Phenomenal Content Research Articles

On the Nature and Cognitive Function of Phenomenal Content - Part One

On the Nature and Cognitive Function of Phenomenal Content - Part One

Ascending from empirical foundations

According to justification-skeptics like David Hume and Karl Popper, we are not epistemically justified in believing any propositions about mind-independent physical objects. Such skepticism rests on the assumption that the evidence we have for our physical-object beliefs does not make those beliefs more probable than their denials.1 Another statement of this basic assumption is that none of our physical-object beliefs is more likely to be true than its denial. In what follows, I shall challenge this assumption, and thereby challenge the skepticism resting on it. More specifically, I shall base my challenge on the foundationalist view that nonfoundational physical-object beliefs are justified on the basis of immediately justified, foundational beliefs that either are analytically true or are solely about phenomenal perceptual content, such as what one seems to see. Foundational beliefs of the latter sort are

Consciousness and brain. II. Introspection, the qualia of experience, and the unconscious.

An argument in support of introspective methods in research is developed. As illustration, the perception of empty space is considered on the identity thesis, especially as reported by adepts in altered states of consciousness. It is suggested that the unique sensory qualia—seeing per se, hearing per se, etc, in contrast to the content of seeing and hearing—are a function of unique processing events within each sensory system. A dynamic model for the unconscious is proposed which is consonant with both psychoanalytic clinical observations and the identity thesis. It is argued that the function of processing events which are identical with consciousness per se is to constrain sequences of representation events that are identical with phenomenal contents, so that less probable (on the basis of past learning) representation events are realized.

Biological Foundations of the Psychoneural Identity Hypothesis

Biological foundations of the psychoneural identity hypothesis are explicated and their implications discussed. “Consciousness per se” and phenomenal contents of consciousness per se are seen to be identical with events in the (unobserved) brain in accordance with Leibniz's Law, but only informationally equivalent to neural events as observed. Phenomenal content potentially is recoverable by empirical means from observed neural events, but the converse is not possible. Consciousness per se is identical with events which do not represent anything distal to sensory receptor-transducer systems. Thus, on the psychoneural identity hypothesis, consciousness per se comprises directly physical events-in-themselves rather than being a Euclidean representation of physical events as is the case for phenomenal content. After comparing consciousness per se to “onta,” a paradox is suggested: rather than being irreducible to physical reality, consciousness per se is the only experience congruent with the ultimate nature of physical reality as conceived by contemporary physics.