On Philosophy of Mind and Related Matters
4th Online Consciousness Conference
The Overflow Cup Runneth Over
According to the hypothesis Kouider et al. put forward, what is in consciousness before the cue are generic representations plus specific representations that are too sparse to provide the information necessary to explain partial report superiority. However, on their hypothesis one would expect a substantial error rate concerning the uncued items. However, Kouider et al. found the error rate to be small: their own evidence counts against them.It really is not clear to me why Block thinks that one would expect a substantial error rate concerning the uncued items. He seems to be thinking that the no-overflow view is committed to only generic phenomenology before the cue but this is clearly not the case. It is compatible with the no overflow view that there is some specific phenomenology before the cue (just not all of the items as per overflow). But even if one is not moved by this there is an obvious problem with the argument. The no overflow position maintains that there is enough information unconsciously processed to do the task. Subjects don't make a lot of errors because that information was there whether consciously or not.
For those going to the Central APA next week
Here is an interesting session organized by David Anderson:
FRIDAY, February 17, 3-6pm (at the Palmer House, Chicago)
SESSION ON "Machine Consciousness" (Sponsored by the APA Committee on Computers and Philosophy)
Chair: David Leech Anderson (Illinois State University)
3:00 Ned Block (New York University), "Can thinking about machines help us understand consciousness?"
3:35 Peter Boltuc (University of Illinois at Springfield), "Non-reductive machine consciousness"
4:10 Terry Horgan (University of Arizona) "The Real Moral of the Chinese
Room: Understanding Requires Understanding-Phenomenology"
4:45 Robert Van Gulick (Syracuse University), "Humans and other conscious machines - one way or many?"
Explaining Cartesian Consciousness
[cross-posted at Philosophy Sucks!]
In his classic paper “Two Concepts of Consciousness” David Rosenthal says “…if consciousness is essential to mentality no informative, nontrivial explanation of consciousness is possible” (2005 p 22). The claim is, roughly, that if all mental states are conscious and if there are no mental states that can occur unconsciously, then we cannot explain what makes a mental state conscious. But this assumes a certain way of characterizing the claim that all mental states are consciousness.
In a really excellent paper that just came out in Philosophers’ Imprint by Allison Simmons, Cartesian Consciousness Reconsidered, she argues that Descartes’ can understand consciousness as a kind of self-representation and can account for ‘unconscious’ mental states by appealing to gradations of consciousness and what she calls ‘phenomenal confusion’. I think she makes an excellent case that a Cartesian picture of the mind can go a long way towards providing an explanation of conscious and (seeming) unconscious states.
Yet even so, I think we can see that the initial claim made by Rosenthal is still true in a sense. The Cartesian moves made by Simmons all rely on a prior account of mentality. That is, the Cartesian explanation given relies on a prior understanding of sensations (as having objects as their ‘objective reality’, which we would translate as ‘having representational content’) and explains consciousness in terms of a thought having as it objective reality a first-order state (i.e. consciousness is the representation of our first-order states). In fact Simmons seems to make much the same point in her paper. If we interpret Descartes as claiming that thoughts and consciousness are identical then we will not be able to explain it. But, as she shows, this is not something that a Cartesian is committed to. So even if one is attracted to the view that all mental states are conscious one doesn’t need to give up on an explanation of what consciousness is.
Scientist on the Science of the Self
Is the mind is a Turing machine? How could we tell?
Budapest Semester in Cognitive Science
If you have undergraduate students looking for an interesting study abroad experience that will keep them on track in their philosophy, psychology, computer science, or cognitive science major, please point them towards the Budapest Semester in Cognitive Science (http://www.bscs-us.org/).
It is a really good program, and has had regular participation from scholars doing interesting research in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, such as Colin Allen, John Bickle, Ron Chrisley, Carl Craver, Peter Erdi, and George Kampis.
The official program announcement is below. If you or your students have any questions about the program, please contact me (tony.chemero@fandm.edu) or the program office at bscs@bscs-us.org.
Cheers,
Tony Chemero
US Director of BSCS
——
The BUDAPEST SEMESTER IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE (BSCS, website: www.bscs-us.org), our Hungarian study abroad program that may be of interest to undergraduate students in Cognitive Science and other disciplines.
BSCS, established in 2003 focuses on cognitive science from an interdisciplinary perspective and offers credit-earning courses in neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, biology, and computer science; as well as continuous and optional intensive Hungarian language courses. The program is complemented by an optional independent research module tailored to students' curricula and research interests.
BSCS is hosted by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), Hungary's premium science university established in 1635 and serving as a centre of excellence for modern higher education. A world-class new campus has been added to the premises of ELTE, built on the scenic banks of the Danube and hosting the Faculties of Natural and Social Sciences and Informatics, where BSCS courses are held.
Budapest provides an excellent and highly inspiring setting and our vibrant metropolis is a hub of a wide range of interdisciplinary studies and research; boasting a bustling Central European experience with a growing English-speaking academic community. Furthermore, the city serves as a gateway to Vienna, Prague and other major attractions of the region.
The application deadline for the Fall 2012 semester is April 15.
Visit our website for more detailed information (www.bscs-us.org). Email inquiries to bscs@bscs-us.org, or to Tony Chemero, US Director, tony.chemero@fandm.edu.
successful vs. unsuccessful psychopaths
Gao and Raine recently published a review of studies distinguishing the two populations within five types of samples: a community recruited sample, individuals from temporary employment agencies, college students, psychopaths employed in business and industry, and psychopathic serial killers (Gao and Raine 2010). Studies suggest that unsuccessful psychopaths have reduced prefrontal and amygdala volumes and hippocampal abnormalities, resulting in reduced executive functioning, including impaired decision-making. Unsuccessful psychopaths also exhibit impaired autonomic/somatic markers and fear-conditioning deficits which contribute to poor and risky decision-making. In contrast, successful psychopaths do not show similar structural and functional impairments of the prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hippocampus. They seem to have intact autonomic function and possibly enhanced executive functioning when compared with normals. Gao and Raine hypothesize that successful psychopaths may have superior cognitive empathy (the ability to understand another’s perspective) without emotional empathy (feeling empathetic emotions).
Our hypothesis is that unsuccessful psychopaths’ deficiencies in executive processing may be severe enough to constitute evidence of diminished mental capacity. Many successful psychopaths, on the other hand, seem to have a healthy enough executive profile to correct for their lack of emotional empathy. In philosophical terms, they could have done otherwise. Like a colorblind driver, or a high-functioning autistic person, successful psychopaths would seem to have the ability to take note of their emotional/cognitive lack and make up for it so as to avoid violating the law. If an offender is capable of (knowingly) following a law, she is responsible when she does not.
I'd be happy to hear any comments on this line of thought, and to pass along the whole paper to anyone interested.
Templeton Foundation Open Submission--Starting Soon!
Please note that the Templeton Foundation does not normally provide dissertation fellowships through this open submission process. For more information on the kinds of projects that the Foundation can support, visit www.templeton.org/what-we-fund/core-funding-areas/science-and-the-big-questions.
A list of Foundation grants in the areas of philosophy and theology can be found here: http://www.templeton.org/what-we-fund/grant-search/results/taxonomy:5.
