15 Apr
2005
15 Apr
'05
2:58 p.m.
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Andrew Brook (Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada) alábbi két előadására minden érdeklődőt szeretettel
várunk:**
*1.* 2005. május 2, 16:00:
* *
*Zombies and Imprisoned Minds*
*Andrew Brook and Paul Raymont *
*Abstract*
Thought experiments (TEs) about zombies are one standard way to argue
for anti-cognitivism about consciousness, the view that consciousness is
not a cognitive (information processing) property of minds. Another
class of TEs are actually more interesting in this regard, TEs about
what we call imprisoned minds. Imprisoned minds are minds that have no
way of expressing themselves behaviourally. Unlike zombies, they
actually exist, which adds to their interest - administration of curare
and certain massive strokes in the brain stem can both produce
imprisoned minds, curare temporally, strokes permanently.
In both cases, one has to add an exotic premise to get an
anti-cognitivist argument going. For zombie TEs, the exotic premise is
that an utterly nonconscious zombie could be behaviourally, cognitively,
or even molecule-for-molecule identical to us conscious beings. The
exotic premise in the case of imprisoned mind TEs is that in addition to
no behavioural expression, the activities of an imprisoned mind could
also make no neural difference. (We call such minds Radically Imprisoned
Minds [RIMs].)
As has often been noted, part of what makes zombie TEs difficult to
assess is their close kinship to the traditional problem of knowledge of
other minds. In particular, we do not know by what criterion or criteria
we could settle whether another being is conscious. The same is true of
imprisoned minds. It turns out, interestingly enough, that it is easier
to resolve the knowledge problem that arises in connection with each TE
than it is to settle whether they have any potential as arguments for
anti-cognitivism. The reason is the same in both cases: the exotic
premise required for the TEs to work as arguments for anti-cognitivism,
premises that are very difficult to assess, do not affect the knowledge
problem.
As arguments for anti-cognitivism, the two TEs are different. As we will
show, zombie TEs do not work as arguments for anti-cognitivism. By
contrast, we know of no definitive cognitivist response to imprisoned
minds TEs.
*Biographical Notes*
Andrew Brook (D.Phil., Oxon.) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of
the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, Ottawa,
Canada. He is the author of /Kant and the Mind/ (Cambridge 1994) and,
with Paul Raymont, /A Unified Theory of Consciousness/ (MIT Press
forthcoming) and has written or edited five other books and about 80
papers, chapters, etc. He was recently President of the Canadian
Philosophical Association.
Paul Raymont (Ph.D., Toronto) was recently a Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council post-doctoral fellow at Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada. He is currently at the University of Toronto. He has
numerous journal publications and co-authored /A Unified Theory of
Consciousness/ with Andrew Brook.
* *
*Helyszín: *Tudományfilozófiai szeminárium*, * ELTE Tudománytörténet és Tudományfilozófia
Tanszék, Pázmány P. sétány 1/A, 6. emelet, 654, terem
*2.* 2005. május 3, 17:00:
*The Representational Base of Consciousness *
* *
*Andrew Brook and Paul Raymont*
* *
*Abstract*
Everyone agrees, no matter what else they think about consciousness,
that it has a representational base. However, there have been relatively
few worked-out attempts to say what this base might be like. The two
best developed are perhaps the higher-order thought (HOT) model of David
Rosenthal and the transparency approach of Fred Dretske and others. As
we will show, both face serious problems.
Our alternative to these models starts from the notion of a
self-presenting representation, a representation that presents not only
what it is about (if it is about anything; not all representations have
an object) but also itself to the representing subject. Thus, seeing
text on the computer display tells one not only about the text but also
about this representations of it, that, for example, one is seeing it,
not touching it. Indeed, in our view, representations, being
self-presenting, are the representational base for not just for
consciousness of their objects (when they have one) and of themselves.
They are also the representational base for consciousness of oneself as
subject.
Though we take mainly a philosophical approach, we hope that
the unified picture of consciousness that flows from our picture of the
representational base will assist research on consciousness no matter
what the approach.
*Biographical Notes*
Andrew Brook (D.Phil., Oxon.) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of
the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, Ottawa,
Canada. He is the author of /Kant and the Mind/ (Cambridge 1994) and,
with Paul Raymont, /A Unified Theory of Consciousness/ (MIT Press
forthcoming) and has written or edited five other books and about 80
papers, chapters, etc. He was recently President of the Canadian
Philosophical Association.
Paul Raymont (Ph.D., Toronto) was recently a Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council post-doctoral fellow at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He is currently at
the University of Toronto. He has numerous journal publications and co-authored /A Unified
Theory of Consciousness/ with Andrew Brook.
*Helyszín:* Közép-Európai Egyetem, Filozófia Tanszék, Zrínyi u. 14, 412 terem