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Philosophy professoredit
According to conceptual role semantics (CRS), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, for example, in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the... more
According to conceptual role semantics (CRS), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, for example, in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well-known ‘use’ theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and, more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. Of course, so defined, the functional role of a thought includes all sorts of causes and effects that are non-semantic, for example, perhaps happy thoughts can bolster one’s immunity, promoting good health. Conceptual roles are functional roles minus such non-semantic causes and effects. The view has arisen separately in philosophy (where it is sometimes called ‘inferential’ or ‘functional’ role semantics) and in cognitive science (where it is sometimes called ‘procedural semantics’).
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This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties... more
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including experiments in neuroscience and psychology. The book argues that cognition affects perception, i.e., that perception is cognitively penetrable, but that this does not impugn the joint in nature. A key part of the argument is that we perceive not only low-level properties like colors, shapes, and textures but also high-level properties such as faces and causation. Along the way, the book explains the difference between perception and perceptual memory, the differences between format and content, and whether perception is probabilistic despite our lack of awareness of probabilistic properties. The book argues for perceptual categories that are not concepts, that perception need not be singular, that perceptual attribution and perceptual discrimination are equally fundamental, and that basic features of the mind known as “core cognition” are not a third category in between perception and cognition. The chapter on consciousness leverages these results to argue against some of the most widely accepted theories of consciousness. Although only one chapter is about consciousness, much of the rest of the book repurposes work on consciousness to isolate the scientific basis of perception.
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Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Cognition, Consciousness, and 12 moreMotion perception, Cognitive Neuroscience, Medicine, Neural correlates of consciousness, Visual Cortex, Signal Detection Theory, Humans, Animals, Psychological Theory, Haplorhini, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
Computational models of visual processing aim to provide a compact, explanatory account of the complex neural processes that underlie visual perception and behavior. But what, if anything, do current modeling approaches say about how... more
Computational models of visual processing aim to provide a compact, explanatory account of the complex neural processes that underlie visual perception and behavior. But what, if anything, do current modeling approaches say about how conscious visual experience arises from neural processing? Here, we introduce the reader to four commonly used models for understanding visual computations, neural activity, and behavior: signal detection theory, drift diffusion, probabilistic population codes, and sampling. In an attempt to bridge these modeling approaches with experimental and philosophical work on the neural basis of conscious visual perception, we lay out possible relationships between the components of the models and the contents of phenomenal visual experience. We find no unique relation between model components and phenomenal experience in any model; rather, there are multiple logically possible mappings from models to experience. Going forward, we suggest that there are scientif...
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Psychology and Cognition
A fundamental question for perception research is what sensory information is available for decision making, or, stated differently, what is the output of perception. One answer that has emerged in the last two decades is that perception... more
A fundamental question for perception research is what sensory information is available for decision making, or, stated differently, what is the output of perception. One answer that has emerged in the last two decades is that perception is probabilistic, meaning that the brain represents probability distributions over world states. However, despite the apparent simplicity of this statement, there are substantial disagreements on exactly what probabilistic perception is and how it should be tested. In this adversarial collaboration, two proponents (Jehee and Denison) and two skeptics (Rahnev and Block) of probabilistic perception deliberate on the terms of the debate and present arguments for or against the notion that perception is probabilistic. We believe that this collaboration helps clarify the critical issues that need to be considered but that further work is required to reach consensus.
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In a typical vision textbook you will see the term “object file” defined as follows: “An object file is a visual representation that “sticks” to a moving object over time on the basis of how and where that object moves, and stores (and... more
In a typical vision textbook you will see the term “object file” defined as follows: “An object file is a visual representation that “sticks” to a moving object over time on the basis of how and where that object moves, and stores (and updates) information about what that object looks like” (Scholl and Flombaum, 2010, p. 655). Object files are said to function in working memory (Green and Quilty-Dunn, 2021; Quilty-Dunn and Green, 2021) and to ground singular thought (Murez and Recanati, 2016). One claim of this article is that although thought and working memory often preserve some per- ceptual information, what are called the object files of both singular thought and work- ing memory are fundamentally different from what are called the object files of perception. Indeed, there is reason for doubt that the object files of perception can even ground singular thought. The object files of working memory and singular thought enclose the perceptual materials from perceptual object files in a cognitive envelope and in addition transform the perceptual information, often misrepresenting some aspects of the stimulus in order to make other aspects of the stimulus easier to use for a specific task. That is the problem for grounding singular thought.
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Argues that the existence of the explanatory gap provides a reason to believe a biological account of consciousness rather than a global workspace account or a higher order account.
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The study of the brain's representations of uncertainty is a central topic in neuroscience. Unlike other cases of representation, uncertainty is a property of an observer's representation of the world, posing specific... more
The study of the brain's representations of uncertainty is a central topic in neuroscience. Unlike other cases of representation, uncertainty is a property of an observer's representation of the world, posing specific methodological challenges. We analyze how the literature on uncertainty addresses those challenges and distinguish between "descriptive" and "process" approaches. Descriptive approaches treat uncertainty reported by subjects or inferred from stimuli as an independent variable used to test for a relationship to neural responses. By contrast, process approaches treat uncertainty derived from models of neural responses as a dependent variable used to test for a relationship to subjects' reports or stimuli. To compare those two approaches, we apply four criteria for neural representations: sensitivity, specificity, invariance, functionality. Experiments can be cataloged by their approach and whether they test for each criterion. Our analysis...
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This paper is a defense of phenomenism against representationism, hence issues of reduction of the phenomenal to the functional or the cognitive won't play much of a role. First I will briefly discuss an internalist form of... more
This paper is a defense of phenomenism against representationism, hence issues of reduction of the phenomenal to the functional or the cognitive won't play much of a role. First I will briefly discuss an internalist form of representationism, then I will go on to the main topic of the paper, externalist forms of the view. Internalism One form of representationism holds that the phenomenal character of experience is its "narrow intentional content", intentional content that is "in the head" in Putnam's 1
In our ASSC20 symposium, “Does unconscious perception really exist?”, the four of us asked some difficult questions about the purported phenomenon of unconscious perception, disagreeing on a number of points. This disagreement reflected... more
In our ASSC20 symposium, “Does unconscious perception really exist?”, the four of us asked some difficult questions about the purported phenomenon of unconscious perception, disagreeing on a number of points. This disagreement reflected the objective of the symposium: not only to come together to discuss a single topic of keen interest to the ASSC community, but to do so in a way that would fairly and comprehensively represent the heterogeneity of ideas, opinions, and evidence that exists concerning this contentious topic. The crux of this controversy rests in no small part on disagreement about what is meant by the terms of the debate and how to determine empirically whether a state is unconscious or not. These are issues that directly concern all of us who study consciousness, so it seems it would be in our best interest to strive for consensus. Given the conversation at ASSC20, we are pleased to have the opportunity to address some of the nuanced topics that arose more formally, ...
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There are two concepts of consciousness that are easy to confuse with one another, access-consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. However, just as the concepts of water and H2O are different concepts of the same thing, so the two... more
There are two concepts of consciousness that are easy to confuse with one another, access-consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. However, just as the concepts of water and H2O are different concepts of the same thing, so the two concepts of consciousness may come to the same thing in the brain. The focus of this paper is on the problems that arise when these two concepts of consciousness are conflated. I will argue that John Searle's reasoning about the function of consciousness goes wrong because he conflates the two ...
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Psychology, Cognitive Science, Cognition, Consciousness, Motion perception, and 11 moreCognitive Neuroscience, Medicine, Neural correlates of consciousness, Visual Cortex, Signal Detection Theory, Humans, Animals, Psychological Theory, Haplorhini, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
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How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We see the problem in stark form if we ask how we can tell whether... more
How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We see the problem in stark form if we ask how we can tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally conscious. The methodology would seem straightforward: Find the neural natural kinds that are the basis of phenomenal consciousness in clear cases – when subjects are completely confident and we have no reason to doubt their authority – and look to see whether those neural natural kinds exist within Fodorian modules. But a puzzle arises: Do we include the machinery underlying reportability within the neural natural kinds of the clear cases? If the answer is “Yes,” then there can be no phenomenally conscious representations in Fodorian modules. But how can we know if the answer is “Yes”? The suggested methodology requires an answer to the question it was supposed to answer! This target article ...
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The distinction between phenomenal (P) and access (A) consciousness arises from the battle between biological and computational approaches to the mind. If P = A, the computationalists are right; but if not, the biological nature of P... more
The distinction between phenomenal (P) and access (A) consciousness arises from the battle between biological and computational approaches to the mind. If P = A, the computationalists are right; but if not, the biological nature of P yields its scientific nature.
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Livre: Imagery (paperback) BLOCK Ned.
Two concepts of consciousness that are easy to confuse are access-consciousness (a-consciousness) and phenomenal-consciousness (p-consciousness). Just as water and H2O are different concepts of the same thing, however, so too the two... more
Two concepts of consciousness that are easy to confuse are access-consciousness (a-consciousness) and phenomenal-consciousness (p-consciousness). Just as water and H2O are different concepts of the same thing, however, so too the two consciousness concepts may come to the same thing in the brain. We focus in this chapter on the problems that arise when these two concepts are conflated. I argue that John Searle's reasoning about the function of consciousness goes wrong because he conflates the two senses. And Francis ...
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... For critical discussion (or correspondence) that has shaped my thinking, I would like to thankAdrian Cussins, Hubert Dreyfus, Sean Kelly, Philip ... You can reproduce the experience of a Ganzfeld by placing half a Ping-Pong ball over... more
... For critical discussion (or correspondence) that has shaped my thinking, I would like to thankAdrian Cussins, Hubert Dreyfus, Sean Kelly, Philip ... You can reproduce the experience of a Ganzfeld by placing half a Ping-Pong ball over each eye (Hochberg, Triebel, and Seaman ...
There are two different perspectives on consciousness that differ on whether there is anything in the phenomenal character of conscious experience that goes beyond the intentional, the cognitive, and the functional. A convenient... more
There are two different perspectives on consciousness that differ on whether there is anything in the phenomenal character of conscious experience that goes beyond the intentional, the cognitive, and the functional. A convenient terminological handle on the dispute is whether there are qualia, or qualitative properties of conscious experience. Those who think that the phenomenal character of conscious experience goes beyond the intentional, the cognitive, and the functional believe in qualia.'The debates about qualia ...
Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different “consciousnesses.” Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of... more
Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different “consciousnesses.” Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of “consciousness” based on the phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their correct “guesses.” They cannot harness this information in the service of action, however, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to guide action. But stimuli in the blind field arebothaccess-unconscious and phenomenally unconscious. The f...
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coined the term “neurophilosophy” (1), few philosophers thought that neuroscience and philosophy had much to say to each other. Now, philosophical issues