Direct Realism and the Extended Mind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Christopher Maloney
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Direct Realism ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Cognitive Representation ◽  
Direct Acquaintance ◽  
The World

Representationalism rightly treats perception as a type of cognitive representation. However, it wrongly proposes that perceptual content determines phenomenal character. Rather, it is the form, not the content, of a perceptual representation that constitutes phenomenal character. For direct realism is true: Perception is that form of cognition in which representation and represented are the same. Other forms of cognition recruit representations that are distinct from what they represent. In contrast, perceptual representation extends the mind's reach into the world by casting the very object perceived in the role of a self-referential demonstrative. By fusing representation and represented perception provides direct acquaintance with what is seen exactly as it is seen to be and thus determines phenomenal character.

What It Is Like To Perceive

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Christopher Maloney
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Cognitive State ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Perceptual State ◽  
Cognitive Representation ◽  
Direct Acquaintance

Conscious perception is a distinctive mode of cognition marked by its manifestly sensuous phenomenal character. Why? An intentionalist may reply that perception is a kind of psychological state realized by an oddly contentful mental representation. A higher order theorist might alternatively answer that a perceptual state is sensuous since it is the content of a higher order cognitive state. Neither of these representationalists is right. It is not the content of any mental state that ensures perception's phenomenal character. Rather, the unique structure of a perceptual representation determines perception's sensuous side. For a perceptual representation is an extended mental representation of a peculiar sort. It is a representation in which the vehicle of reference is itself the very object to which that vehicle refers. Perceptual representation thus differs from all other forms of cognitive representation in a way that directly acquaints a perceiver with whatever real object she perceives. Perception is sensuous because it is unbrokered cognitive contact with something present. This confrontational mode of cognition owes its phenomenal character not to what it represents but rather to how it represents. What it is like to perceive is bluntly - but exactly - to represent something real that is really at hand. Conscious perception is just direct acquaintance with what's there.

The Unity of Perception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Schellenberg
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Perceptual System ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Sound Waves ◽  
The Third ◽  
Invariant Features ◽  
The World

Perception is our key to the world. It plays at least three different roles in our lives. It justifies beliefs and provides us with knowledge of our environment. It brings about conscious mental states. It converts informational input, such as light and sound waves, into representations of invariant features in our environment. Corresponding to these three roles, there are at least three fundamental questions that have motivated the study of perception. How does perception justify beliefs and yield knowledge of our environment? How does perception bring about conscious mental states? How does a perceptual system accomplish the feat of converting varying informational input into mental representations of invariant features in our environment? This book develops a unified account of the phenomenological and epistemological role of perception that is informed by empirical research. So it develops an account of perception that provides an answer to the first two questions, while being sensitive to scientific accounts that address the third question. The key idea is that perception is constituted by employing perceptual capacities—for example the capacity to discriminate instances of red from instances of blue. Perceptual content, consciousness, and evidence are each analyzed in terms of this basic property of perception. Employing perceptual capacities constitutes phenomenal character as well as perceptual content. The primacy of employing perceptual capacities in perception over their derivative employment in hallucination and illusion grounds the epistemic force of perceptual experience. In this way, the book provides a unified account of perceptual content, consciousness, and evidence.

In search of the ultimate evidence: The fastest visual reaction adapts to environment, not retinal locations

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 1008-1009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris M. Velichkovsky ◽  
Sebastian Pannasch
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Direct Realism ◽  
Distractor Effect ◽  
The World ◽  
Visual Reaction

The sensorimotor account of perception is akin to Gibsonian direct realism. Both emphasize external properties of the world, challenging views based on the analysis of internal visual processing. To compare the role of distal and retinotopic parameters, distractor effect – an optomotor reaction of midbrain origin – is considered. Even in this case, permanence in the environment, not on the retina, explains the dynamics of habituation.

Perception

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-112
Author(s):  
Declan Smithies
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Justify Belief ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
De Re ◽  
Epistemic Role ◽  
New Evil Demon Problem

Chapter 3 explores the epistemic role of consciousness in perception. Section 3.1 argues that unconscious perceptual representation in blindsight cannot justify beliefs about the external world. Section 3.2 argues that this is because phenomenal consciousness, rather than access consciousness or metacognitive consciousness, is necessary for perceptual representation to justify belief. Section 3.3 argues that perceptual experience has a distinctive kind of phenomenal character—namely, presentational force—that is not only necessary but also sufficient for perception to justify belief. Section 3.4 uses a version of the new evil demon problem to argue that the justifying role of perceptual experience supervenes on its phenomenal character alone. Section 3.5 defends this supervenience thesis against the objection that phenomenal duplicates who perceive distinct objects thereby have justification to believe different de re propositions.

Presenting Students’ Knowledge Asmind Mapping Based Frames

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Бершадская ◽  
E. Bershadskaya ◽  
Бершадский ◽  
Mikhail Bershadskiy
Keyword(s):  
Visual Image ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Cognitive Representation ◽  
Mind Mapping ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
The World ◽  
Mind Maps ◽  
The Mind

The article considers the problem of diagnosing individual characteristics of students’ knowledge. It is shown that an adequate model for knowledge representation is the model of frames. The article describes the psychological processes underlying the formation of frames, and the role of implicit processes in the development of cognitive representation of the world in the mind of the student. Frames of diff erent are classifi ed, its brief descriptions are provided, essential features are highlighted, the role of frames as a way of presenting various components of training content is described. It is shown that adequate means of diagnostics of basic frames formation is the method of mind mapping. A specifi c example describes all the stages of building mind maps. The paper analyzes the features of mind maps, which allow interpreting them as a visual image of individual frames. Examples of students’ mind maps, confi rming the validity of this conclusion, are provided.

Direct Realism and Hallucination

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Christopher Maloney
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Direct Realism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Direct Acquaintance ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Physical Objects

Perception provides direct acquaintance with existent physical objects, if direct realism is true. However, hallucination involves perceptual experience of what does not exist. How should a direct realist rendition of perception confront hallucination? Fictivism proposes that the creation of objects of perception is secured by a person’s perception of them. Disjunctivism differentiates hallucination from perception while mistakenly insisting that hallucination is not in the brief of any genuinely coherent theory of perception. Direct realism rejects both fictivism and disjunctivism. Perception only detects and discovers—never creates nor concocts—when it represents its objects. Perception is cognition’s grip on the objectively real. If so, then accounts may be ready at hand to accommodate the likes of perception of the past, inverted and absent phenomenal character, as well as blindsight.

The essence and causes of the spiritual and moral decline of mankind in the XX century

1998 ◽  
pp. 124-127
Author(s):  
V. Tolkachenko
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Social Force ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Of Religion

One of the most important reasons for such a clearly distressed state of society was the decline of religion as a social force, the external manifestation of which is the weakening of religious institutions. "Religion," Baha'u'llah writes, "is the greatest of all means of establishing order in the world to the universal satisfaction of those who live in it." The weakening of the foundations of religion strengthened the ranks of ignoramuses, gave them impudence and arrogance. "I truly say that everything that belittles the supreme role of religion opens way for the revelry of maliciousness, inevitably leading to anarchy. " In another Tablet, He says: "Religion is a radiant light and an impregnable fortress that ensures the safety and well-being of the peoples of the world, for God-fearing induces man to adhere to the good and to reject all evil." Blink the light of religion, and chaos and distemper will set in, the radiance of justice, justice, tranquility and peace. "

The problem of periodization of the history of religion

1997 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Borys Lobovyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

An important problem of religious studies, the history of religion as a branch of knowledge is the periodization process of the development of religious phenomenon. It is precisely here, as in focus, that the question of the essence and meaning of the religious development of the human being of the world, the origin of beliefs and cult, the reasons for the changes in them, the place and role of religion in the social and spiritual process, etc., are converging.

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