on the basis of the aforementioned mechanistic explanation. A proposal based on synergistic interaction between the conscious and the unconscious is advanced that encompasses various existing views concerning the functional role of consciousness. This two-step deepening explanation has some empirical support, in the form of a cognitive model and various cognitive data that it captures. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

High-level perception--”the process of making sense of complex data at an abstract, conceptual level--”is fundamental to human cognition. Through high-level perception, chaotic environmen- tal stimuli are organized into the mental representations that are used throughout cognitive pro- cessing. Much work in traditional artificial intelligence has ignored the process of high-level perception, by starting with hand-coded representations. In this paper, we argue that this dis- missal of perceptual processes leads to distorted models of human cognition. We examine some existing artificial-intelligence models--”notably (...) BACON, a model of scientific discovery, and the Structure-Mapping Engine, a model of analogical thought--”and argue that these are flawed pre- cisely because they downplay the role of high-level perception. Further, we argue that perceptu- al processes cannot be separated from other cognitive processes even in principle, and therefore that traditional artificial-intelligence models cannot be defended by supposing the existence of a --œrepresentation module--� that supplies representations ready-made. Finally, we describe a model of high-level perception and analogical thought in which perceptual processing is integrated with analogical mapping, leading to the flexible build-up of representations appropriate to a given context. (shrink)

Across various fields it is argued that the self in part consists of an autobiographical self-narrative and that the self-narrative has an impact on agential behavior. Similarly, within action theory, it is claimed that the intentional structure of coherent long-term action is divided into a hierarchy of distal, proximal, and motor intentions. However, the concrete mechanisms for how narratives and distal intentions are generated and impact action is rarely fleshed out concretely. We here demonstrate how narratives and distal intentions can (...) be generated within cognitive agents and how they can impact agential behavior over long time scales. We integrate narratives and distal intentions into the LIDA model,and demonstrate how they can guide agential action in a manner that is consistent with the Global Workspace Theory of consciousness. This paper serves both as an addition to the LIDA cognitive architecture and an elucidation of how narratives and distal intention emerge and play their role in cognition and action. (shrink)

The concept of empiricism evokes both a historical tradition and a set of philosophical theses. The theses are usually understood to have been developed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. But these figures did not use the term “empiricism,” and they did not see themselves as united by a shared epistemology into one school of thought. My dissertation analyzes the debate that elevated the concept of empiricism (and of an empiricist tradition) to prominence in English-language philosophy. -/- In the 1870s and (...) ’80s a lively debate about psychology emerged. Neo-Kantian idealists criticized the very idea that the mind can be studied scientifically. A group of philosopher-psychologists responded, often in Mind. They were among the first to call themselves “empiricists,” arguing that psychology could provide a scientific basis for philosophical progress. Idealists held that empirical psychology depended on premises developed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. These premises were allegedly absurd because they rendered ideas of extension, as well as other ideas crucial to natural science, unreal. Those who wanted to advance psychology towards becoming a legitimate science were forced to engage these philosophical attacks, while at the same time to develop empirical theories that could successfully explain some characteristics of experience. I show how James’s theory of space perception accomplished both tasks. -/- In developing this theory, James found he had to reject the Lockean notion that reality is associated with passively-registered sensations. James also abandoned Berkeley and Hume’s claim that ideas are ultimately derived from atomic sensations. Instead, James presented experimental evidence that sensation is a continuous stream. The mind must actively parse this stream if it is to gain a coherent representation of its environment. I argue that James’s stream-of-thought thesis served as a presupposition of his entire psychology. The thesis showed how the labor of investigating the mind could be divided between philosophers and scientists, and in a manner sensitive to the concerns of both. The stream thesis also provided a scientific basis for a new philosophical empiricism that, I argue, has a hidden legacy in the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

This paper replicates a previous study of how people give accounts of their experience after encountering an unusual and unpredictable event in their ordinary lives. Such accounts usually take the form of proto-narratives, which because of their link to an actual event are called contingent narratives. My previous study is extended in this paper by trying to theorize the processes involved. The key feature of these narratives is the ease with which people seem to use a narrative circumspection to making (...) sense of their experience. People draw upon their own tacit knowing to construct narratives to explain their experiences. Such tacit knowledge is available without conscious effort, it easily adapts to new contexts, and is particularly good at handling the unexpected. There is a widely held belief that tacit knowledge is difficult to capture and make explicit, but as is demonstrated in this study there is good evidence that humans have evolved a particularly efficient way of sharing the tacit through narrative thinking. My point is that tacit knowing and narrative thinking offer the key to understanding our experience of ordinary life. (shrink)

I present an argument for panpsychism: the thesis that everything is conscious, or at least that fundamental physical entities are conscious. The argument takes a Hegelian dialectical form. Panpsychism emerges as a synthesis of the thesis of materalism and the antithesis of dualism. In particular, the key premises of the causal argument for materialism and the conceivability argument for dualism are all accommodated by a certain version of panpsychism. This synthesis has its own antithesis in turn: panprotopsychism, the thesis that (...) fundamental physical entities are protoconscious, also accommodates the key premises. Panpsychism and panprotopsychism are synthesized under Russellian monism, and then face an antithesis, the combination problem. The question of whether there is a new synthesis remains open. (shrink)

Large changes in a scene often become difficult to notice if made during an eye movement, image flicker, movie cut, or other such disturbance. It is argued here that this _change blindness_ can serve as a useful tool to explore various aspects of vision. This argument centers around the proposal that focused attention is needed for the explicit perception of change. Given this, the study of change perception can provide a useful way to determine the nature of visual attention, and (...) to cast new light on the way that it is?and is not?involved in visual perception. To illustrate the power of this approach, this paper surveys its use in exploring three different aspects of vision. The first concerns the general nature of _seeing_. To explain why change blindness can be easily induced in experiments but apparently not in everyday life, it is proposed that perception involves a _virtual representation_, where object representations do not accumulate, but are formed as needed. An architecture containing both attentional and nonattentional streams is proposed as a way to implement this scheme. The second aspect concerns the ability of observers to detect change even when they have no visual experience of it. This _sensing_ is found to take on at least two forms: detection without visual experience (but still with conscious awareness), and detection without any awareness at all. It is proposed that these are both due to the operation of a nonattentional visual stream. The final aspect considered is the nature of visual attention itself?the mechanisms involved when _scrutinizing_ items. Experiments using controlled stimuli show the existence of various limits on visual search for change. It is shown that these limits provide a powerful means to map out the attentional mechanisms involved. (shrink)

MS, under submission, derived from a Powerpoint presentation at a Conference on Consciousness, Memory, and Perception, in honor of Larry Weiskrantz, City University, London, September 15, 2006.

The article discusses the problem of whether the self, or the subject, is real. There are several realist and anti-realist solutions to this problem. The author interprets all possible positions concerning this issue as conceptions of a certain relationship between the phenomenal self and the ontological self. In line with what is called phenomenal, or experiential minimalism, the author concludes that the experiential dimension of the self is sufficient for it to be real without qualification. Providing an argument against anti-realism, (...) the author differentiates between strong and reductive realism and maintain that selves criticized by anti-realists like Metzinger are things of strong realism, while in fact selves might turn out to be the things of reductive realism. The author suggests a solution to another problem of the ontology of the self, namely the problem of characterization. By endorsing minimalism, the self is characterized as the experiential faculty. According to the suggested version of minimalism, having experience is a necessary and sufficient condition to be a self or a subject. All other properties ascribed to subjects in philosophical literature are contingent. Properties like these are of course attributes of subjects, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for subjectivity. A subject who loses these properties does not cease to be a subject. On the contrary, a thing which has lost its experiential ability ceases to be a subject. In addition, there are non-human subjects who may lack all subjectivity-related features, except for the experiential faculty, and still be considered subjects. Phenomenal minimalism is a solution to the problem of the reality of selves. Subjects, or selves, are real as things with the experiential faculty. Finally, the author rejects pluralism and conventionalism. Instead, essentialist realism is endorsed. (shrink)

Our subjective sensory experiences are thought to be heavily shaped by interactions between expectations and incoming sensory information. However, the neural mechanisms supporting these interactions remain poorly understood. By using combined psychophysical and functional MRI techniques, brain activation related to the intensity of expected pain and experienced pain was characterized. As the magnitude of expected pain increased, activation increased in the thalamus, insula, prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and other brain regions. Pain-intensity-related brain activation was identified in a widely (...) distributed set of brain regions but overlapped partially with expectation-related activation in regions, including the anterior insula and ACC. When expected pain was manipulated, expectations of decreased pain powerfully reduced both the subjective experience of pain and activation of pain-related brain regions, such as the primary somatosensory cortex, insular cortex, and ACC. These results confirm that a mental representation of an impending sensory event can significantly shape neural processes that underlie the formulation of the actual sensory experience and provide insight as to how positive expectations diminish the severity of chronic disease states. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that philosophica l comparison depends on having some common measure or standard between and above the compared parts. The paper is to show that the foregoing common belief is incorrect and therewith to inquire into the possibility of cross-cultural philosophical comparison. First, the ‘comparison paradox’ will be expounded. It is a theoretical difficulty for the philosophical tendency represented by Plato’s theory of Ideas to justify comparative activities. Further, the connection of the comparative paradox with the obstacles (...) met by cross-cultural philosophical comparisons will be demonstrated. It will be shown that to attribute the difficulty of cross-cultural comparisons to incommensurability of traditions is irrelevant and misleading. It is to be argued that the original possibility of comparison depends on the ‘comparative situation’, i.e., the mechanism of meaning-production that functions in a non-universalistic and anonymous way. A philosophical paradigm does facilitate the attendance of such a situation, but it is also possible for the situation to emerge between paradigms in a gamesome way. Accordingly, the genuine comparison at issue will not originate primarily and merely on the level of concepts and propositions, but can only be achieved through inter-paradigmatic conditions, where we have the sharp awareness of a paradigm’s boundary from which we can attempt to achieve situational communication with another paradigm. In light of this, the perspective of a philosophical comparison differs not only from the traditional or universalistic one, but also from Gadamer’s hermeneutics, such as the doctrine of ‘fusion of horizons’. The new perspective finds an illustration in Heidegger’s relations with Daoism. (shrink)

Is it possible to build a conscious machine, an artifact that has qualitative experiences such as feeling pain, seeing the redness of a flower or enjoying the taste of coffee ? What makes such experiences conscious is their phenomenal character: it is like something to have such experiences. In contemporary philosophy of mind, the question of the qualitative aspect of conscious experiences is often addressed in terms of qualia. In a pre-theoretical and intuitive sense, qualia refer to the phenomenal character (...) or “what-it’s-like-ness” of a conscious experience: the painfulness of a pain experience or the redness of a visual experience of a red object. The problem of artificial qualia is the question of the theoretical possibility of the realization of qualia by artifacts. In this work, this problem will serve as a methodological tool to address what is arguably the most fundamental question of philosophy of mind: what exactly is consciousness? (shrink)

This thesis concerns the measurement of freedom, and its value. Specifically, I am concerned with three overarching questions. First, can we measure the extent of an individual’s freedom? It had better be that we can, otherwise much ordinary and intuitive talk that we would like to vindicate – say, about free persons being freer than slaves – will turn out to be false or meaningless. Second, in what ways is freedom valuable, and how is this value measured? It matters, for (...) example, whether freedom is valuable only insofar as it enables us to pursue specific ends we happen to value for independent reasons, or whether it is also valuable in itself. In the latter case, but not the former, more freedom will always be better. Likewise, it’s important to get clarity on what ends, exactly, freedom is especially instrumentally valuable in promoting, since this goes to how much we should care about it. And finally, the liberal political tradition asserts that there is a special sphere of personal choices within which individuals should be free to do as they please, for reasons over and above the value of freedom itself. Now, can we measure the extent to which states and individuals respect individual liberties, and can we weigh the importance of respecting liberty against competing values like social welfare? To answer these questions, I follow the axiomatic tradition of social choice theory, and I develop several novel measures of freedom – including the first measure of freedom ever proposed that is sensitive to how modally robustly our options are available – a novel approach to measuring the diversity of an opportunity set, and I develop an account of the value of freedom according to which an important part of why freedom matters is that it enables us to improve our preferences through learning, and I construct ways of measuring the value of freedom along this dimension of value. Finally, in later chapters, I provide a representation result for a measure of illiberalism, i.e. of the degree to which states fail to respect the rights of their citizens, and I extend this result to provide a characterization of moral theories that express concern for respecting the rights of others. The final chapter closes by discussing how this concern may be weighed against concerns for social welfare. (shrink)

Each well-known proposed solution to the mind-body problem encounters an impasse. These take the form of an explanatory gap, such as the one between mental and physical, or between micro-subjects and macro-subject. The dialectical pressure to bridge these gaps is generating positions in which consciousness is becoming increasingly foundational. The most recent of these, cosmopsychism, typically casts the entire cosmos as a perspectival subject whose mind grounds those of more limited subjects like ourselves. I review the dialectic from materialism and (...) dualism through to panpsychism, suggesting that explanatory gaps in the latter stem from assuming foundational consciousness to be perspectival. Its renunciation may yield the notion of an aperspectival, universal, “non-dual” consciousness that grounds all manifestation and is unstructured by subject, object or any differentia. Not only is such consciousness suggestive of a natural successor to cosmopsychism, but it has also been reported to be the direct experience of mystics who claim to have transcended the individual perspective. Their purported insight — that our aperspectival conscious nature is identical to the ground of all being — has been termed “the Perennial Philosophy”. Believing this Perennial Philosophy to offer the most promising way forward in the mind-body problem, I construct from it the foundations of a metaphysical system that I call “Perennial Idealism”. This attempts to account for manifestation in terms of dispositional, imagery-bound subjects. I then address an age-old “Parmenidean” conundrum that I refer to as “the problem of the one and the many”: How can an undifferentiated substratum ground differentia without the ground itself differentiating? The proposed solution takes its cue from mystico-philosophical writings in the Advaita Vedānta tradition, known as the ajāta doctrine. (shrink)

In summaries of “best practices” for pedagogy, one typically encounters enthusiastic advocacy for metacognition. Some researchers assert that the body of evidence supplied by decades of education studies indicates a clear pedagogical imperative: that if one wants their students to learn well, one must implement teaching practices that cultivate students’ metacognitive skills. -/- In this dissertation, I counter that education research does not impose such a mandate upon instructors. We lack sufficient and reliable evidence from studies that use the appropriate (...) research design to validate the efficacy of metacognitive skill-building interventions (not just evaluate their relationship to learning outcomes). I argue that improved academic outcomes following these interventions aren’t necessarily mediated by increased metacognitive skills; rather, enhanced student performance can be accounted for by other factors that accompany metacognitive training, particularly the explicit provision of domain-specific knowledge. -/- On the way to this conclusion, I elaborate some complications and controversies surrounding “metacognition.” This is a sprawling and nebulous construct, which makes generalizations about its pedagogical value dubious from the outset. Moreover, it is unclear the extent to which the end goal of metacognitive skill-building (cognitive self-mastery, involving knowledge of and control over our own minds) is even possible, given our mental architecture; some cognitive scientists allege that we are subject to phenomenological illusions which make this seem more achievable than it actually is. -/- I also attempt to provide an account of how metacognitive skill-building could receive glowing endorsements from educators and education researchers, even though its conceptual and empirical underpinnings are flimsy. The error theory I offer identifies two major factors that may foster belief in the efficacy of metacognitive training: goalpost-shifting around the objective of such efforts, and motivated reasoning in defense of the desirable conclusion that educators can significantly reshape students’ minds and unlock their intellectual potential through simple pedagogical interventions. (shrink)

I examined the proposition that there are psychological limits on what scientific problems can be solved, and that these limits may be based on a failure to be able to produce imagable, observation-based models for any possible solution, a position suggested by philosopher Colin McGinn in an argument attempting to prove that the mind-body problem is unsolvable. I examined another likely candidate for an unsolvable problem -- the ultimate origin of the universe (i.e., what might have preceded the Big Bang (...) or any other starting point; why there should be something rather than nothing) -- by exploring the reasoning of physicists about this problem and measuring visual imagery frequency and vividness, with the expectation that those who most believed the problem unsolvable would be more frequent/vivid imagers and therefore more affected by the apparent impossibility of producing an imagable solution. Eight physicists were interviewed and imagery frequency and vividness measurements performed using Cohen & Saslona's IDQ-IHS and Marks's VVIQ, respectively. All subjects considered the problem unsolvable within today's physics and all but one thought the problem still meaningful, though none were optimistic about a solution. The one subject who dismissed the problem had the lowest imagery frequency score, and there was also a significant rank order correlation (r = 0.83, p < .02) between degree of belief in problem unsolvability (extended to include viewing the problem as meaningful and not already solved) and a composite imagery frequency/vividness score, though the sample was too small to control for some possible confounding factors. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining the existence of subjective experience in a world that is purely physical. As the usual theories fail to provide an adequate explanation, many philosophers started looking for alternatives. One of such alternatives is panpsychism, which has been increasingly gaining attention in the past few decades. Panpsychism is the view that fundamental entities of the world—fundamental particles, for example—have some form of very simple consciousness. And, in the theory, it is that (...) spark that allows for the existence of more complex consciousness, such as in humans. However, panpsychism faces a major difficulty with what is called ‘the combination problem’. This is the problem that, even if we accept that fundamental entities have some form of simple consciousness, it is not clear how one could go from a plurality of micro consciousness to a complex unified macro consciousness. If we think that an atom is conscious, for example, this seems to imply that it is a subject, a conscious subject. But how do we get to a human subject, with a complex human brain? It seems difficult to understand how putting together many conscious subjects—e.g. atoms—could lead to a further conscious subject—e.g. a human. In this thesis I discuss panpsychism and some of the arguments that support it. In addition, I explain the combination problem and its different aspects, as well as how it relates to panpsychism and the hard problem of consciousness. Finally, I discuss a solution to the combination problem that I believe has not been given proper attention in contemporary philosophy, which is one provided by the philosopher Ken Wilber. His solution involves changing the conceptual framework of how we understand the relation between macro and micro subjects. I also apply his theory to the variations of the combination problem, discussing how we could approach these issues under a single coherent view. Although Wilber prefers the term pan-interiorism, his theory can be considered a type of holarchical panpsychism. (shrink)

There have been various attempts to apply Darwinian evolutionary theory to an understanding of the human condition within psychology and the social sciences. This paper evaluates whether Darwinian Theory can explain human consciousness. Starting with a brief definition of phenomenal consciousness and the central features of evolutionary theory, the paper examines whether random variations in the genome that confer a selective, reproductive advantage can explain both the emergence of consciousness and its varied forms. To inform the discussion, the paper reviews (...) what is known about the conditions for consciousness within the human mind/brain, understood in both structural (neural) terms and functional terms (in terms of human information processing), and concludes that “random variations in the genome” provide no explanatory mechanism for why some neural activities (but not others) are accompanied by consciousness. The paper then evaluates the many functional advantages that have been proposed for various forms of phenomenal consciousness once they emerge, and concludes that, on close examination, phenomenal experiences themselves do not carry out the information processing functions attributed to them, which challenges the Darwinian requirement that they could only have persisted (once emergent) it they enhanced reproductive fitness. The paper turns finally to what can be said about wider distribution of consciousness in non-humans, contrasting discontinuity theories with continuity theories. Discontinuity theories argue for a critical functional transition that “switches on consciousness” while continuity theories argue for a gradual transition in consciousness from unrecognisable to recognisable. All theories accept that there is an intimate, natural relationship of conscious experiences with their associated material forms. Consequently, as the material forms evolve, their associated experiences co-evolve—suggesting an indirect mechanism by which the emergence of species-specific forms of consciousness can be influenced by Darwinian evolution. It also allows a non-reductive understanding of human consciousness within the social sciences. (shrink)

Background: Research suggests that unconscious activity in the supplementary motor area precedes not only certain simple motor actions but also the point at which we become aware of our intention to perform such actions. The extent to which these findings have implications for our understanding of the concepts of free will and personal responsibility has been subject of intense debate during the latest four decades. Methods: This research is discussed in relation to effects of neurosurgical removal of the SMA in (...) a narrative review. Results: Removal of the SMA typically causes a transient inability to perform non-stimulus-driven, voluntary actions. This condition, known as the SMA syndrome, does not appear to be associated with a loss of sense of volition but with a profound disruption of executive function/cognitive control. Conclusions: The role of the SMA may be to serve as a gateway between the corticospinal tract and systems for executive function. Such systems are typically seen as tools for conscious decisions. What is known about effects of SMA resections would thus seem to suggest a view that is compatible with concepts of personal responsibility. However, the philosophical question whether free will exists cannot be definitely resolved on the basis of these observations. (shrink)

Time passes, and the inexorability of its passing has deep emotional significance. One of the main themes of this thesis involves an investigation into the metaphysical nature of the passage of time. What sort of metaphysical account of passage should be given? And do our emotional responses to temporal passage have metaphysical implications? The other main theme of the thesis is the issue of the metaphysics of persistence. When a thing is present at more than one time, what is the (...) metaphysical underpinning of its persistence? Some subsidiary issues, which are nevertheless important in their own right, are also discussed. There are interesting connections between the issues of persistence and these further issues, which include the nature of vagueness, and the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties. (shrink)

There occurred in the twentieth century the most remarkable episode in the history of human thought. A number of thinkers denied the existence of something we know with certainty to exist: consciousness, conscious experience. Others held back from the Denial, as we may call it, but claimed that it might be true --a claim no less remarkable than the Denial. This paper documents some aspects of this episode, with particular reference to two things. First, the development of two views which (...) are forms of the Denial --philosophical behaviourism, and functionalism considered as a doctrine in the philosophy of mind-- from a view that does not in any way involve the Denial: psychological methodological behaviourism. Second, the rise of a way of understanding naturalism --materialist or physicalist naturalism-- that wrongly takes naturalism to entail the Denial. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on temporal experience offers generic models that are often assumed to apply to all sensory modalities. I show that the models serve as broad frameworks in which different aspects of cognitive science can be slotted and, thus, are beneficial to furthering research programs in embodied music cognition. Here I discuss a particular feature of temporal experience that plays a key role in such philosophical work: a distinction between the experience of succession and the mere succession of experiences. (...) I question the presupposition that there is such an evident, clear distinction and suggest that, instead, how the distinction is drawn is context-dependent. After suggesting a way to modify the philosophical models of temporal experience to accommodate this contextdependency, I illustrate that these models can fruitfully incorporate features of research projects in embodied musical cognition. To do so I supplement a modified retentionalist model with aspects of recent work that links bodily movement with musical perception (Godøy, 2006; 2010a; Jensenius, Wanderley, Godøy, and Leman, 2010). The resulting model is shown to facilitate novel hypotheses, refine the notion of context-dependency and point towards means of extending the philosophical model and an existent research program. (shrink)

Within the community of inquiry literature, the absence of the notion of genuine doubt is notable in spite of its pragmatic roots in the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, for whom the notion was pivotal. We argue for the need to correct this oversight due to the educational significance of genuine doubt—a theoretical and experiential understanding of which can offer insight into the interrelated concepts of wonder, fallibilism, inquiry and prejudice. In order to detail these connections, we reinvigorate the ideas (...) of Peirce by borrowing the language and concepts of Albert Camus, at the same time demonstrating their unlikely congruence. In particular, we argue for the necessity of genuine doubt along with the need for the presence of a diversity of prejudices as a starting point for genuine inquiry. (shrink)

Emotional contagion is a phenomenon that has attracted much interest in recent times. However, the main approach on offer, the mimicry theory, fails to properly account for its many facets. In particular, we focus on two shortcomings: the elicitation of emotional contagion is not context-independent, and there can be cases of emotional contagion without motor mimicry. We contend that a general theory of emotion elicitation is better suited to account for these features, because of its multi-level appraisal component. From this (...) standpoint, emotional contagion is viewed as a particular kind of emotional response that involves the same components and processes of emotional responses in general. (shrink)

Autonomous mechanisms have been proposed to regulate certain aspects of society and are already being used to regulate business organisations. We take seriously recent proposals for algorithmic regulation of society, and we identify the existing technologies that can be used to implement them, most of them originally introduced in business contexts. We build on the notion of 'social machine' and we connect it to various ongoing trends and ideas, including crowdsourced task-work, social compiler, mechanism design, reputation management systems, and social (...) scoring. After showing how all the building blocks of algorithmic regulation are already well in place, we discuss possible implications for human autonomy and social order. The main contribution of this paper is to identify convergent social and technical trends that are leading towards social regulation by algorithms, and to discuss the possible social, political, and ethical consequences of taking this path. (shrink)

Viewers have a way of using their somatosensory system to create temporary boundary changes that bring them into intimate relationships with art objects. Spectators experience this imaginary fusion when simultaneously attending to their own somatosensory sensations, which occur inside the body, and to qualities of the artwork, which exist in the external world. At such moments viewers reinterpret their somatosensory sensations as a quality of the artwork. When inside and outside are reinterpreted, viewers cross the conventional boundary between self and (...) object. This effect can be illustrated in first person reports and supported by current research in the neurosciences and the humanities. (shrink)

This essay presents a preliminary theoretical development that attempts the importation of Heider’s Theory of Balance into the domain of narratology. Heider’s elemental POX structure offers ways to complement Affective Disposition Theory, opening the possibility for generating technical descriptions of easily recognizable but also subtle experiential aspects of the processing of narrative products. Traditional concepts like open-endings, focalization or identification will be productively revisited after considering the notions of narrative balance and narrative imbalance. A network approach to affect distribution throughout (...) the elements of a fictional world will allow us to isolate some specific effect-oriented authorial strategies. And finally, the study suggests that Heider’s notion of balance recovery through cognitive-affective reorganization might contribute to the understanding of typically elusive ethical and world-view transformation issues. (shrink)