Phenomenal Consciousness and the Allocentric-Egocentric Interface

Phenomenal Consciousness and the Allocentric-Egocentric InterfacePete MandikAssociate ProfessorCoordinator, Cognitive Science LaboratoryChairman, Department of PhilosophyWilliam Paterson University, New Jersey USA

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Three Problems of Consciousness

What is state consciousness?(What makes a mental state conscious and not

unconscious?)

What is transitive consciousness?(What are we conscious of?)

What is phenomenal character?(What are qualia? What is “what it is like”?)

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The Allocentric-Egocentric Interface Theory of Consciousness

Consciousness consists in the interface between allocentric and egocentric coding schemes for perceptible features

Conscious states are hybrids of allocentric and egocentric representations and phenomenal character is determined by their contents

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What is the egocentric allocentric distinction?

ALLOCENTRICEGOCENTRIC

Self-specifying contents

Non-self-specifying contents

Online (sensorimotor) Offline (memory and planning)

Analog, isomorphism Conceptual, categorical

Info. encapsulation Inferential promiscuity

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Levels of visual processing

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What is the progression of levels?Egocentric-to-Allocentric

transformations

Low-level (LGN and V1)Egocentric reps

Intermediate-level (IT and PP)Egocentric/Allocentric Hybrid reps

Highlevel (Frontal Cortex and Hippocampus)Allocentric reps

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So, where is consciousness?

Not at either end of the Egocentric-Allocentric continuum

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Pure Allocentric

Pure Egocentric

Retinocentric

Body-centered

Limited viewpoint invariance

Amodal Category knowledge

The Allocentric-Egocentric Interface

The reciprocally influencing representations jointly comprise a conscious state

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Consciousness is not purely egocentric Patient DF’s visual form agnosia (Milner and

Goodale 1995)Bilateral ventral stream damage to area LO

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Consciousness is not purely egocentricPatient DF’s visual form agnosiaPerceptual consciousness of form and orientation

destroyed, but sensorimotor skill intact

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Consciousness is not purely egocentric

Visual consciousness is conceptually informed

Theory ladeness of perception

Dog Dog sniffing ground Dog’s butt facing

you Did I mention the

dog?

What is this a picture of?Hints:

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Consciousness is not purely allocentric

Thoughts alone have no phenomenal character:

“Pi is an irrational number”

“Natural selection depends on the variable inheritance of fitness”

“Democracy and capitalism are incompatible”

Apparent phenomenality of thought due to associated imagery (Jackendoff 1987)

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Consciousness is not purely allocentric

. . .this . . . this, . . . or this . . .

. . .but not this.

THREE HOUSES

Visual consciousness is never viewpoint independent. The contents are like. . .

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The need for recurrence:

TMS: feedback from area MT+/V5 to V1 necessary for visual awareness (Pascual-Leone & Walsh 2001)

Backward masking invokes feedforward activation but suppresses recurrence (Lamme 2004)

Feedforward activation recorded in anesthetized animals (Lamme 2004)

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State Consciousness

Conscious states are composed of mutually influencing egocentric and allocentric representations

Contra Higher Order Representational theories, metarepresentational states are unnecessary

Contra First Order Representational theories, involvement of higher-level (though not higher order) states is necessary

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Transitive Consciousness

What we are conscious of are the contents of the allocentric-egocentric hybrid reps

Contra HO theories, contents need not include other mental states (Transitivity is false)

Contra FO theories, contents need not exclude other mental states (Transparency is false)

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Phenomenal Character

What it is like to be in a conscious state is fully determined by the representational content of that state.

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THE END