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31
A Theory of Sentience
, 2000
"... 1.1 Four assays of quality................................................................ 4 1.2 The structure of appearance.................................................... 11 1.3 Intrinsic versus relational........................................................ 13 1.4 Four refutations......... ..."
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1.1 Four assays of quality................................................................ 4 1.2 The structure of appearance.................................................... 11 1.3 Intrinsic versus relational........................................................ 13 1.4 Four refutations....................................................................... 17 2. Qualities and their Places................................................................ 25 2.1 The appearance of space......................................................... 25 2.2 Some brain-mind mysteries..................................................... 26 2.3 Spatial qualia........................................................................... 33 2.4 Appearances partitioned.......................................................... 35 2.5 Ties that bind........................................................................... 38 2.6 Feature-placing introduced...................................................... 43 3 Places Phenomenal and Real............................................................ 47 3.1 Space-time regions.................................................................. 47 3.2 Three varieties of visual field.................................................. 50 3.3 Why I am not an array of impressions..................................... 55 3.4 Why I am not an intentional object......................................... 58 3.5 Sensory identification.............................................................. 61 3.6 Some examples of sensory reference....................................... 66
Epidemic Theory
- of Infectious Diseases and its Applications”, Hafner Press, Second Edition
, 1975
"... What is it like to see a bat? A critique of Dretske’s representationalist ..."
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Cited by 16 (0 self)
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What is it like to see a bat? A critique of Dretske’s representationalist
The Mind as the Software of the Brain
"... this memory as in principle unlimited, but of course any actual machine has a finite memory. Now any computer with a finite amount of explicit storage can be simulated by a machine with a much larger CPU and no explicit storage, that is no registers and no tape. The way the simulation works is by us ..."
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Cited by 14 (0 self)
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this memory as in principle unlimited, but of course any actual machine has a finite memory. Now any computer with a finite amount of explicit storage can be simulated by a machine with a much larger CPU and no explicit storage, that is no registers and no tape. The way the simulation works is by using the extra states as a form of implicit memory. So, in principle, we could be simulated by a machine with no explicit memory at all. Consider, for example, the finite automaton diagrammed in Figure 7. The table shows it as having three states. The states, S 1 ', S 2 ', and S 3 ', are listed across the top. The inputs are listed on the left side. Each box is in a column and a row that specifies what the machine does when it is in the state named at the top of the column, and when the input is the one listed at the side of the row. The top part of the box names the output, and the bottom part of the box names the next state. This is what the table says: when the machine is in S 1 , and it sees a 1, it says "1", and goes to S 2 . When it is in S 2 , if it sees a 1' it says "2" and goes into the next state, S 3 . In that state, if it sees a 1' it says "3" and goes back to S 1 . When it sees nothing, it says nothing and stays in the same state. This automaton counts "modulo" three, that is, you can tell from what it says how many ones it has seen since the last multiple of three. But what the machine table makes clear is that this machine need have no memory of the sort that involves writing anything down. It can "remember" solely by changing state. Some theories based on neural network models (Volume IV, Ch 3) assume that we are such machines. Figure 7: Finite automaton that counts "modulo" three Suppose, then, that we are digital computers with explicit repesentations. We cou...
Accessibility, and the Mesh between Psychology and Neuroscience
- Forthcoming in Behavioral and Brain Sciences Consciousness
"... 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 can see the problem in stark form if we ask how we could tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally ..."
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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 can see the problem in stark form if we ask how we could 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! The paper argues for an abstract solution to the problem and exhibits a source of empirical data that is relevant, data that show that in a certain sense phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility. I argue that we can find a neural realizer of this overflow if assume that the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness does not include the neural basis of cognitive accessibility and that this assumption is justified (other things being equal) by the explanations it allows.
Musical Qualia, Context, Time, and Emotion
- Journal of Consciousness Studies
, 2004
"... Nearly all listeners consider the subjective aspects of music, such as its emotional tone, to have primary importance. But contemporary philosophers often downplay, ignore, or even deny such aspects of experience. Moreover, traditional philosophies of music try to decontextualize it. Using music ..."
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Cited by 6 (3 self)
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Nearly all listeners consider the subjective aspects of music, such as its emotional tone, to have primary importance. But contemporary philosophers often downplay, ignore, or even deny such aspects of experience. Moreover, traditional philosophies of music try to decontextualize it. Using music as an example, this paper explores the structure of qualitative experience, demonstrating that it is multi-layer emergent, non-compositional, enacted, and situation dependent, among other non-Cartesian properties.
Naturalizing subjective character
- Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
, 2005
"... When I have a conscious experience of the sky, there is a bluish way it is like for me to have that experience. We may distinguish two aspects of this “bluish way it is like for me”: (i) the bluish aspect and (ii) the for-me aspect. Let us call the bluish aspect of the experience its qualitative cha ..."
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Cited by 6 (3 self)
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When I have a conscious experience of the sky, there is a bluish way it is like for me to have that experience. We may distinguish two aspects of this “bluish way it is like for me”: (i) the bluish aspect and (ii) the for-me aspect. Let us call the bluish aspect of the experience its qualitative character and the for-me aspect its subjective character. What is this elusive for-me-ness, or subjective character, of conscious experience? In this paper, I examine six different attempts to account for subjective character in terms of the functional and representational properties of conscious experiences. After arguing against the first five, I defend the sixth. There is something at least prima facie mysterious about conscious experience. The problem of consciousness is the problem of demystifying whatever it is that accounts for the prima facie mysteriousness of conscious experience. This would involve showing that the prima facie mysterious aspects of conscious experience are not super-natural phenomena. That is, it would require “naturalizing ” the relevant aspects of conscious experience, presumably by showing how they could exist in a purely physical world. 1 It is useful to refer to the prima facie mysterious element in conscious experience in terms of what it is like for the subject to have or undergo a conscious experience. 2 When I have a conscious experience of the sky, there is a bluish way it is like for me to have or undergo my experience. 3 I suggest that we distinguish two aspects in this “bluish way it is like for me”: (i) the bluish aspect, which we may call the experience’s qualitative character, and (ii) the for-me aspect, which we may call its subjective character. Not only is the experience bluish, but I am also aware of its being bluish. Its being
Mental representation and the subjectivity of consciousness
, 2001
"... Many have urged that the biggest obstacles to a physicalistic understanding of consciousness are the problems raised in connection with the subjectivity of consciousness. These problems are most acutely expressed in consideration of the knowledge argument against physicalism. I develop a novel acco ..."
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Cited by 4 (3 self)
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Many have urged that the biggest obstacles to a physicalistic understanding of consciousness are the problems raised in connection with the subjectivity of consciousness. These problems are most acutely expressed in consideration of the knowledge argument against physicalism. I develop a novel account of the subjectivity of consciousness by explicating the ways in which mental representations may be perspectival. Crucial features of my account involve analogies between the representations involved in sensory experience and the ways in which pictorial representations exhibit perspectives or points of view. I argue that the resultant account of subjectivity provides a basis for the strongest response physicalists can give to the knowledge argument.
Intelligent Agents with Subjective Experience
- Stanford University
, 1997
"... In this paper I am presenting a model of human communication which allows a decomposition of our subjective experience into units called strategies. Strategies are systematically ordered sequencesof representations in our sensory modalities, endowed with so called submodality distinctions, orientati ..."
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In this paper I am presenting a model of human communication which allows a decomposition of our subjective experience into units called strategies. Strategies are systematically ordered sequencesof representations in our sensory modalities, endowed with so called submodality distinctions, orientation, effect, and links to other representations. As certain people prove more successful in performing given tasks than others, we want to model their strategies and transfer them to other intelligent agents. Unlike most philosophers who have written about qualia and believe that subjective experience condemns us to "solitary confinement," I believe strategies are accessible to us. Here is how. All behavior, from learning to communication and change, is the result of our strategies. It is constantly giving us information about the underlying strategies by way of physiologicaland linguistic cues. The model I am presenting in this paper offers a systematic study and categorization of these cues...
Consciousness and Cognition
- On AI CD-ROM, Revision
, 1990
"... Introduction The problem of consciousness, also known as the Mind-Body Problem, is probably the largest outstanding obstacle in our quest to scientifically understand reality. The science of physics is not yet complete, but it is well-understood. The science of biology has explained away most of the ..."
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Introduction The problem of consciousness, also known as the Mind-Body Problem, is probably the largest outstanding obstacle in our quest to scientifically understand reality. The science of physics is not yet complete, but it is well-understood. The science of biology has explained away most of the mysteries surrounding the nature of life. Where there are gaps in our understanding of these fields, the gaps do not seem intractable; we at least have some idea of the direction in which solutions might lie. In the science of mind, things are not quite so rosy. Much progress is being made in the study of cognition, but consciousness itself is as much of a problem as it ever was. The term "consciousness" usually serves as a convenient catch-all for all that is truly mysterious about mentality. When using the term, one must therefore be careful not to collapse important distinctions, allowing confusion. The most important distinction in the study of co

