SAMENVATTING CONCIOUSNESS AND PERCEPTION
Lecture 1
Chapter 1: What’s the problem?
Monists theories = mind and body are the same
Materialism = there is one material, physical universe. Consciousness is coming from
the brain (identity theory = the mental state is identical to the brain state,
functionalism = the mental state is identical to the functional state)
Neutral monism (William James) = the world is made of one thing, but we cannot say
if that is mental or physical
Panpsychism = all material things have souls
Dualistic theories = mind and body are different
Substance dualism (Descartes) = identity (soul) and separate physical body.
Interaction between pineal gland.
Property dualism = a substance (physical) van be described with mental or physical
terms, these cannot replace each other
Dualist interactionism = non-physical mental self can influence neural synapses
Naturalistic dualism = try to explain how experience arises from physical processes
(bridging principles)
Cartesian materialism = a time and place where ‘consciousness happens’ with a
‘Cartesian Theatre’.
Epiphenomenalism = physical events generate mental states in the brain -> but these
do not have an effect on these physical events.
Modern view = mental activities are processes, functions which the brain exercises.
Eccles = ‘the self controls the brain’
Libet = a non-physical conscious mental field allows for the gathering of a subjective
experience and free will.
Consciousness in psychology =
Psychology (William James) = science of mental life is about phenomena and their
conditions, primarily based on empirical data.
Psychophysics = relationship between physical stimuli and noticeable sensations
Helmholtz = measurement of velocity of conduction of nerve signals
Freud = unconsciousness consists of id, ego and superego.
, Phenomenology (Husserl) = philosophy and psychology, based on subjective
experiences
Brentano = conscious experiences are about things, unconscious are not (this is called
intentionally)
Introspectionism (Wundt) = study on subjective experiences
Behaviorism (Watson) = only objective and experimental
Connectionism = networks are interconnected and change over time like 4e cognition
(embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended)
Predictive processing = brains match incoming sensory information with expectations
or predictions
The explanatory gap = the metaphysical gap between physical phenomena and conscious
experiences. Easy problem: not understanding involved mechanisms. Hard problem: how do
physical processes in the brain provide a subjective experience.
Chapter 2: What is it like to be?
Nagel = something is conscious when the organism has a point of view, like: what
is it like to be a bat?
Phenomenal consciousness = describe the color red
Qualia = ineffable experiences like the way coffee smells
Substance dualism = qualia are part of a separate mental world from physical objects
(like actual coffee)
Epiphenomenalists = qualia exists but not causal for behavior
Idealists = everything is qualia
Materialists = qualia do not exist
Thought experiments:
Mary the color scientist = lives in black and white room and has never seen color, but
has learned a lot about color. Will she learn something new when she sees color or
not?
The philosopher’s zombie = a person without consciousness. A zimbo is a person with
unconscious higher-order informational states that are about its lower-order states.
, 5 ways of responding to the hard problem of consciousness:
1. Impossible to solve: Our intelligence is not designed in a wat that we can understand
consciousness
2. Try to solve: only solvable with fundamental rethinking of the nature of the universe
3. Tackle the easy problem: make the problem clearer by first solving the easy problem
4. Identity more hard problems: split into two problems (1 why and how do we have
phenomenal consciousness? 2 why does a particular brain activity feel a particular
way?)
5. There is no hard problem: when we first solve the easy problem, we will maybe look
different to the hard problem
Chapter 3: The grand illusion
Three basic assumptions on how vision works:
1. Visual experience is richly detailed
2. There are things that are in and out of our visual experience
3. Vision operates by representing the world in the mind or brain
Filling in the gaps
Isomorphic filling = the brain fills in all details as if a photo is finished in the brain
(lower levels of the visual system)
Symbolic filling = conceptual filling (higher levels of the visual system)
Sceptical view = there is no need to fill in things
Change blindness = change in visual stimulus, and observer does not notice (New York)
Inattentional blindness = unseen stimuli when focusing on something different (Gorilla)
Implications for theories of vision
Gist = during a single fixation, we have rich visual experience from which we take the
meaning of the scene. When we move our eyes we have a new experience, but if the
gist stays the same, we also think the details stay the same.
Virtual representation = our brains are constantly filtering out irrelevant parts of the
world
Sensorimotor theory = the world is an external memory. Without it, you cannot see
anymore.
Lecture 1
Chapter 1: What’s the problem?
Monists theories = mind and body are the same
Materialism = there is one material, physical universe. Consciousness is coming from
the brain (identity theory = the mental state is identical to the brain state,
functionalism = the mental state is identical to the functional state)
Neutral monism (William James) = the world is made of one thing, but we cannot say
if that is mental or physical
Panpsychism = all material things have souls
Dualistic theories = mind and body are different
Substance dualism (Descartes) = identity (soul) and separate physical body.
Interaction between pineal gland.
Property dualism = a substance (physical) van be described with mental or physical
terms, these cannot replace each other
Dualist interactionism = non-physical mental self can influence neural synapses
Naturalistic dualism = try to explain how experience arises from physical processes
(bridging principles)
Cartesian materialism = a time and place where ‘consciousness happens’ with a
‘Cartesian Theatre’.
Epiphenomenalism = physical events generate mental states in the brain -> but these
do not have an effect on these physical events.
Modern view = mental activities are processes, functions which the brain exercises.
Eccles = ‘the self controls the brain’
Libet = a non-physical conscious mental field allows for the gathering of a subjective
experience and free will.
Consciousness in psychology =
Psychology (William James) = science of mental life is about phenomena and their
conditions, primarily based on empirical data.
Psychophysics = relationship between physical stimuli and noticeable sensations
Helmholtz = measurement of velocity of conduction of nerve signals
Freud = unconsciousness consists of id, ego and superego.
, Phenomenology (Husserl) = philosophy and psychology, based on subjective
experiences
Brentano = conscious experiences are about things, unconscious are not (this is called
intentionally)
Introspectionism (Wundt) = study on subjective experiences
Behaviorism (Watson) = only objective and experimental
Connectionism = networks are interconnected and change over time like 4e cognition
(embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended)
Predictive processing = brains match incoming sensory information with expectations
or predictions
The explanatory gap = the metaphysical gap between physical phenomena and conscious
experiences. Easy problem: not understanding involved mechanisms. Hard problem: how do
physical processes in the brain provide a subjective experience.
Chapter 2: What is it like to be?
Nagel = something is conscious when the organism has a point of view, like: what
is it like to be a bat?
Phenomenal consciousness = describe the color red
Qualia = ineffable experiences like the way coffee smells
Substance dualism = qualia are part of a separate mental world from physical objects
(like actual coffee)
Epiphenomenalists = qualia exists but not causal for behavior
Idealists = everything is qualia
Materialists = qualia do not exist
Thought experiments:
Mary the color scientist = lives in black and white room and has never seen color, but
has learned a lot about color. Will she learn something new when she sees color or
not?
The philosopher’s zombie = a person without consciousness. A zimbo is a person with
unconscious higher-order informational states that are about its lower-order states.
, 5 ways of responding to the hard problem of consciousness:
1. Impossible to solve: Our intelligence is not designed in a wat that we can understand
consciousness
2. Try to solve: only solvable with fundamental rethinking of the nature of the universe
3. Tackle the easy problem: make the problem clearer by first solving the easy problem
4. Identity more hard problems: split into two problems (1 why and how do we have
phenomenal consciousness? 2 why does a particular brain activity feel a particular
way?)
5. There is no hard problem: when we first solve the easy problem, we will maybe look
different to the hard problem
Chapter 3: The grand illusion
Three basic assumptions on how vision works:
1. Visual experience is richly detailed
2. There are things that are in and out of our visual experience
3. Vision operates by representing the world in the mind or brain
Filling in the gaps
Isomorphic filling = the brain fills in all details as if a photo is finished in the brain
(lower levels of the visual system)
Symbolic filling = conceptual filling (higher levels of the visual system)
Sceptical view = there is no need to fill in things
Change blindness = change in visual stimulus, and observer does not notice (New York)
Inattentional blindness = unseen stimuli when focusing on something different (Gorilla)
Implications for theories of vision
Gist = during a single fixation, we have rich visual experience from which we take the
meaning of the scene. When we move our eyes we have a new experience, but if the
gist stays the same, we also think the details stay the same.
Virtual representation = our brains are constantly filtering out irrelevant parts of the
world
Sensorimotor theory = the world is an external memory. Without it, you cannot see
anymore.
