Back when researchers thought about the various forms that color vision could take, the focus was primarily on the retinal mechanisms. Since that time, research on human color vision has shifted from an interest in retinal mechanisms to cortical color processing. This has allowed color research to provide insight into questions that are not limited to early vision but extend to cognition. Direct cortical connections from higher-level areas to lower-level areas have been found throughout the (...) brain. One of the classic questions in cognitive science is whether perception is influenced, and if so to what extent, by cognition and whether a clear distinction can be drawn between perception and cognition. Since perception is seen as providing justification for our beliefs about properties in the external world, these questions also have metaphysical and epistemological significance. The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the areas where research on color perception can shed new light on questions in the cognitive sciences. A further aim of the paper is to raise some questions about color research that are in dire need of further reflection and investigation. (shrink)

Is color experience cognitively penetrable? Some philosophers have recently argued that it is. In this paper, we take issue with the claim that color experience is cognitively penetrable. We argue that the notion of cognitive penetration that has recently dominated the literature is flawed since it fails to distinguish between the modulation of perceptual content by non-perceptual principles and genuine cognitive penetration. We use this distinction to show that studies suggesting that color experience can be modulated by (...) factors of the cognitive system do not establish that color experience is cognitively penetrable. Additionally, we argue that even if color experience turns out to be modulated by color-related beliefs and knowledge beyond non-perceptual principles, it does not follow that color experience is cognitively penetrable since the experiences of determinate hues involve post-perceptual processes. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications that these ideas may have on debates in philosophy. (shrink)

Colour is, according to prevailing orthodoxy in perceptual psychology, a kind of autonomous and unitary attribute. It is regarded as unitary or homogeneous by assuming that its core properties do not depend on the type of ‘perceptual object’ to which it pertains and that‘colour per se’ constitutes a natural attribute in the functional architecture of the perceptual system. It is regarded as autonomous by assuming that it can be studied in isolation of other perceptual attributes. These assumptions also provide the (...) pillars for the technical field of colorimetry, and have proved very fruitful for neurophysiological investigations into peripheral colour coding. They also have become, in a technology-driven cultural process of abstraction, part of our common-sense conception of colour. With respect to perception theory, however, both assumptions are grossly inadequate, on both empirical and theoretical grounds. All the same, the idea of an internal homogeneous and autonomous attribute of ‘colour per se’, mostly taken not as an empirical hypothesis but as a kind of truism, became a guiding idea in perceptual psychology. Here, it has impeded the identification of relevant theoretical issues and consequently has become detrimental for the development of explanatory frameworks for the role of ‘colour’ within the structure of our perceptual system. The chapter argues that enquiries into colour perception cannot be divorced from general enquiries into the structure of the conceptual forms underlying perception. (shrink)

I show that the mathematical description of opponent-colors theory is identical to the mathematical description of two-state quantum systems in a mixed state. Based on the dual-aspect theory of phenomenal consciousness, which suggests that one or more physical entities in our universe have phenomenal aspects that are dual to their physical aspects and therefore predicts an exact correspondence between a system’s phenomenal states and the objective states of its underlying physical substrate, I hypothesize that color sensations are phenomenal dual (...) aspects of two-state quantum systems in a mixed state. Since nothing in this hypothesis suggests that what brings about the phenomenal experience that is dual to two-state quantum systems is the two-dimensionality of these systems, it is natural to generalize this hypothesis and suggest that other types of phenomenal experience (e.g., taste, odor, sound) are phenomenal dual aspects of quantum systems of higher dimensionalities. Finally, I propose that the two-state quantum systems that give rise to color in the brain are two-state ion-channels. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the enactive theory of color that implies a form of color relationism. I argue that this view constitutes a better alternative to color subjectivism and color objectivism. I liken the enactive view to Husserl’s phenomenology of perception, arguing that both deconstruct the clear duality of subject and object, which is at the basis of the other theories of color, in order to claim the co-constitution of subject and object in the (...) process of experience. I also extend the enactive and phenomenological account of color to the more general topic of the epistemological and ontological status of sensory qualities (qualia), outlining the fields of enactive phenomenology and enactive ontology. (shrink)

Colour information not only helps sustain the survival of animal species by guiding sexual selection and foraging behaviour but also is an important factor in the cultural and technological development of our own species. This is illustrated by examples from the visual arts and from state-of-the-art imaging technology, where the strategic use of colour has become a powerful tool for guiding the planning and execution of interventional procedures. The functional role of colour information in terms of its potential benefits to (...) behavioural success across the species is addressed in the introduction here to clarify why colour perception may have evolved to generate behavioural success. It is argued that evolutionary and environmental pressures influence not only colour trait production in the different species but also their ability to process and exploit colour information for goal-specific purposes. We then leap straight to the human primate with insight from current research on the facilitating role of colour cues on performance training with precision technology for image-guided surgical planning and intervention. It is shown that local colour cues in two-dimensional images generated by a surgical fisheye camera help individuals become more precise rapidly across a limited number of trial sets in simulator training for specific manual gestures with a tool. This facilitating effect of a local colour cue on performance evolution in a video-controlled simulator (pick-and-place) task can be explained in terms of colour-based figure-ground segregation facilitating attention to local image parts when more than two layers of subjective surface depth are present, as in all natural and surgical images. (shrink)

Most philosophical or scientific theories suppose that colour composition judgments refer to the way colours appear to us. The dominant view is therefore phenomenalist in the sense that colour composition is phenomenally given to perceivers. This paper argues that there is no evidence for a phenomenalist view of colour composition and that a conventionalist approach should be favoured.

Victor Vasarely's (1906–1997) important legacy to the study of human perception is brought to the forefront and discussed. A large part of his impressive work conveys the appearance of striking three-dimensional shapes and structures in a large-scale pictorial plane. Current perception science explains such effects by invoking brain mechanisms for the processing of monocular (2D) depth cues. Here in this study, we illustrate and explain local effects of 2D color and contrast cues on the perceptual organization in terms (...) of figure-ground assignments, i.e. which local surfaces are likely to be seen as “nearer” or “bigger” in the image plane. Paired configurations are embedded in a larger, structurally ambivalent pictorial context inspired by some of Vasarely's creations. The figure-ground effects these configurations produce reveal a significant correlation between perceptual solutions for “nearer” and “bigger” when other geometric depth cues are missing. In consistency with previous findings on similar, albeit simpler visual displays, a specific color may compete with luminance contrast to resolve the planar ambiguity of a complex pattern context at a critical point in the hierarchical resolution of figure-ground uncertainty. The potential role of color temperature in this process is brought forward here. Vasarely intuitively understood and successfully exploited the subtle context effects accounted for in this paper, well before empirical investigation had set out to study and explain them in terms of information processing by the visual brain. (shrink)

A major part of the mind–body problem is to explain why a given set of physical processes should give rise to qualia of one sort rather than another. Colour hues are the usual example considered here, and there is a lively debate between, for example, Hardin, Levine, Jackson, Clark and Chalmers as to whether the results of colour vision science can provide convincing explanations of why colours actually look the way they do. This paper examines carefully the type of explanation (...) that is needed here, and it is concluded that it does not have to be reductive to be effective. What needs to be explained more than anything is why inverted hue scenarios are more intuitive than other sensory inversions: and the issue of physicalism versus dualism is only of marginal relevance here. (shrink)

I show that the mathematical description of opponent-colors theory is identical to the mathematical description of two-state quantum systems in a mixed state. Following the principles of dual-aspect theory of phenomenal consciousness, which predicts an exact correspondence between a system’s phenomenal states and the objective states of its underlying physical substrate, I suggest that color sensations are phenomenal dual aspects of two-state quantum systems in a mixed state. Since nothing in this hypothesis suggests that what brings about the phenomenal (...) experience that is dual to two-state quantum systems is the two-dimensionality of these systems, it is natural to generalize this hypothesis and suggest that other types of phenomenal experience (e.g., taste, odor, sound) are phenomenal dual aspects of quantum systems of higher dimensionalities. Finally, I propose that the two-state quantum systems that give rise to color in the brain are two-state ion-channels. (shrink)

The chapter argues from an ethology-inspired internalist perspective that ‘colour’ is not a homogeneous and autonomous attribute, but rather plays different roles in different conceptual forms underlying perception. It discusses empirical and theoretical evidence that indicates that core assumptions underlying orthodox conceptions are grossly inadequate. The assumptions pertain to the idea that colour is a kind of autonomous and unitary attribute. It is regarded as unitary or homogeneous by assuming that its core properties do not depend on the type of (...) ‘perceptual object’ to which it pertains and that‘colour per se’ constitutes a natural attribute in the functional architecture of the perceptual system. It is regarded as autonomous by assuming that it can be studied in isolation of other perceptual attributes. More generally, the chapter argues on the bases of corresponding empirical and theoretical evidence that perception cannot be understood as the ‘recovery’ of physical world structure from sensory structure by input-based computational processes. Rather, the sensory input serves as a kind of sign for biologically relevant aspects of the external world that activates biologically given conceptual forms with their internal parameters. Although the sensory input is a causally necessary requirement for the activation of conceptual forms, the perceptual computations triggered are under the control of an internal programme based on a set of conceptual forms. (shrink)

This paper resolves a paradox concerning colour constancy. On the one hand, our intuitive, pre-theoretical concept holds that colour constancy involves invariance in the perceived colours of surfaces under changes in illumination. On the other, there is a robust scientific consensus that colour constancy can persist in cerebral achromatopsia, a profound impairment in the ability to perceive colours. The first stage of the solution advocates pluralism about our colour constancy capacities. The second details the close relationship between colour constancy and (...) contrast. The third argues that achromatopsics retain a basic type of colour constancy associated with invariants in contrast processing. The fourth suggests that one person-level, conscious upshot of such processing is the visual awareness of chromatic contrasts ‘at’ the edges of surfaces, implicating the ‘colour for form’ perceptual function. This primitive type of constancy sheds new light on our most basic perceptual capacities, which mark the lower borders of representational mind. (shrink)

How the visual systems of different species enable them to detect and discriminate colour patterns and how such visual abilities contribute to their survival is discussed. The influence of evolutionary and environmental pressures on both perceptual capacity and colour trait production is to be considered. Visual systems with different functional anatomy have evolved in response to such pressures.

This essay explores the intersection of racism, racial embodiment theory and the recent hostility aimed at immigrants and foreigners in the United States, especially the targeting of people of Latin American descent and Latino/as. Anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiment is racist. It is the embodiment of racial privilege for those who wield it and the materiality of racial difference for those it is used against. This manifestation of racial privilege and difference rests upon a redrawing of the color line that (...) is meant towards preserving exclusive categories of political membership. The charge of racism, however, is elided by the fact that this hostility takes the form of a specious embracement of law and lawfulness. “Illegal” in this sense not only captures the actions of those who enter the United States through clandestine or informal means, but, in light of the history of immigration and citizen- ship law, the term operates as a racial trope that designates non-white status, thus marginalizing and alienating certain immigrants from ongoing nation-formation processes. I explain the source for anti-immigrant hostility in the United States, which I take to be connected to the longevity of white normativity as the basis for American identity. I then critically assess how the idea of national belonging is crucial to the perpetuation of white-ways-of-being, especially when citizenship has historically been a venue for the embodiment of racial and even colonial privilege. I conclude by posing several questions about the nature of racial identities and racism that suggest new avenues for further research on racial embodiment in a “postracial” era. pp. 65–90. (shrink)

Chapter: WHITE PRIVILEGE AND THE COLOR OF FEAR This chapter focuses on the role that power, innocence and ignorance play in maintaining the position of white privilege. There are times when white people use their privilege in ways that overtly attempt to put and keep people of color in their places, but more often white privilege is less obvious. White privilege does not stand out in white peoples’ behavior at all times. When white behavior is normalized, it is (...) masked. At these times, white privilege and power hide behind the masks of innocence and the masks of ignorance. White people can mask from themselves and others their location with relations to power. In the film, The Color of Fear, David C. hides his power. As he hides his power, he keeps his privilege invisible, that is, behind a mask. In this chapter, we focus on the masking and unmasking of innocence and ignorance to get a better look at how the process of normalization of these masks makes whiteness powerful and consequently hides white privilege. The logic of power and privilege is reflected in the following relationship: -/- innocence + ignorance = Invisibility (of White Privilege) -/- . (shrink)

In psychophysical experiments, the use of a psychophysical procedure of brightness/darkness cancellation shed light on interactions between spatial arrangement and figure–ground contrast in the perceptual filling in of achromatic and colored surfaces.Achromatic and chromatic Kanizsa squares with varying contrast, contrast polarity, and inducer spacingwere used to test how these factors interact in the perceptual filling in of surface brightness or darkness. The results suggest that the neuronal processing of surfaces with apparent contrast, leading to figure–ground segregation (i.e., perceptual organization), (...) is governed by mechanisms that integrate both luminance contrast and spatial information carried by the inducing stimuli, while discarding information on contrast polarity or color. The findings are discussed in relation to earlier observations on brightness assimilation and contrast. They support theories of nonantagonistic neural mechanisms suppressing local contrast or color signs in brightnessbased figure–ground percepts. Such mechanismsmight be necessary to cancel potentially conflicting polarities in geometricallycomplex visual stimuli so that perceptual filling in resulting in the most plausible representation of figure and ground can be achieved. (shrink)

In general, visual experiences represent determinately. And visual experiences, generally, represent properties of distal objects like their colour, shape, and size, but they do not, generally, represent properties of proximal states like that of incoming light or the retina. By making perceptual constancies central to perceptual representation, Peter Schulte extends Karen Neander’s Causal-Informational Teleosemantic theory in order to accommodate these facts. However, by appealing to the psychophysics and chemistry of how light-related properties interact to produce stimulation to the visual system (...) and how the visual system processes such input to produce experiences, I argue that Schulte’s theory fails to accommodate the facts of distality and determinacy. (shrink)

Blindsight and vision for action seem to be exemplars of unconscious visual processes. However, researchers have recently argued that blindsight is not really a kind of uncon- scious vision but is rather severely degraded conscious vision. Morten Overgaard and col- leagues have recently developed new methods for measuring the visibility of visual stimuli. Studies using these methods show that reported clarity of visual stimuli correlates with accuracy in both normal individuals and blindsight patients. Vision for action has also come under (...) scrutiny. Recent findings seem to show that information processed by the dor- sal stream for online action contributes to visual awareness. Some interpret these results as showing that some dorsal stream processes are conscious visual processes (e.g., Gallese, 2007; Jacob & Jeannerod, 2003). The aim of this paper is to provide new support for the more traditional view that blindsight and vision for action are genuinely unconscious per- ceptual processes. I argue that individuals with blindsight do not have access to the kind of purely qualitative color and size information which normal individuals do. So, even though people with blindsight have a kind of cognitive consciousness, visual information process- ing in blindsight patients is not associated with a distinctly visual phenomenology. I argue further that while dorsal stream processing seems to contribute to visual awareness, only information processed by the early dorsal stream (V1, V2, and V3) is broadcast to working memory. Information processed by later parts of the dorsal stream (the parietal lobe) never reaches working memory and hence does not correlate with phenomenal awareness. I con- clude that both blindsight and vision for action are genuinely unconscious visual processes. (shrink)

You can demonstrate a subjective quality like redness is different from red light. If you add a device that converts a red signal into a green one, between the retina and the optic nerve, the strawberry will seem green. It’s not about light hitting the retina, it’s about how the signal is processed. In this case, the greenness must be a quality of our conscious knowledge of the strawberry, not of the red light landing on the retina. If you use (...) sufficient, well defined terminology, you can objectively communicate the nature of subjective qualities. For example, even though you know what it is like to see something that is red you cannot know that what happens inside my brain is the same as yours. It may be that “My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call red.” The properties of the red light are the same, but the experience the light produces could be different. What we lack is a universal dictionary to define what “redness” is, and how it differs from “red”. This is because physicists can’t yet answer: “Which of all our descriptions of stuff in the brain, including possible descriptions of yet unknown processes, is a description of redness?” Consciousness isn’t a ‘hard problem’ it is a color problem. Because if you understand color, that model of computation can extend to the rest of consciousness. (shrink)

By spotlighting the irreducible role of cognitive processes between biology and culture, this synthesis and critique of the universalist tradition in colour science offers a genuine starting-point for all future 'serious inquiry into the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of colour classification'.

Scholars have rejected Wilfrid Sellars’ argument for an ontology of absolute processes on the grounds that it relies on a dubious and dogmatic appeal to the homogeneity of color. Borrowing from Rosenthal’s recent defense, but ultimate rejection of homogeneity, I defend this claim of on Sellarsian/Kantian transcendental grounds, and reconstruct the remainder of his argument. I argue that Sellars has good reason to suppose that homogeneity is a necessary condition of any possible experience, including indirect experience of theoretical-explanatory posits, (...) and therefore good reason to hold that Reductive Materialism, as he conceives it, is an untenable account of color. The remainder of his argument aims to answer the question of what the metaphysical relation is between the state of an experiencing subject that we take color to be and the colorless microphysical particles that we take to constitute that subject. After rejecting Substance Dualism, Epiphenomenalism, and Wholistic or Emergent Materialism as explanatorily inadequate, Sellars proposes that both color-states and micro-physical particles should be understood as manifestations of an underlying ontology on absolute processes. (shrink)

Hering’s opponent-colors theory suggests that our color sensations are produced by three mechanisms: a red–green mechanism, a yellow–blue mechanism, and a white–black mechanism. The first two mechanisms give rise to our sensations of hued colors; the third mechanism gives rise to our sensations of hueless colors. Noticeably, whereas the pair of colors produced by each of the hued mechanisms do not mix to yield a phenomenal intermediate (i.e., there are no greenish reds, reddish greens, yellowish blues, or bluish yellows), (...) the colors produced by the hueless mechanism, white and black, do have a phenomenal intermediate—gray. This different behavior of the white–black mechanism poses a problem for Hering’s theory. Several attempts to fix this problem have been suggested. This paper focuses on the suggestion made by Paul Heggelund a century after Hering proposed his theory. In Heggelund’s amendment of Hering’s theory, the hueless colors are not confined to the one-dimensional gamut between black and white, but rather require two components for their full description: a light–dark (or luminous–black) component, where light and dark are mutually exclusive sensations, and a white component, which doesn’t have an opponent counterpart. Here I show that although Heggelund’s theory indeed provides a solution to the problem that the hueless colors pose to Hering’s theory, it is not self-consistent. I go on to revise Heggelund’s theory to obtain a consistent opponent-colors theory. (shrink)

David Milner and Melvyn Goodale’s dissociation hypothesis is commonly taken to state that there are two functionally specialized cortical streams of visual processing originating in striate (V1) cortex: a dorsal, action-related “unconscious” stream and a ventral, perception-related “conscious” stream. As Milner and Goodale acknowledge, findings from blindsight studies suggest a more sophisticated picture that replaces the distinction between unconscious vision for action and conscious vision for perception with a tripartite division between unconscious vision for action, conscious vision for perception, (...) and unconscious vision for perception. The combination excluded by the tripartite division is the possibility of conscious vision for action. But are there good grounds for concluding that there is no conscious vision for action? There is now overwhelming evidence that illusions and perceived size can have a significant effect on action (Bruno & Franz, 2009; Dassonville & Bala, 2004; Franz & Gegenfurtner, 2008; McIntosh & Lashley, 2008). There is also suggestive evidence that any sophisticated visual behavior requires collaboration between the two visual streams at every stage of the process (Schenk & McIntosh, 2010). I nonetheless want to make a case for the tripartite division between unconscious vision for action, conscious vision for perception, and unconscious vision for perception. My aim here is not to refute the evidence showing that conscious vision can affect action but rather to argue (a) that we cannot gain cognitive access to action-guiding dorsal stream representations, and (b) that these representations do not correlate with phenomenal consciousness. This vindicates the semi-conservative view that the dissociation hypothesis is best understood as a tripartite division. (shrink)

Symmetry in biological and physical systems is a product of self-organization driven by evolutionary processes, or mechanical systems under constraints. Symmetry-based feature extraction or representation by neural networks may unravel the most informative contents in large image databases. Despite significant achievements of artificial intelligence in recognition and classification of regular patterns, the problem of uncertainty remains a major challenge in ambiguous data. In this study, we present an artificial neural network that detects symmetry uncertainty states in human observers. To this (...) end, we exploit a neural network metric in the output of a biologically inspired Self- Organizing Map Quantization Error (SOM-QE). Shape pairs with perfect geometry mirror symmetry but a non-homogenous appearance, caused by local variations in hue, saturation, or lightness within and/or across the shapes in a given pair produce, as shown here, a longer choice response time (RT) for “yes” responses relative to symmetry. These data are consistently mirrored by the variations in the SOM-QE from unsupervised neural network analysis of the same stimulus images. The neural network metric is thus capable of detecting and scaling human symmetry uncertainty in response to patterns. Such capacity is tightly linked to the metric’s proven selectivity to local contrast and color variations in large and highly complex image data. (shrink)

By arguing that qualia is meaning or understanding, a new framework for understanding consciousness is developed. In this way, the meaning of yellow and red are uncovered. The suggested solutions are that yellow means “source of light” and red means “important”. Also, in the process of arguing that qualia is meaning, remarkable similarities in the structure of qualia are uncovered. In this way, a reason for why very hot and very cold water feel the same, is given. The same behaviour (...) is also shown to take place for colours. (shrink)

This study, presenting a history of the measurement of light intensity from its first hesitant emergence to its gradual definition as a scientific subject, explores two major themes. The first concerns the adoption by the evolving physics and engineering communities of quantitative measures of light intensity around the turn of the twentieth century. The mathematisation of light measurement was a contentious process that hinged on finding an acceptable relationship between the mutable response of the human eye and the more easily (...) stabilised, but less encompassing, techniques of physical measurement. -/- A second theme is the exploration of light measurement as an example of ‘peripheral science’. Among the characteristics of such a science, I identify the lack of a coherent research tradition and the persistent partitioning of the subject between disparate groups of practitioners. Light measurement straddled the conventional categories of ‘science’ and ‘technology’, and was influenced by such distinct factors as utilitarian requirements, technological innovation, human perception and bureaucratisation. Peripheral fields such as this, which may be typical of much of modern science and technology, have hitherto received little attention from historians. -/- These themes are pursued with reference to the social and technological factors which were combined inextricably in the development of the subject. The intensity of light gained only sporadic attention until the late nineteenth century. Measured for the utilitarian needs of the gas lighting industry from the second half of the century, light intensity was appropriated by members of the nascent electric lighting industry, too, in their search for a standard of illumination. By the turn of the century the ‘illuminating engineering movement’ was becoming an organised, if eclectic, community which promoted research into and standards for the measurement of light intensity. -/- The twentieth-century development of the subject was moulded by organisation and institutionalisation. Between 1900 and 1920, the new national and industrial laboratories in Britain, America and Germany were crucial in stabilising the subject. In the inter-war period, committees and international commissions sought to standardise light measurement and to promote research. Such government- and industry-supported delegations, rather than academic institutions, were primarily responsible for the ‘construction’ of the subject. Practitioners increasingly came to interpret the three topics of photometry (visible light measurement), colorimetry (the measurement of colour) and radiometry (the measurement of invisible radiations) as aspects of a broader study, and enthusiastically applied them to industrial and scientific problems. -/- From the 1920s, the long-established visual methods of observation were increasingly replaced by physical means of light measurement, a process initially contingent on scientific fashion more than demonstrated superiority. New photoelectric techniques for measuring light intensity engendered new commercial instruments, a trend which accelerated in the following decade when photometric measurement was applied with limited success to a range of industrial problems. Seeds sowed in the 1920s – namely commercialisation and industrial application, the transition from visual to ‘physical’ methods, and the search for fundamental limitations in light measurement – gave the subject substantially the form it was to retain over the next half-century. (shrink)

The project of “public reason” claims to offer an epistemological resolution to the civic dilemma created by the clash of incompatible options for the rational exercise of freedom adopted by citizens in a diverse community. The present Article proposes, via consideration of a contrast between two classical accounts of dialectical reasoning, that the employment of “public reason,” in substantive due process analysis, is unworkable in theory and contrary to more reflective Supreme Court precedent. Although logical commonalities might be available to (...) pick out from the multitude of particularized accounts of what constitutes “civic order,” no “public reason” so derived could adequately capture - and thus be able to secure in a practical sense - any single determinate civic order, much less one that would be consistent with all citizens' conceptions of public order. Part I of this Article raises a number of issues for consideration relating to the epistemology of law and focuses especially on the concept of public reason and its critique. Part II addresses alternative approaches to legal reasoning suggested by classical accounts of practical reasoning and virtue theory and considers the operation of such legal analysis outside the area of substantive due process; Part III analyzes post-Lawrence case law confirming the dilemma created by the Supreme Court's ambiguous approaches to substantive due process and concludes that only one interpretation - that articulated fully in Washington v. Glucksberg and given lip service in Lawrence v. Texas - provides a method for resolving novel substantive due process challenges that is philosophically sound as well as historically coherent. Rather than perpetuating a fiction that denies the propriety of lawmaking unless based on principles that all citizens can rationally agree upon, an appropriate model of substantive due process analysis recognizes that law must inevitably be based upon principles that cannot be agreed upon by all citizens in virtue of rationality alone. -/- Abstract Footnotes (291) Beta -/- Revise My Submission -/- -/- One-Click Download | Share | Email | Add to Briefcase -/- Facebook | Twitter | Digg | Del.icio.us | CiteULike | Permalink Using the URL or DOI link below will ensure access to this page indefinitely -/- Based on your IP address, your paper is being delivered by: New York, USA Processing request. [Processing request.] Illinois, USA Processing request. [Processing request.] Brussels, Belgium Processing request. [Processing request.] Seoul, Korea Processing request. [Processing request.] California, USA Processing request. [Processing request.] -/- If you have any problems downloading this paper, please click on another Download Location above, or view our FAQ File name: SSRN-id1004757. ; Size: 424K -/- Sample Cover You will receive a black and white printed and perfect bound version of this document in 8 1/2 x 11 inch format, with glossy color front and back covers. Currently shipping to the US addresses only. Your order will be shipped within three business days. Quantity: Total Price = $0.50 plus shipping (U.S. Only) -/- If you have any problems with this purchase, please email [email protected] or call 1-585-442-8170. Reason's Freedom and the Dialectic of Ordered Liberty -/- Edward C. Lyons University of Notre Dame Law School -/- Cleveland State Law Review, Vol. 55, p. 157, 2007 -/- Abstract: The project of "public reason" claims to offer an epistemological resolution to the civic dilemma created by the clash of incompatible options for the rational exercise of freedom adopted by citizens in a diverse community. The present Article proposes, via consideration of a contrast between two classical accounts of dialectical reasoning, that the employment of "public reason," in substantive due process analysis, is unworkable in theory and contrary to more reflective Supreme Court precedent. Although logical commonalities might be available to pick out from the multitude of particularized accounts of what constitutes "civic order," no "public reason" so derived could adequately capture - and thus be able to secure in a practical sense - any single determinate civic order, much less one that would be consistent with all citizens' conceptions of public order. -/- Part I of this Article raises a number of issues for consideration relating to the epistemology of law and focuses especially on the concept of public reason and its critique. Part II addresses alternative approaches to legal reasoning suggested by classical accounts of practical reasoning and virtue theory and considers the operation of such legal analysis outside the area of substantive due process; Part III analyzes post-Lawrence case law confirming the dilemma created by the Supreme Court's ambiguous approaches to substantive due process and concludes that only one interpretation - that articulated fully in Washington v. Glucksberg and given lip service in Lawrence v. Texas - provides a method for resolving novel substantive due process challenges that is philosophically sound as well as historically coherent. -/- Rather than perpetuating a fiction that denies the propriety of lawmaking unless based on principles that all citizens can rationally agree upon, an appropriate model of substantive due process analysis recognizes that law must inevitably be based upon principles that cannot be agreed upon by all citizens in virtue of rationality alone. -/- Keywords: substantive due process, practical reason, public reason, Rawls, Casey, Lawrence, Glucksberg, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, dialectic, autonomy, freedom -/- . (shrink)

Over the past few decades, the dominant approach to explaining intentionality has been a naturalistic approach, one appealing only to non-mental ingredients condoned by the natural sciences. Karen Neander’s A Mark of the Mental (2017) is the latest installment in the naturalist project, proposing a detailed and systematic theory of intentionality that combines aspects of several naturalistic approaches, invoking causal relations, teleological functions, and relations of second-order similarity. In this paper, we consider the case of perceptual representations of colors, which (...) is a challenging case for Neander’s theory. This case will brings out a general methodological concern with Neander’s and other naturalistic theories: these theories generally rest on the assumption that the mental intentionality we are acquainted with in everyday life—the phenomenon exhibited by desires for cups of coffee, perceptual experiences of dogs playing in yards, and thoughts about the weather—is the very same kind of phenomenon that cognitive science studies under labels such as “mental representation” and, in some cases, “information processing.” This assumption is dubious, as the case of Neander’s theory illustrates. (shrink)

Consider a toothache, or a feeling of intense pleasure, or the sensation you would have if you looked impassively at an expanse of colour. In each case, the experience can easily be thought to fill time by being present throughout a period. This way of thinking of conscious experience is natural enough, but it is in deep conflict with the view that physical processes are ultimately responsible for experience. The problem is that physical processes are related to durations in a (...) very different way—not by being wholly present at each instant or sub-period, but by having temporal parts that are. There is a choice to be made, therefore, between preserving this common way of thinking of experience and preserving the fundamentality of processes. The first option holds fixed the view of experiences as occurring throughout time and takes this to constrain the category of entity to which they are identical, or upon which they supervene. The second option abandons this common view of experience by taking up a perspective on which we experience things in the world and their properties as existing or occurring a certain way, and mistakenly ascribe this ontological character to our experience as well. The second option is ultimately the better option, however, since only it can make sense of the facts of our experience. (shrink)

Neuroscience investigates how neuronal processing circuits work, but it has problems explaining experiences this way. For example, it hasn’t explained how colour and shape circuits bind together in visual processing, nor why colours and other qualia are experienced so differently yet processed by circuits so similarly, nor how to get from processing circuits to pictorial images spread across inner space. Some theorists turn from these circuits to their electromagnetic fields to deal with such difficulties concerning the mind’s (...) qualia, unity, privacy, and causality. They include Kohler, Libet, Popper, Lindahl, Arhem, Charman, Pockett, John, McFadden, Fingelkurts, Maxwell, and Jones. They’re classifiable as computationalist, reductionist, dualist, realist, interactionist, epiphenomenalist, globalist, and localist. However, they’ve never been analysed together as a whole, which hinders evaluations of them. This article tries to rectify this. It concludes that while field theories face challenges, they aren’t easily dismissed, for they draw on considerable evidence and may avoid serious problems in neuroscience concerning the mind’s qualia, unity, causality, and ontology. (shrink)

The dispute about the role of class in understanding the life situations of people of color has tended to be overpolarized, between a class reductionism and an “it's only race” position. Class processes shape racial groups’ life situations. Race and class are also distinct axes of injustice; but class injustice informs racial injustice. Some aspects of racial injustice can be expressed only in concepts associated with class (e.g., material deprivation, inferior education). But other aspects of racial injustice or other (...) harms, such as racial discrimination or stigma, are not reducible to class concepts and cannot be fully addressed through class-focused policies. Overall, any attempt to fully secure racial justice for a racial group will require a combination of race-focused and class-focused policies. Anti-racist outlooks often neglect or downplay either the normative or the explanatory significance of class, or both—for example, by overlooking or downplaying the dignitary harms of class and the material harms of race; missing the historical dimension of class injustice; masking class by a narrowing of the complex normative structure of racial disparities; or not recognizing that a class-focused initiative (like raising the minimum wage) can address substantial racial justice concerns, even though not all of them. “Systemic racism” terminology recognizes class explanatorily but suppresses it normatively. Charles Mills's influential notion of “white supremacy,” while a powerful tool for conceptualizing and illuminating racial injustice, can also contribute to minimizing or masking the justice-related impact of class, as do some of Mills's specific discussions of class in various writings. (shrink)

The basis of perception is the processing and categorization of perceptual stimuli from the environment. Much progress has been made in the science of perceptual categorization. Yet there is still no consensus on how the brain generates sensory individuals, from sensory input and perceptual categories in memory. This chapter argues that perceptual categorization is highly variable across perceivers due to their use of different perceptual strategies for solving perceptual problems they encounter, and that the perceptual system structurally adjusts to (...) the strategies that are most successful. Despite this variability, the different sensory individuals that result when different perceivers rely on different strategies nonetheless correspond to actual external world objects/features. This view is called 'perceptual pluralism'. (shrink)

In this paper we show how a student can learn the basics of the system databases using (W3school CSS) which was built as intelligent tutoring educational system by using the authoring tool called (ITSB). The learning material contains CSS and HTML. We divided the material in a group of lessons for novice learner which combines relational system and lessons in the process of learning. The student can learn using example of CSS, and types of CSS color. Furthermore, the intelligent (...) tutoring system supports not only lessons; but exercises of different difficult levels for each lesson. When a student finish successfully the first difficulty level in a lesson, the student is allowed to move to the next difficulty level of the exercises of the lesson. (shrink)

[This download contains the Table of Contents and Chapter 1]. I argue here that the claim that conscious states are private, in the sense that only one person can ever experience them directly, is false. There actually is a way to connect the brains of two people that would allow one to have direct experience of the other's conscious, e.g., perceptual states. This would allow, for instance, one person to see that the other had deviant color perception (which was (...) masked by correct linguistic practice). This could be achieved by connecting one person's set of executive processes (or cognitive control network) to the conscious perceptual states of the other. Chapter 5 contains an internalist physicalist account of color according to which colors exist only as brain states. Their function is to enable more precise causal interactions between the executive processes and the brain's perceptual systems. This in turn allows for more precise action: I can select the red apples and leave the green ones. (shrink)

This is a conjecture about the conditions and operating structures that are required for the phenomenality of certain mental states. Specifically, full-blown phenomenality is assumed, as contrasted with constrained examples of phenomenal experience such as sensations of color and pain. Propositional attitudes and content, while not phenomenal per se, are standardly concurrent and may condition phenomenal states (e.g., when tied to false beliefs). It is conjectured that full phenomenality natively arises in coherent processes of situated sensory synthesis and representation (...) (with conceptual content) that are looped, mereologically whole and multi-dimensional. And that phenomenal states are typically phase-states within a parameterized conjoint structure of world and experiencer processes that are causally modulated across Markov blankets (which are conditionally independent and may be nested: cf. M. Kirchoff, et. al., 2017, 2018; and T. Burge, 2010, re: anti-individualism). Though they may, it is not accepted that phenomenally conscious states must be targets of higher-order representations (cf. A. Byrne, 2004). (shrink)

Does intersectionality divide marginalized groups (e.g., women) along identity lines (e.g., race, class, and sexuality)? In response to the criticism that intersectional approaches to feminist and critical race theories lead to fragmentation and division, this paper notes that it relies on an ontological (mis)understanding of identity as a fixed entity. I argue against this notion of identity by engaging in a detailed case study of how Asian American women experience their Asian identity. The case study demonstrates that identity is lived (...) not as a pre-given static object but rather as a fluid and flexible process: what Asian identity means varies according to how this identity is related to the dynamics of power. I propose a tripartite taxonomy of identity-power relationships exhibited in Asian American women’s lives, in which identities are 1) constructed by and 2) used to reproduce power as oppression, as well as 3) used to build power as resistance. In particular, I explore Black and Asian feminist solidarities to show that those at the margins recreate their identities and, in doing so, build positive forms of power such as resistance and solidarity. The criticism that intersectionality leads to fragmentation does not hold, as it is grounded in a flawed notion of identity that fails to consider how identities are actually lived in their changing relationships to power—especially how marginalized groups, such as women of color, build solidarity to resist oppression by recreating their identities, rather than being fragmented into smaller and mutually exclusive subgroups. (shrink)

A woman and a man desire to come together stirred by the primal fire of Kama and the man deposits his egg in the womb of the woman. This egg develops into a human undergoing nine or ten months of evolution. This process is the microscopic replication of the method evolved by God to create the universe. Rigveda (10.121) mentions Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Egg as the source of the creation of the universe. It is said that God, wishing to create (...) the world, produced an egg as big as the cosmos. God meditated for a thousand years sitting inside the egg and when the egg burst, the Lord himself was born out of the egg as the Progenitor of the universe (“He made Himself by Himself.”, Taitiriya Upanishad: 2.7.1). The Rishis called the Egg Brahmanda (the Cosmic Egg), and the Progenitor Manu. Scientists have discovered that the universe has an oval shape. Like the nine months of the evolution of the human egg, the Cosmic Egg also undergoes nine stages of evolution before it gets dissolved during what we call ‘Maha Pralaya’. The Puranas mention that Brahmanda has 14 biospheres, seven nether and seven upper inhabited by different types of souls. If we count from the human world, there are ten dimensions of consciousness. Rishis called these astral biospheres Mandalas/Lokas with different wavelengths and colours. Sri Karunakara Guru referred to them as Avasthas, or spiritual stages. The Buddhists and Hindu esoteric sects such as the Theosophical Society explain these levels of the Absolute in terms of Physical plane, Astral plane, Mental plane, Buddhic plane, Atmic plane, Anupadaka plane, Adi plane and Shiv and Shakti. These Avasthas are related to the expanding consciousness reaching up to the core of the Cosmic Egg, the Paramatma. Like a spider which creates a web around it sitting in the centre, and withdraws it in the end, Paramatma creates and withdraws webbed multi-dimensional universes. Nobody can say when it started and when it will end as it is a beginningless and endless process. (shrink)

A credible fear test is an in-depth interview process given to undocumented people of any age arriving at a U.S. port of entry to determine qualification for asylum-seeking. Credible fear tests as a typical immigration procedure demonstrate not only what structural epistemic violence looks like but also how this violence lives in and through the design of asylum policy. Key terms of credible fear tests such as “significant possibility,” “evidence,” “consistency,” and “credibility” can never be neutral in the context of (...) colonial administrative violence. We argue that these terms function as mechanisms of exclusion and demonstrate that the capacity to be violent (i.e. to be an instrument of violence) is built into these tests, ready to be deployed when an administration wants to stop certain people from certain places from entering without regard to their own ongoing occupation of Indigenous lands. Not only are such practices instruments of violence, but the concept of ‘violence’ continues to be organized, defined, and conceived within settler colonial epistemologies so as to exclude these administrative forms of violence deployed against Indigenous peoples and people of color from recognition and nameability. We argue that this is an intentional strategy of colonial power preservation that is functionalized through social processes that remain structurally stable and self-regenerating across historical and political changes. (shrink)

A crucial socio-political challenge for our age is how to rede!ne or extend group membership in such a way that it adequately responds to phenomena related to globalization like the prevalence of migration, the transformation of family and social networks, and changes in the position of the nation state. Two centuries ago Immanuel Kant assumed that international connectedness between humans would inevitably lead to the realization of world citizen rights. Nonetheless, globalization does not just foster cosmopolitanism but simultaneously yields the (...) development of new group boundaries. Group membership is indeed a fundamental issue in political processes, for: “the primary good that we distribute to one another is membership in some human community” – it is within the political community that power is being shared and, if possible, held back from non-members. In sum, it is appropriate to consider group membership a fundamental ingredient of politics and political theory. How group boundaries are drawn is then of only secondary importance. Indeed, Schmitt famously declared that “[e]very religious, moral, economic, ethical, or other antithesis transforms into a political one if it is suffciently strong to group human beings e#ectively according to friend and enemy”. Even though Schmitt’s idea of politics as being constituted by such antithetical groupings is debatable, it is plausible to consider politics among other things as a way of handling intergroup di#erences. Obviously, some of the group-constituting factors are more easily discernable from one’s appearance than others, like race, ethnicity, or gender. As a result, factors like skin color or sexual orientation sometimes carry much political weight even though individuals would rather con!ne these to their private lives and individual identity. Given the potential tension between the political reality of particular groupmembership defnitions and the – individual and political – struggles against those definitions and corresponding attitudes, citizenship and civic behavior becomes a complex issue. As Kymlicka points out, it implies for citizens an additional obligation to non-discrimination regarding those groups: “[t]his extension of non-discrimination from government to civil society is not just a shift in the scale of liberal norms, it also involves a radical extension in the obligations of liberal citizenship”. Unfortunately, empirical research suggests that political intolerance towards other groups “may be the more natural and ‘easy’ position to hold”. Indeed, since development of a virtue of civility or decency regarding other groups is not easy, as it often runs against deeply engrained stereotypes and prejudices, political care for matters like education is justified. Separate schools, for example, may erode children’s motivation to act as citizens, erode their capacity for it and!nally diminish their opportunities to experience transcending their particular group membership and behave as decent citizens. This chapter outlines a possible explanation for such consequences. That explanation will be found to be interdisciplinary in nature, combining insights from political theory and cognitive neuroscience. In doing so, it does not focus on collective action, even though that is a usual focus for political studies. For example, results pertaining to collective political action have demonstrated that the relation between attitudes and overt voting behavior or political participation is not as direct and strong as was hoped for. Several conditions, including the individual’s experiences, self-interest, and relevant social norms, turned out to interfere in the link between his or her attitude and behavior. Important as collective action is, this chapter is concerned with direct interaction between agents and the in$uence of group membership on such interaction – in particular joint action. Although politics does include many forms of action that require no such physical interaction, such physical interaction between individuals remains fundamental to politics – this is the reason why separate schooling may eventually undermine the citizenship of its isolated pupils. This chapter will focus on joint action, de!ned as: “any form of social interaction whereby two or more individuals coordinate their actions in space and time to bring about a change in the environment”. Cognitive neuroscienti!c evidence demonstrates that for such joint action to succeed, the agents have to integrate the actions and expected actions of the other person in their own action plans at several levels of speci!city. Although neuroscienti!c research is necessarily limited to simple forms of action, this concurs with a philosophical analysis of joint action, which I will discuss below. (shrink)

Four experiments investigated the extent to which abstract quantitative information can be conveyed by basic visual features. This was done by asking observers to estimate and discriminate Pearson correlation in graphical representations where the first data dimension of each element was encoded by its horizontal position, and the second by the value of one of its visual features; perceiving correlation then requires combining the information in the two encodings via a common abstract representation. Four visual features were examined: luminance, (...) class='Hi'>color, orientation, and size. All were able to support the perception of correlation. Indeed, despite the strikingly different appearances of the associated stimuli, all gave rise to performance that was much the same: just noticeable difference was a linear function of distance from complete correlation, and estimated correlation a logarithmic function of this distance. Performance differed only in regards to the level of noise in the feature, with these values compatible with estimates of channel capacity encountered in classic experiments on absolute perceptual magnitudes. These results suggest that quantitative information can be conveyed by visual features that are abstracted at relatively low levels of visual processing, with little representation of the original sensory property. It is proposed that this is achieved via an abstract parameter space in which the values in each perceptual dimension are normalized to have the same means and variances, with perceived correlation based on the shape of the joint probability density function of the resultant elements. (shrink)

How does one know the phenomenal character of one’s own experience? I aim to present and defend a new view of the epistemology of qualia that addresses this issue. My view results from a reworking of Dretske’s displaced perception model. The guiding line is the key Wittgensteinian insight of his Private Language Argument, namely the claim that no inner perception of qualia can justify our corresponding qualia-beliefs. My reworking of the original model starts with the rejection of Dretske’s representationalism, as (...) well as any other metaphysical views about the ultimate nature of qualia. The reworking of the displaced perception model I am proposing is supposed to be compatible with any available meta- physical view on qualia. The second step consists of rejecting the epistemological misgivings of the original model, namely the view that knowing qualia requires “connecting beliefs” along with “meta-representations.” Yet, Dretske’s crucial mistake has been to force knowledge of qualia into the “belief-box.” As a matter of fact, there is only one belief involved in intro- specting qualia, namely the qualia-belief itself. The third final step is this. Assuming the key Wittgensteinian insight, I argue that introspection of qualia is a process that is both epis- temically reliable and automatic. It is reliable because it dispenses with justification of any beliefs whatsoever. Moreover, it is automatic because it also dispenses with reflexive con- necting beliefs. For example, it takes nonconceptual awareness of the color blue as an input and automatically yields the belief that phenomenal blue is the conscious character of my experience of the sky as an output just by employing the concept BLUE. (shrink)

Mimicry, camouflage, transvestism, chance or cryptic anamorphism, fascination – all ways of changing clothes, habits and habitats in nature as well as in culture, in any symbolic field created by human beings during their history. Art and artification, aestheticization, stylization and beautification are all practices reflecting the need and desire for biological as well as social adaptation, all performances producing functional and fictional frames, boundaries or hierarchies in ordinary life, including the artworld. They can persuade and convince by creating consensus (...) and belief, but they can also lead to a different common sense, a sensorium – a sensorial medium and an aesthetic mediation open to a new world and to new experiences. -/- By investigating mimetism as a fundamental and polymorphic aesthetic performance, this issue of «Aisthesis» aims to rethink the concept, value, and function of mimesis and its media in the context of camouflage, simulation, and dissimulation, where images do not reveal themselves as such, but are to be perceived unambiguously as what they are not – as hieroglyphs or puzzles. In the animal kingdom, as well as in war or in ordinary public life, camouflage consists in taking on the traits, colours, and shapes of a given form or environment. This is a twofold process: on the one hand, by blending two or more shapes in one, the camoufleur seeks to remain hidden and to mislead the others in order to keep a vital secret or an ephemeral whim; on the other hand, however, he/she aims to be recognized by a specific milieu or group, thus betraying a craving for communication and familiarity, as well as a need to convey an agreeable appearance and to share a way of life. (shrink)

Much recent philosophy of perception is preoccupied with finding a place for phenomenal character in a physical world. By contrast, Locke’s philosophy of sensory perception is an episode in his ‘Historical, plain method’ and seeks to map out the processes by which we experience ordinary objects. On Locke’s account, our ideas of primary and secondary qualities enter the mind ‘simple and unmixed’; having an idea of a colour, for example, is not necessary for the visual experience of a shape. An (...) analysis of the Molyneux problem reveals that, for Locke, judgment corrects the initial two-dimensional idea vision presents us with. Nevertheless, Locke’s position is problematic: he has no account of how we pair ideas of primary and secondary qualities, nor of how we could experience a colourless visual idea of shape. (shrink)

I argue for the following claims: (1) A core Husserlian account of perceptual constancy needs to be given in terms of indicative future-oriented conditionals but can be complemented by a counterfactual account; (2) thus conceived, constancy is a necessary aspect of content. I speak about a “core Husserlian” account so as to capture certain ideas that Michael Madary has presented as the core of Edmund Husserl's approach to perceptual constancy, viz., that “perception is partly constituted by the continuous interplay of (...) intention and fulfilment” and that this “gives us a way to understand the relationship between different appearances of the same object” (See Madary, M. (2012) “Husserl on Perceptual Constancy.” European Journal of Philosophy 20(1): 145–165.). I take myself to be developing, and perhaps correcting, Madary's view as I discuss the role of the core Husserlian ideas, and counterfactuals, in accounting for shape and color constancy, respectively. I bridge constancy and fulfilment-conditional content by appealing to the Husserlian notion of constitution, which captures the process in which objectivity and, correlatively, intentional experience, are built up in the experiential flow. (shrink)

Perceptual filling-in for vision is the insertion of visual properties (e.g., color, contour, luminance, or motion) into one’s visual field, when those properties have no corresponding retinal input. This paper introduces and provides preliminary empirical support for filled/non-filled pairs, pairs of images that appear identical, yet differ by amount of filling-in. It is argued that such image pairs are important to the experimental testing of theories of consciousness. We review recent experimental research and conclude that filling-in involves brain activity (...) with relatively high integrated information (Phi) compared to veridical visual perceptions. We then present filled/non-filled pairs as an empirical challenge to the integrated information theory of consciousness, which predicts that phenomenologically identical experiences depend on brain processes with identical Phi. (shrink)

June 2022 A Revolutionary New Metaphysics, Based on Consciousness, and a Call to All Philosophers We are in a unique moment of our history unlike any previous moment ever. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. As I write, the planet is in deep trouble, heat, fires, great storms, and record flooding, (...) weather patterns drastic everywhere. Capitalism has been so successful in supplying us with an endless array of consumer items, that we have never noticed there is a cost. But there is a cost, the cost is the very life of the Earth herself, and now the day of reckoning is here. Days of reckoning are most often days of rath. But I am hoping that this is a day of major Awakening over the entire planet. We have caused a crisis so great for the Earth we can hardly get our minds around it. But I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis are ideas, about who and what the Earth is, Ourselves, and what we are here for. I am proposing that this is a call to all philosophy and philosophers to rethink ourselves from the ground up. The human race has never gotten the Earth right and now we must, for the Earth is the true foundation for civilization. We are in deep trouble with the Earth, and it owes to the fact that the great male thinkers never got the Earth right, they could never make the connection between the life of mind and the life of the Earth. I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis we are in are ideas. And that in fact the planet is in the grip of a false metaphysics, and scientific image of nature that really comes most recently from Descartes. His conviction that matter, and with it the Earth, are simply the weighable, the measurable the extended in space and time, utterly devoid of any inner life of mind thoughts or Consciousness. This view of matter and the Earth goes back to the very dawn of thought, Descartes is just its most recent and comprehensive version of things. This view of matter is really a false metaphysics that dominates most of the modern world and underpins the whole scientific image of nature itself. I am proposing this is a false metaphysics and offering a new version of things based on Consciousness. If there is a single idea fueling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something without Consciousness. When you intend to ravage and savage the planet, turn it into consumer items to be converted into money in the bank, first pretend that all of the bright beings in the natural world are devoid of Consciousness, just “things” you do not have to have any conscious about destroying them. I am proposing that this term Consciousness, that has appeared as term and a problem for modern science, is the key to getting ourselves right with the Earth. I propose this new theory for science will ramify into every other disciplines as well, and the ways we think just about everything. This old paradigm based on a false theory of matter, has run its course, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction. We need new ideas, and we need them now. You will find my recent work in the Scientific God Journal under the title: Consciousness as the Organizing Principle, and a very complete version of my arguments for this term Consciousness, along with radical reinterpretation of modern science itself, on the Galileo Commission site. It is a radical moment for all of the thinkers among us, take this as my small contribution to rethinking ourselves in new terms, based on my understanding that the true basis for the whole of Being, the Universe, the Cosmos, and with them Ourselves, is this term Consciousness. And unpack it. And I predict that with this term Consciousness every intractable human problem in both science and the modern world will go down like a line of dominos before it. And so, here are a few new ideas I would offer you. These are the times of the Reappearance of the Feminine, a great Awakening as of Springtime after a long dark and lonely Winter. We are leaving behind us an old civilization based on male dominance, fear lies and control, now in decay, disease, and death disintegrating all around us. We are moving into a whole new civilization based on Love and Truth. A new civilization requires new basic terms values and first principles. And so, I return to Descartes. 1. Just over 300 years ago a young man travelling with the army found himself stranded in a foreign town in a bare room lit by a candle with nothing to do but think. And in a couple of nights Descartes laid the entire thought foundations for modern science and most of the modern world. It isn’t clear that modern philosophers with their funding sources of grants, their graduate students, their reputation and all the perks and privileges of academia can do any better. Descartes claimed there are just two principles in the Universe, Matter and Mind. God was pure mind; human beings were mind and matter. And we are the only ones on the planet with mind. Everything else all of the bright array of beings who share the planet with us are simply matter. And matter? The weighable the measurable the extended in space and time utterly devoid of any inner life of thoughts, feelings, or Consciousness This classification was a boon for developing science. Scientists did not have to worry about any inner life in nature, ideas or Consciousness, they could just set about weighing and measuring, as they have until the present day. But it was a disaster for the Earth. Earth was once worshiped as a Goddess. With Descartes she became almost overnight “things.” Simply commodities and resources, an endless of supply of consumer items, to be turned into money in the bank. And now Descartes concept of matter is up for us. If there is a single idea that is enabling and driving the destruction of the Earth, it is the conviction that Earth is something without Consciousness. This whole scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is driving the destruction of the Earth, and driving us all insane, and it needs to change. Ever since Descartes formulated Dualism, scientists and philosophers have been trying to get rid of it. They have done this by attempting to make matter the fundamental term of reality, and to explain mind or Consciousness in terms of matter. And now, Consciousness has emerged as term and a problem for modern science. 2. The prevailing Universe picture has been mainly based on the belief that Consciousness appears only at the end of evolution in ourselves and some of the higher animals when matter attains “a certain state of complexity” and it is produced by neurons in the brain. But Consciousness is nothing real in itself, the neurons are doing the work, Consciousness is simply a byproduct of neural activity. As William James summed up this position, not his: Consciousness is to the brain as a shadow to the runner, it runs beside him but never influences his stride. And so, the great problem of neuroscience: How do neurons produce Consciousness? So far, no one has been able to say how. All we have is parallelism. Two processes are running in parallel a train of neural events and a train of Consciousness events. And so, which one is primary? The face of neuroscience and much of the modern world is that the neural events are what is really real, Consciousness is secondary. The conviction that Consciousness is something produced by neurons is so deeply held and has been so for so long, that it seems like an obvious fact. It is in fact an assumption and a theory, and it could all well be the other way around. The scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is now up for us. It has enabled the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a unique place in our own evolution where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, there are the best reasons for rethinking Descartes concepts of matter. Scientists and philosophers have been trying to escape dualism by making matter the fundamental term. And now, this has not worked. In a nutshell: The mind body problem, the “hard problem of Consciousness” ---how do neurons in the brain, atoms and molecules give rise to ideas thoughts and feelings and who what and where is the “I” who sees them? And then, the near-death experience. I remind you of the truth of the near-death experience. The body in the bed is brain dead eeg flat, but the patient, pure Consciousness is hovering at the ceiling watching the doctors work over the body below, able to read dials he could not have seen from the bed, sometimes able to events in the corridor beyond the room, all subsequently confirmed by the doctors. Evidence as good as it gets that the patient really was out of his body. And so, the patient is able to see without eyes, hear without ears and to think and remember without a brain. There is not a single scientific principle that can account for this. And I am proposing that the near-death experience is a threshold and a key for a much deeper understanding of the Universe. These three problems are so hard they cannot be solved by present scientific principles and therefore call all present principles and ways of thought into question. When your axioms cannot account for the data, it is time to drop them and find better fundamental terms. We have not been able to solve the problems of Consciousness with the assumption that matter is the most basic and fundamental term. And so, if Cartesian dualism is to be overcome at all, we need to try it the other way around. 3. We are in the position of Copernicus. Remember Copernicus? He was making his calculations on the assumption that the Earth was the center of the Universe until they became so unwieldy that he decided to try it all the other way around. To make the sun the center, the Earth revolving around it. And lo, all of his data fell neatly into place. I am proposing a whole new Universe picture. Evolution makes us continuous with every other being, Consciousness would not be in us if it were not in them also, and then, in the atoms and molecules and cells that make up living beings. I propose to make Consciousness the most basic term and see what follows. I am in fact, proposing a new Copernican Revolution, that Consciousness is the true basis for the Universe and the right fundamental term, for science itself all other disciplines as well, and the whole of the modern world. And I predict that every intractable problem in science or the modern world, will go down like a line of dominos before it. In a nutshell: Consciousness and not matter is “first and fundamental” in the Universe, it is there from the very “Beginning” everything has it and all of the true causalities, the explanatory principles belong to it. Not to matter. What then is matter? All matter is an Appearance of something much more real, Consciousness. All matter is an expression of Consciousness, even the least little bit of matter contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. And so, we revise the scientific image of nature. Science at present is two termed, matter/energy. It needs to become three termed: Matter/energy/Consciousness, with the recognition that all of the basic principles, the true causalities of events, and of the Universe belong to Consciousness. And now physics. To accommodate this new Universe picture physics needs to alter just one term, energy. All energy contains Consciousness, that idea alone will change our world forever. The animals the trees the plants are just as conscious as we are, as is the Earth herself, a continuum of many forms of Consciousness of which our own is one. The Earth consists of interacting and intersecting forms of Consciousness, Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness. A remarkable work has just appeared entitled “Beyond Words What Animals Feel and Think.” Describing in detail how like ourselves all of the animals are. And the more we can see how like us everything else really is, the harder it will be for us to do them all in, in the interest of turning them into consumer items. And so, here is a new principle of understanding, that entails completely new forms of explanation, and a whole new Universe picture to be spelled out in terms of Consciousness and its various properties. This is a Universe that is aware awake and Enspirited throughout. And so, there is only one principle, not two. And so, how does Consciousness work? There is “no mind/body problem.” My Consciousness is aligning the Consciousness of neurons in the brain, that aligns the Consciousness of all other cells in the body, that aligns the Consciousness of molecules and atoms themselves. Mainly from the top down, but also interactive, and not reduction to the purely physical forces. 4. And so, here is a radical new Universe picture, and with it a new way to think about the Universe itself, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. It requires a complete revision of both of the terms of modern science itself. The problem of the modern world owes in deep measure to Descartes concept of matter as something devoid of interior life. But he is only the most powerful and simple expression of a whole tradition of thought that predates him, that goes back to the very dawn of thought itself. It owes to the conviction of both Plato and Aristotle that the Earth was something devoid of reason, or mind, and therefore something to be held in complete contempt. We are emerging from a civilization based on contempt for the Earth, and down the road, it will become contempt for the body, sex, women, the Native people, and people of color everywhere. And so, this entire tradition is now up for us, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction, and we need to get beyond it. I am proposing that this term Consciousness is the way out. The missing piece of the puzzle and the idea whose time has come. And it will enable us to move into a completely new civilization based on respect for the Earth, women, sex, people of color, that honors everyone and has a place for all. Revolutions in science occur when new data show up that cannot be accounted for by existing paradigms (Thomas Kuhns: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Consciousness, and all the properties and problems of Consciousness are just such data, and they compel a new scientific revolution. But we are a scientific age. A new Copernican revolution in science is such as revolution everywhere. And Consciousness is the key to getting every other reality at all levels and depths right as well. It will enable us finally to get the Earth right, get ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. Archimedes: Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world. I am proposing a new synthesis among our fundamental terms in which this term Consciousness is the new lynchpin. And so, I return once more to Descartes. Descartes in the Mediations was a dualist, they were two realities interacting in the pineal gland mind and body. But Descartes age was high on “Cartesianisms,” on Descartes concept of matter. Animals were simply cleverly wired machines (Hobbes called them automata). Rumor had it that Descartes followers went about kicking dogs reasoning that their howls were not due to any feelings of pain, but simply the wiring of the machine. We have been doing this to the Earth ever since, and now the Earth is not going to stand for it any longer. It is time we all woke up. There is no matter in Descartes sense of it, or in Plato and Aristotle’s sense of it. This old concept of matter is embedded in all of the crisis and catastrophes---fires, drought, pandemics, over population, the disintegrating economies, our ways of life, capitalism and consumerism themselves. All matter is Enspirited, contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. Now I tell you something about Descartes you may not know. In the Mediations was a dualist, there are minds and bodies. But by the end of his life, he knew the truth. Descartes guided his whole life by these vivid dreams, and toward the end of his life he had this dream: He saw the Universe as a giant machine and in the heart of the machine propelling the whole, was Consciousness. And so, out of the shades and shadows and into the light of day. Here is a renewed and a new science, a new cosmology. And with it, a revolutionary new metaphysics. The whole of the modern world is in the grip of a false metaphysics, based on Descartes theory of matter. Here is a new, and finally true metaphysics based on the single term, Consciousness. 5. And in all my works, I spell out this new metaphysics based on Consciousness, and what it means for how we think about virtually everything: The Universe, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. Of who, what and where Spirit is, that we may connect with Spirit everywhere. There is only one term for the Universe, and not two, this single term Consciousness, that manifests itself in two modes: Consciousness in Form, Consciousness Formless. And so, here is a sketch of what this new term Consciousness really means. For four great aspects of the real, four new cornerstones for a whole new civilization on Earth, based on Love and Truth. A. For the Universe: New causalities, all matter is an expression of Consciousness, awake and aware, Enspirited throughout, which has a place for the causalities of love ideas intent plan and purpose, what Aristotle called final causality, that for the sake of which. And it has a place for subjectivity, the greatest mystery in the whole of the Universe, knowable only in ourselves, but there in everything else as well, bedrock in the chain of causalities. The buck stops here. Here are two very different Universe pictures. The Cartesian Universe consists of things, pushed, and pulled around by the physical forces that function blind. The true Universe consists of selves and not things. Selves at least in ourselves, are organized and focused about an I, an I am, or a sense of self in everything, ever other being dear to itself. Just one aspect of subjectivity. And so, it is Consciousness all the way down, and subjectivity all the way down. Science proceeds on the basis of the negligible of what it can leave out as unimportant. Subjectivity is the ultimate animating principle of the Universe. What Descartes really did was to strip from nature what is most essential about it, its animating principle Consciousness. And so, we come out of a long history of “clunk.” The great male thinkers have killed creation. First in concepts and now in the lived life. And so, after centuries of fruitless search, not all of it in vain, finally, and just in time the true basic principle for the Universe has shown up in virtually all disciplines, this term Consciousness. B. And so, the Earth: What does this term Consciousness really mean for the Earth? It means that all of the bright array of beings around us have Consciousness. And the more we can realize how like us they are, the harder it will be to do them all in. Is this what it really means to be “made in the image of Spirit?” To destroy ever other living being? The god of Genesis is a creator god who has created billions and billions of living forms. Man, taking himself to be made in the image of Spirit has destroyed virtually all of it. The Earth is not things, not commodities and resources, not an endless array of consumer goods. The Earth consists of conscious living spiritual beings like ourselves, who need to be honored and respected, nurtured and cared for, to be Loved. And if the human race can finally pull it off and bring Love here and start helping the Earth rather than destroying her, even our vast numbers now at 8 billion, may not matter. Deeply embedded in the modern world is a false cosmology based on the hitherto useful but ultimately false metaphysics of Descartes. In particular it owes to Descartes concepts of matter, and of the Earth, as something devoid of Consciousness. And now this concept is up for us. If there is a single idea enabling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something devoid of Consciousness. And we all have a vested interest in keeping this false concept in place. When you intend to ravage and savage the Earth, to turn it into consumer items, and money in the bank, first pretend she has no Consciousness that way we need not have any conscious about it. We are in deep trouble with the planet. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, here are a few new guiding principles for the planet, based on Consciousness. Consciousness has field properties. The Earth is Consciousness throughout, connected and interconnected throughout, intersecting and interacting fields of Consciousness of which our own is one. To harm one is to harm all. Only this understanding of the Earth can set our destructive technologies, and capitalism, their goals, and their limits. The real problem with capitalism, and with civilization itself is it has no true understanding of the Earth, all the exquisite networks and webworks that connect all beings with one another. Nor it is about to admit that the Earth is our “life support system,” reason gone insane in the modern world. We are destroying our life support system, capitalism is the full expression of the human death wish in the modern world, and it needs to change. And now, let the barriers between ourselves and all other beings go down. C. And so, Ourselves. This new Universe picture based on Consciousness opens into and has a place for new concepts of human identity. In particular, it has a place for reincarnation, a process whereby one Consciousness dons’ bodies again and again and lays them down. This is a process wholly impossible on materialistic theories. This new view of things puts a higher perspective on Freudian determinism, which is a partial knowing in a greater account. We are something more than the victims of genes drives and childhood. We are immortally eternal evolving spiritual beings who take on a cycle of earthly lives in order to achieve certain goals and abilities, and then, our earthly cycle complete, we depart the Earth plane for other areas of the Universe physical or purely spiritual, to continue our evolution elsewhere. The scientific evidence for reincarnation is increasing on all sides, see for example the work of Michael Newton, a mainstream scientist forced to confront the fact of reincarnation. A completely new reincarnational picture is now emerging everywhere. We choose our parents for abilities we could acquire through them. We all come here with reasons for being here, and we all have free will, an original property of Consciousness, and we work out our issues accordingly. We all come here with the same reason for being here. It is to experience the Earth plane and human society at all levels and depths, in every social role, every climate, both sexes male and female and in all races. We are all here to acquire a deep understanding of the Earth plane with all its challenges and all of its present problems. We are not here to devour and consume the Earth, but to honor her for the learning experience she makes available for us. And so, reincarnation is the great equalizer, the fundamental basis for any bill of rights. Many of the problems of the modern world owe to the fact that reincarnation has not been taught in the West. Reincarnation was the center piece of Jesus teachings. It was banned by a fourth century council that decided the populous could best be controlled through fear. They edited all mention of reincarnation from the scriptures, and inserted fear terms instead, a judgmental god, and so on. If reincarnation had been taught, there would have been no suppression of women, but the gift of both sexes would have been honored and developed. And there would have been no reason for contempt for people of color because who they are, we have been or will be. There is no reason to look down on anyone when we know that our own identity includes membership in theirs. The truth of reincarnation needs to be the foundation for getting ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. D. And so, Spirit. This new Universe picture, based on Consciousness, has a place for Spirit as simply Infinite Consciousness. All universes all worlds are formed out of this Consciousness, divine and sacred throughout. And Spirit is everywhere in the Earth and can be connected everywhere. And the Native North American people had things right. Everything has its own Spirit, and without contradiction is also an expression of Spirit. And what I am really doing in terms of concepts of modern science is presenting the Native North American version of the Real. And this new Universe picture has a place for the essential insight of all religions almost smothered by church tradition: Love. Not an emotion but a great Oneness, that can be found everywhere, even in a busy city street. But especially in the Earth, that is levels and depths of Oneness everywhere. And so, for the first time in their long and bitter antagonistic history, science and religion now share a common base with this term Spirit, the lynchpin in a new conceptual framework. And I offer an interpretation of where we are in our history, this present moment of historical grace, and these tumultuous times in which we live, the return of the Goddess and the Divine Feminine, the Reappearance of the Feminine in history, the Advent of Women, this great Awakening, as of Springtime after a long dark Winter, the Awakening, the Second Coming. And so, stay tuned! (shrink)

As physical entities that translate symbols into physical actions, computers offer insights into the nature of meaning and agency. • Physical symbol systems, generically known as agents, link abstractions to material actions. The meaning of a symbol is defined as the physical actions an agent takes when the symbol is encountered. • An agent has autonomy when it has the power to select actions based on internal decision processes. Autonomy offers a partial escape from constraints imposed by direct physical influences (...) such as gravity and the transfer of momentum. Swimming upstream is an example. • Symbols are names that can designate other entities. It appears difficult to explain the use of names and symbols in terms of more primitive functionality. The ability to use names and symbols, i.e., symbol grounding, may be a fundamental cognitive building block. • The standard understanding of causality—wiggling X results in Y wiggling—applies to both physical causes (e.g., one billiard ball hitting another) and symbolic causes (e.g., a traffic light changing color). Because symbols are abstract, they cannot produce direct physical effects. For a symbol to be a cause requires that the affected entity determine its own response. This is called autonomous causality. • This analysis of meaning and autonomy offers new perspectives on free will. (shrink)

How does one know the phenomenal character of one’s own experience? I aim to present and defend a new view of the epistemology of qualia that addresses this issue. My view results from a reworking of Dretske’s displaced perception model. The guiding line is the key Wittgensteinian insight of his Private Language Argument, namely the claim that no inner perception of qualia can justify our corresponding qualia beliefs. My reworking of the original model starts with the rejection of Dretske’s representationalism, (...) as well as any other metaphysical views about the ultimate nature of qualia. The reworking of the displaced perception model I am proposing is supposed to be compatible with any available metaphysical view on qualia. The second step consists of rejecting the epistemological misgivings of the original model, namely the view that knowing qualia requires “connecting beliefs” along with “meta-representations.” Yet, Dretske’s crucial mistake has been to force knowledge of qualia into the “belief-box.” As a matter of fact, there is only one belief involved in introspecting qualia, namely the qualia-belief itself. The third final step is this. Assuming the key Wittgensteinian insight, I argue that introspection of qualia is a process that is both epis- temically reliable and automatic. It is reliable because it dispenses with justification of any beliefs whatsoever. Moreover, it is automatic because it also dispenses with reflexive connecting beliefs. For example, it takes nonconceptual awareness of the color blue as an input and automatically yields the belief that phenomenal blue is the conscious character of my experience of the sky as an output just by employing the concept BLUE. (shrink)

This paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein’s claim that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria” (PI §580) there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein’s private language argument (henceforth PLA) overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein’s suggestion that both perceptual and bodily experiences are transparent in the relevant sense that one cannot point to a mental state and wonder “What is that?” From a systematic viewpoint, (...) I aim to show that Wittgenstein’s PLA teaches us that the prevailing picture of the nature of phenomenal concepts (henceforth PCs) is upside down: we can only introspectively know what is going on inside our heads after we learn of what is going on outside (PI §580). In this regard, I aim to defend two associate claims against the prevailing view of PCs on the basis of PLA. First, by means of transparency, I aim to show that there is no de re awareness of our private sensation that could determine the meaning of sensation words; for example, I am never aware of the phenomenal blueness of my experience of something blue. The second associated claim is that introspective self-knowledge of our private sensations is always de dicto. We can only know introspectively that phenomenal blueness is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that (de dicto knowledge) blue is the color that usually causes us that kind of experience. Likewise, we can only introspectively know that pain is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that pain is what usually causes some typical pain behavior. (shrink)

Since the advent of media archeology, a deep-seated bifurcation has found one end of the field arguing for the interventionist and appropriative weaponization of media whereas the other side has championed a “total war” with technology itself, insisting that new media’s military-industrial roots inherently color its drivability. Here, I implore a moment within the cultural history of net.art and post-internet art to examine how contemporaneous queries about control after militarism and decentralization, as prognosticated by Paul Virilio and Gilles Deleuze, (...) are part of a more deeply entrenched discourse on neural nets, predictive processing algorithms and machine learning, which the current media theory and post-cinema literature has yet to rigorously respond to. Simultaneously parsing philosophical and media sociology corollaries to ground this overview, I push for more attention towards psychopower, autosurveillance and algorithmic governmentality while distancing critique from the standard Foucauldian discourse of biopower. (shrink)