Abstract
For some, the states and processes involved in the realisation of phenomenal consciousness are not confined to within the organismic boundaries of the experiencing subject. Instead, the sub-personal basis of perceptual experience can, and does, extend beyond the brain and body to implicate environmental elements through one’s interaction with the world. These claims are met by proponents of predictive processing, who propose that perception and imagination should be understood as a product of the same internal mechanisms. On this view, as visually imagining is not considered to be world-involving, it is assumed that world-involvement must not be essential for perception, and thus internalism about the sub-personal basis is true. However, the argument for internalism from the unity of perception and imagination relies for its strength on a questionable conception of the relationship between the two experiential states. I argue that proponents of the predictive approach are guilty of harbouring an implicit commitment to the common kind assumption which does not follow trivially from their framework. That is, the assumption that perception and imagination are of the same fundamental kind of mental event. I will argue that there are plausible alternative ways of conceiving of this relationship without drawing internalist metaphysical conclusions from their psychological theory. Thus, the internalist owes the debate clarification of this relationship and further argumentation to secure their position.
Highlights
Extended consciousness is a thesis about the spatial location of the sub-personal basis of phenomenal consciousness; the states and processes involved in the realisation of the qualitative character of subjective experience
Internalism here will be used in reference to positions that hold that the sub-personal basis of phenomenal consciousness is wholly internal to the experiencing subject
These claims are met by proponents of the predictive approach who offer an alternative theory; one that conceives of perception and imagination as the product of the same internal neural mechanisms (Clark, 2012, 2013a, 2013b, 2014, 2015; Hohwy, 2013, 2015, 2016)
Summary
Extended consciousness is a thesis about the spatial location of the sub-personal basis of phenomenal consciousness; the states and processes involved in the realisation of the qualitative character of subjective experience. The predictive approach offers a theory of perception that is psychologically indirect, but this has no straightforward implications for the kind of metaphysical indirectness implied by its proponents and no clear bearing on the boundaries of sub-personal processes involved in phenomenal consciousness.
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