Bergson’s model of time (1889) is perhaps the proto-phenomenological theory. It is part of a larger model of mind (1896) which can be seen in modern light as describing the brain as supporting a modulated wave within a holographic field, specifying the external image of the world, and wherein subject and object are differentiated not in terms of space, but of time. Bergson’s very concrete model is developed and deepened with Gibson’s ecological model of perception. It is applied to the (...) problems of consciousness, direct realism, qualia and illusions. The model implies an entirely different basis for memory and cognition, and a brief overview is given for the basis of direct memory, compositionality and systematicity. (shrink)

This paper describes an alternative to the common view that explanation in the special sciences involves subsumption under laws. According to this alternative, whether or not a generalization can be used to explain has to do with whether it is invariant rather than with whether it is lawful. A generalization is invariant if it is stable or robust in the sense that it would continue to hold under a relevant if it is stable or robust in the sense that it (...) would continue to hold under a relevant class of changes. Unlike lawfulness, invariance comes in degrees and has other features that are well suited to capture the characteristics of explanatory generalizations in the special sciences. For example, a generalization can be invariant even if it has exceptions or holds only over a limited spatio-temporal interval. The notion of invariance can be used to resolve a number of dilemmas that arise in standard treatments of explanatory generalizations in the special sciences. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of explanation in biology which does not involve appeal to laws of nature, at least as traditionally conceived. Explanatory generalizations in biology must satisfy a requirement that I call invariance, but need not satisfy most of the other standard criteria for lawfulness. Once this point is recognized, there is little motivation for regarding such generalizations as laws of nature. Some of the differences between invariance and the related notions of stability and resiliency, due respectively to (...) Sandra Mitchell and Brian Skyrms, are explored. (shrink)

Is experience stored in the brain? The universal assumption is that it is, yet the answer to this question is critical to the theory of consciousness. If “yes,” it must be understood that this answer absolutely constrains all theories of the origin and nature of consciousness. Memory images, dreams, even perceptual images and perceptual experience must somehow be generated from stored elements within the neural substrate. If the answer is “no,” Searle’s principle of “neurobiological sufficiency,” as one example, carries no (...) force, while on the other hand, a theory of direct perception can be construed to actually require this “no” answer, but then also requires a theory of memory to support this. Yet a model of memory which does not require storage of our experience within the brain has not been attempted. An initial review is undertaken of Gibson’s (1969, 1979) ecological perception, his notion of the “direct specification” of the external perceptual image, and subsequent findings of the ecological research paradigm. Central to this model is the notion of invariance laws defining external events, for example, the mathematical laws defining texture gradients, velocity flow fields, tau ratios on these fields, inertia tensors, etc. This invariance law information drives the brain’s “specification” of the environmental image/event. Yet, problematically, the specification is necessarily always to the past, i.e., to a past form of the transformation of the environmental field. Gibson’s model has a high affinity with a model developed by Henri Bergson (1896). The model presciently assumed holographic properties in the matter-field and broke from the classical model of space and time, arguing that time-evolution or motion of the field must be treated as indivisible or, as physics is now arguing, as non-differentiable. In this framework, the brain can be viewed as supporting a modulated reconstructive wave passing through a holographic matter-field and specifying an image of the past motion of the field. In such a model, experience cannot be stored within the brain for it is not occurring solely within the brain. Yet the model contains a basic mechanism for redintegration or retrieval of experienced events. The research results in cued recall are reviewed in several areas, to include verbal learning experiments, the effect of imagery in paired-associate tasks, priming phenomena, and the very ecologically oriented subject performed tasks (SPTs). The mathematical description of events via invariance allows a precise definition of the similarity of the cue-event and allows for parametric variation of the power of the cue, thus biasing recall or recognition performance. The model is predictive, and at the minimum, holds its own with current memory models. A short survey of current models reveals that most are very vague as to what events are stored, and what “elements” of these events are stored, and even vaguer on how an experience is reconstructed. Since these models ignore the actual structure of events via invariance laws, no current models actually explain the retrieval of events per se. The proposed model, however, does not require the storage of experience within the brain, in fact holding that time-extended events, for example, velocity flow fields, cannot be so stored. Some larger implications are explored: the in principle possibility of retrieval of all experience, the operation of free recall, the nature of cognition in the model, and potential distinguishing experiments relative to current models. (shrink)

Our understanding of qualia is extremely weak when considerations of time are brought into play. Ignored has been the fact that the scale of time imposed by the brain on the events of the matter-field already defines quality, and that there is an essential “primary memory” or continuity of time that underlies all qualitative events. This weakness is magnified when the concept of qualia is applied to form. The origin of the dilemma lies in the fact that the problem of (...) qualia is posed in the context of an abstract space and time. When the time-evolution of the matter-field is taken as indivisible or non-differentiable, the problem can be reposed. It becomes a problem of the optimal specification of properties of an already qualitative matter-field at a particular scale of time. (shrink)

A common approach to explaining the perception of form is through the use of static features. The weakness of this approach points naturally to dynamic definitions of form. Considering dynamical form, however, leads inevitably to the need to explain how events are perceived as time-extended—a problem with primacy over that even of qualia. Optic flow models, energy models, models reliant on a rigidity constraint are examined. The reliance of these models on the instantaneous specification of form at an instant, t, (...) or across a series of such instants forces the consideration of the primary memory supporting both the perception of time-extended events and the time-extension of consciousness. This cannot be reduced to an integration over space and time. The difficulty of defining the basis for this memory is highlighted in considerations of dynamic form in relation to scales of time. Ultimately, the possibility is raised that psychology must follow physics in a more profound approach to time and motion. (shrink)