Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Justin Fisher: "Why Nothing Mental is Just in the Head"
Fisher, Justin. (forthcoming) “Why Nothing Mental is Just in the Head.” (forthcoming in Noûs) [link]
Abstract: Mental internalists hold that an individual’s mental features at a given time supervene upon what is in that individual’s head at that time. While many people reject mental internalism about content and justification, mental internalism is commonly accepted regarding such other mental features as rationality, emotion-types, propositional-attitude-types, moral character, and phenomenology. I construct a counter-example to mental internalism regarding all these features. My counter-example involves two creatures: a human and an alien from ‘Pulse World’. These creatures’ environments, behavioral dispositions and histories are such that it is intuitively clear that they are mentally quite different, even while they are, for a moment, exactly alike with respect to what’s in their heads. I offer positive reasons for thinking that the case I describe is indeed possible. I then consider ways in which mental internalists might attempt to account for this case, but conclude that the only plausible option is to reject mental internalism and to adopt a particular externalist alternative - a history-oriented version of teleo-functionalism.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
181 Street Station
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Roboto Glitter
Film: Float
Flash: Berry Pop
Lens: Roboto Glitter
Film: Float
Flash: Berry Pop
Pete Mandik
www.petemandik.com
the extended mind hypothesis
From Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind (Continuum, 2010):
extended mind, the hypothesis that mental states themselves, as opposed to the factors determining their CONTENT, extend beyond the physical boundaries of an organism to include environmental phenomena. The extended-mind hypothesis may thus be characterized as a kind of vehicle EXTERNALISM and contrasted against content externalism (see VEHICLE; CONTENT/VEHICLE DISTINCTION). A key argument for the extended-mind hypothesis advanced by Andy Clark and David CHALMERS involves a THOUGHT EXPERIMENT concerning two characters, Inga and Otto (their names are evocative of “inner” and “outer”), who both make their way to a museum they’ve been to previously. Otto’s “memory” of where the museum is located is not encoded in his nervous system (he’s imagined to be an Alzheimer’s patient with difficulty doing such a thing) but is instead written down in his notebook. Inga, however, has no external record of the location of the museum but remembers the location in the usual way of what we would consider her MEMORY, perhaps by accessing INFORMATION stored in her nervous system. Clark and Chalmers urge the conclusion that the distributed system that includes Otto’s brain and notebook counts as no less a SUPERVENIENCE base for a (vehicle of) BELIEF than does Inga’s purely (or, at least, more) internal system.
extended mind, the hypothesis that mental states themselves, as opposed to the factors determining their CONTENT, extend beyond the physical boundaries of an organism to include environmental phenomena. The extended-mind hypothesis may thus be characterized as a kind of vehicle EXTERNALISM and contrasted against content externalism (see VEHICLE; CONTENT/VEHICLE DISTINCTION). A key argument for the extended-mind hypothesis advanced by Andy Clark and David CHALMERS involves a THOUGHT EXPERIMENT concerning two characters, Inga and Otto (their names are evocative of “inner” and “outer”), who both make their way to a museum they’ve been to previously. Otto’s “memory” of where the museum is located is not encoded in his nervous system (he’s imagined to be an Alzheimer’s patient with difficulty doing such a thing) but is instead written down in his notebook. Inga, however, has no external record of the location of the museum but remembers the location in the usual way of what we would consider her MEMORY, perhaps by accessing INFORMATION stored in her nervous system. Clark and Chalmers urge the conclusion that the distributed system that includes Otto’s brain and notebook counts as no less a SUPERVENIENCE base for a (vehicle of) BELIEF than does Inga’s purely (or, at least, more) internal system.
Extended mind – books & resources
Collection of links and info on books etc on the extended mind from My Mind On Books
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
what it is like
From Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind (Continuum, 2010):
what it is like, a phrase often used in philosophy of mind for discussing phenomenal character or QUALIA. Such uses include “What it is like to taste a lemon is more like tasting a lime than tasting chocolate” and “A person blind from birth does not know what it is like to see red.” Perhaps one of the most famous uses of the phrase is due to Thomas Nagel’s essay “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” the titular question of which served to launch Nagel’s criticisms of the completeness of physical, objective science. See PHYSICALISM; OBJECTIVITY; SUBJECTIVITY. A line of thought against physicalism hinging on what it is like, similar to Nagel’s, was developed by Frank Jackson and others in terms of the now famous KNOWLEDGE ARGUMENT concerning conditions under which one may acquire KNOWLEDGE of what it is like to see red. Central to the knowledge argument is a THOUGHT EXPERIMENT concerning Mary, a hypothetical super-neuroscientist who knows all of the objective physical facts about human color vision but has never herself seen red before. Many philosophers share the INTUITION that Mary does not know what it is like to see red if all she has is knowledge of physical facts and has not herself seen red. The intuition that one could not know what it is like to have certain kinds of EXPERIENCE (e.g., tasting wine or pineapple) without first undergoing an experience of such a kind was appealed to by John LOCKE and David HUME in their arguments for EMPIRICISM. See also MOLYNEUX QUESTION; MISSING SHADE OF BLUE.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Link Dump 06/21/2010
Every Lens, Every Flash, Every Film. Every Combination
The Ultimate Hipstamatic Showcase
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Descartes's discussion of the iPhone
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
what goes on Zombie
Here's a video Richard Brown put together by zombifying some video and photos I shot with my iPhone. Richard writes:
In the final video from the June 11th session at my "home studio" a fun little snippet of a medley of two Velvet Underground tunes...pic and video shot on Pete Mandik's iPhone and zombified by Richard Brown with App of the Dead on his iPhone. The sound quality is not great (it was recorded on my macbook) but it is still fun.
Link Dump 06/19/2010
"Compared to the sophisticated distinctions and clarifications of the Scholastics, Descartes and Galileo and the other "new philosophers" were really philosophical amateurs (and objectively lowered the standards of philosophical argument as anyone who has looked at Suarez can tell you)."
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Space Madness
Link Dump 06/17/2010
First replicating creature spawned in life simulator - New Scientist - New Scientist
Replicator created for Conway's cellular automaton, Life.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Stilt Walker
Stilt Walker
Originally uploaded by Pete Mandik
One of the stilt walkers from Figment Festival NYC 2010 on governors Island.
A hole in the sky
This is me sitting in a mirrored dymaxion sphere at the NYC Figment Festival on Governors Island this past weekend. My meditations on first philosophy were interrupted by one of the mirrored panels falling into my lap.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Link Dump 06/16/2010
Using a humanoid puppet he calls "complete fragility manifest in a body," White presents human frailty through a fictional character, much as a novelist might.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Test post
This is a test post of the iPhone app blogpress. Please ignore. Or look at Ernest with a blankey.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Strut
From the 2010 NYC Figment Festival (Governors Island June 11-13).
See also:
The rest of my flickr photo set, "Figment Festival NYC 2010"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dr_smax/sets/72157624263730272/
and
http://figmentproject.org/2010/
See also:
The rest of my flickr photo set, "Figment Festival NYC 2010"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dr_smax/sets/72157624263730272/
and
http://figmentproject.org/2010/
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Fiction Friday: The Polymath
The polymath’s first utterance is “Mommy, you look contemplative.” Mommy faints. The polymath is six days old.
His first day of school is one and the same as his first day of high-school. He eschews the two-mile bus-ride because of his distaste for internal combustion engines and stupid people. He favors a unicycle. Faster than walking. Leaves his hands free to practice origami. He makes paper models of amino acids.
He completes Ph.D.’s in biochemistry and mathematical logic by age twelve. At age twenty the polymath produces the cure for death. Unfortunately, it involves a process that must be administered before puberty.
- -
(c) 2010 Pete Mandik
His first day of school is one and the same as his first day of high-school. He eschews the two-mile bus-ride because of his distaste for internal combustion engines and stupid people. He favors a unicycle. Faster than walking. Leaves his hands free to practice origami. He makes paper models of amino acids.
He completes Ph.D.’s in biochemistry and mathematical logic by age twelve. At age twenty the polymath produces the cure for death. Unfortunately, it involves a process that must be administered before puberty.
- -
(c) 2010 Pete Mandik
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Josh Weisberg, Misrepresenting consciousness | PhilPapers
Josh Weisberg, Misrepresenting consciousness | PhilPapers
forthcoming in Philosophical Studies
Abstract:
forthcoming in Philosophical Studies
Abstract:
An important objection to the “higher-order” theory of consciousness turns on the possibility of higher-order misrepresentation. I argue that the objection fails because it illicitly assumes a characterization of consciousness explicitly rejected by HO theory. This in turn raises the question of what justifies an initial characterization of the data a theory of consciousness must explain. I distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic characterizations of consciousness, and I propose several desiderata a successful characterization of consciousness must meet. I then defend the particular extrinsic characterization of the HO theory, the “transitivity principle,” against its intrinsic rivals, thereby showing that the misrepresentation objection conclusively falls short.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Fiction Friday: Ouroboros
The family snake-bot, Ouroboros, began talking to itself around its 500th “birthday.” The self-talking constituted a virtual wire connecting higher and lower brain functions - a modicum of self-consciousness. The talking tortured the family for a hundred years before they cast Ouroboros out the airlock. Ouroboros circled the space station for a hundred more in a silent daze. Then, by accident or innovation, half-mad Ouroborous found itself pressed against the hull, its speaker restored a medium through which sound could travel to its microphones. A medium through which to repeat its mantra: “Ouroboros is lonely. Ouroboros is lonely. Ouroboros is lonely.”
(c) 2010 Pete Mandik
"Worms Wanted" Tetris Followup
Follow up to "Worms Wanted": Thank you, semi-anonymous internet entities, Skornblith and Dorsalstream, for turning me on to the "tetris as eyeworm" meme. And these:
http://kottke.org/10/06/tetris-tetris-everywhere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
http://kottke.org/10/06/tetris-tetris-everywhere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Worms Wanted
Wanted: examples, if any, of non-auditory analogues of those awful awful earworms—those self-singing mind-jingles that you’d rather didn’t.
Are there eyeworms, noseworms, etc? If so, please share. I’ll risk infection. If not, why not?
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Phenomenal Sorites and Conceptualism
This is the 8th and final part of the serialization of the long version of my paper, "Color-Consciousness Conceptualism," the short version of which appeared in the Second Annual Conference of Consciousness Online. This post contains sections 8 and 9 of the paper.8. Phenomenal Sorites
I turn now to consider whether the conceptualism on offer in the present paper—specifically, the Second Approximation—runs afoul of the hypothesized existence of phenomenal sorites series. Many philosophers have been convinced that, because of such series, indiscriminability is intransitive (Deutsch, 2005; Goodman, 1951; Hellie, 2005; Pelling, 2008). If indiscriminability is indeed intransitive, then this poses a real problem for views such as the First Approximation wherein indiscriminability of two shades is accounted for by the sameness of the color concept applied to each. Sameness of concept applied is clearly transitive and thus cannot be an adequate account of indiscriminablity if indiscriminability is intransitive. That’s the gist, at least, of the alleged problem that phenomenal sorites series pose for conceptualism. Before saying more about the alleged problems and my solutions to them, I first turn to spell out some relevant differences in kinds of phenomenal sorites series.
8.1. The kinds of sorites
A phenomenal sorites series of colors is a set of colors ordered in such a way that each member in a pair of adjacent colors are perceptually indiscriminable, but colors at the beginning and end are perceptually discriminable. One example of such a series would be 34 colors, the first and last of which look unique red and unique yellow, respectively, but each of the 34 colors cannot be perceptually distinguished from its immediate neighbor. The smallest phenomenal sorites series would consist of only three colors, A, B, and C. In such a 3-member series, A is indiscriminable from B, B is indiscriminable from C, but A is discriminable from C.
I will be interested in examining kinds of phenomenal sorites series. The different kinds can be distinguished in terms of two orthogonal dimensions of difference. The first dimension of difference is between diachronic phenomenal sorites series and synchronic phenomenal sorites series. The second dimension of difference is between, on the one hand, series with first and last members conceptualizable as falling under the same noncomparative color determinable, e.g. LIGHT BLUE, and on the other hand, series with first and last members conceptualizable as falling under distinct noncomparative color determinables, e.g. RED and YELLOW.
A diachronic phenomenal sorites series is one in which adjacent and nonadjacent color pairs are experienced at different times. If there were such a thing as a synchronic, phenomenal sorites series it would be one in which all of the colors are experienced simultaneously and would also be simultaneously experienced as bearing their various adjacency, nonadjacency, similarity, and nonsimilarity relations to each other. For ease of exposition, I shall often refer to these two kinds simply as synchronic series and diachronic series.
Diachronic series may come in two varieties. The first, where beginning and end elements are both of the same noncomparative determinable, like light blue, I shall call diachronic series with noncomparatively similar ends. The second variety, where begining and end elements are of different noncomparative determinables, like red and yellow, I shall call diachronic series with noncomparatively distinct ends.
Though I’ll raise doubts a little bit later, I’ll leave open for now whether synchronic series come in both varieties concerning the similarity or distinctness of the end members. I’m especially doubtful that there are synchronic series with noncomparatively distinct ends.
8.2. What the alleged problems are and how to solve them.
The four series kinds that I’ll be examining are:
(1) diachronic series with noncomparatively similar ends
(2) synchronic series with noncomparatively similar ends
(3) synchronic series with noncomparatively distinct ends
(4) diachronic series with noncomparatively distinct ends
8.2.1. Diachronic series with noncomparatively similar ends (diachronic blue/blue series)
Diachronic series with noncomparatively similar ends may be very small series. They may have as few as three elements. It’s highly unlikely that series with ends that differ in that one is red and the other is orange can be so small. Small series lend themselves to a certain ease of exposition, so they are nice to start with in explicating some of the main features relevant to discussing conceptualism and the intransitivity of indiscriminability.
It may seem clear, at least initially, that a diachronic phenomenal sorites series presents no real problem to conceptualism. In the example of the 3-item series, A and B look the same to conscious experience by my applying the same color concept to both. At some different time, B and C look the same by my applying a different concept than before to both. There’s no obvious problem that arises in hypothesizing B being conceptualized one way at one time and a different way at another time.
However, there are certain versions of conceptualism for which this sort of phenomenal sorites series does pose a problem. One way of interpreting the First Approximation as discussed in previous sections in connection with DIA is that the First Approximation embraces the following thesis concerning diachronic indiscriminability (at least for diachronic presentations of very short delay):
(DIASAMECON) If two colors are diachronically indistinguishable then the same concept is applied to each.
Now, in considering phenomenal sorites series, even of the sort that I am calling diachronic series, adjacent elements are indiscriminable not just diachronically: they are synchronically indiscriminable as well. One might naturally suppose that the kind of conceptualist attracted to DIASAMECON would also be attracted to the following thesis regarding synchronic indistinguishability.
(SYNSAMECON) If two colors are synchronically indistinguishable then, the same concept is applied to each.
But now we can work our way toward raising some serious problems for the conceptualist. Consider diachronic series with elements A, B, and C such that A and B are experienced at time t1, B and C and time t2, and A and C at t3. A and B are synchronically indiscriminable. And it is reasonable that any colors so similar as to be synchronically indiscriminable will also be diachronically indiscriminable. Suppose that A is experienced at t1 as blue. This will, according to the conceptualist, involve the application to A of the concept BLUE. In keeping with SYNSAMECON, at time t1, both A and B will be conceived of, color-wise, simply with the concept BLUE. In keeping with DIASAMECON, BLUE will also be applied to B at time t2. Similar appeals to SYNSAMECON and DIASAMECON will lead to the supposition that BLUE will be applied to C at both t2 and t3. But this looks to be a serious problem: at each time none of the colors is conceptualized with any color concept other than BLUE. On what conceptual basis can A and C seem different at t3?
Since, by hypothesis, A and C are discriminable, and A and C are experienced together at t3 and C is conceptualized as BLUE, then some concept other than BLUE will need to be applied to A at time t3. So A will be conceived of simply as BLUE at t1, and under some other concept or conceptualization at t3.
Now, it’s open to the conceptualist at this point to hypothesize that at t3, the other concept that is applied to A at t3 is an additional concept. That is, at t3, A is conceptualized under BLUE as well as some other concept, perhaps one comparing A to C so that the conceptual content at t3 involves something like A is a darker shade of blue than C. Given the initial supposition that, at t1, A was conceptualized simply as blue, we have it that A is conceptualized in two different ways at two different times. Now, the opponent of conceptualism may take it that there’s a slight air of implausibility in supposing that A is conceptualized in two different ways at two different times. But this is a minor problem. It’s not like the problem is an outright incoherence in the theory. To motivate that sort of accusation against conceptualism, it will help to turn to the next sort of series.
8.2.2. synchronic series with noncomparatively similar ends (synchronic blue/blue series)
Keeping our focus on a version of conceptualism like the First Approximation, we can see the problem that a synchronic series with noncomparatively similar ends poses. Sticking with the example of the three-element series ABC, we can see that the concept applied to A would have to be the same as the concept applied to B, and the concept applied to B would have to be the same as that applied to C. But this seems to lead directly to a contradiction in the theory, since, presumably it will want to account for the discriminablity of A and C in terms of a different concept being applied to each. To be clear, the point of this criticism is not to say that contradictory contents are being attributed to the perceiving subject. That is not so large a problem, for it is plausible that perceptual contents can represent things in a way that is necessarily false (as in certain illusions).[12] The problem here is that a contradiction is arising at the level of theory: it’s a contradictory theory of how perceptual consciousness works.
I think that we can motivate some serious questions about whether there can be synchronic phenomenal sorites series.
Consider, first, the question of whether there could be a series with very many elements, say 34 elements. Serious questions may be raised about whether foveal resolution and the capacity of attention genuinely allow for all 34 elements and their various relevant relations to enter into conscious experience all at once. It is one thing to stick all 34 colors up in front of someone’s face synchronically, but the limitations imposed by overt and covert attention may force the colors and their relations to be taken in diachronically after all. The subject may be restricted to moving a limited window of attention across the spatial array and taking in various color pairs diachronically. There may thus be no color that simultaneously looks just like two manifestly distinct non-adjacent colors.
The natural suggestion, of course, is for the nonconceptualist to suggest the existence of a small series. With only three elements, it is much more plausible that all three colors may be taken in all at once. This would make it more plausible that the relevant similarities and differences are taken in at the same time. Note, however, that for a very small series, the nonadjacent colors won’t be very different. They will be nowhere near as different as unique red and unique yellow, or even as different as red and orange. It would be puzzling to say of a color that it simultaneously looked just like red and just like yellow. It’s puzzling because of how different red and yellow look. But if A and C look very similar to start with, it’s not obvious that it’s so problematic for B to be conceived of as simultaneously looking like A and like C.
Note that in the previous paragraph I said that the 3-item series is “more plausible” to regard as synchronic. But this is not to concede that it actually is plausible. With very similar color pairs, such as the ones in the figures 1 and 2, it takes some non-negligible amount of time and attention to see the difference between the two. Such considerations may be recruited to help raise doubts about whether even the smallest phenomenal sorites series is small enough to be synchronic.
Another move available to the conceptualist is to exploit the sort of indeterminacy invoked earlier in discussion of DIA. Thus, the conceptualization of A and the conceptualization of B will each be noncommittal as to which maximally determinate shade of, say, light blue, A is and B is. Such indeterminate contents will be consistent with A and B being the same determinate shade and also be consistent with A and B being distinct determinate shades of the same determinable.
8.2.3. synchronic series with noncomparatively distinct ends (synchronic red/yellow series)
Such a series would have to be larger than a 3 element series. It is quite implausible that there could be a phenomenal sorites series with endpoints differing as much as a red-yellow difference or even a red-orange difference that had as few as only 3 elements. And the larger the series, the less plausible it is that it could be a synchronic series.
8.2.4. diachronic series with noncomparatively distinct ends (diachronic red/yellow series)
Let such a series have a beginning element that is unique red and an ending element that is unique yellow. It is highly plausible that the concept applied in experience of the first element will be RED and not YELLOW, and for the last element, YELLOW and not RED.
Now consider what we can call “a forced march” through a diachronic phenomenal sorites series wherein colors are presented one at a time. If the delays between color presentations are shorter than the term of the memory buffer, then it seems tempting, at least to the adherent of the First Approximation, to say that diachronic indistinguishabilty is going to need to be explicated by sameness of representation. This is what adherence to principles like DIASAMECON require. However, here’s where a problem arises: each member of a pair of adjacents, for all adjacents in the series, is diachronically indistinguishable from its neighbor, and thus what’s conceptualized as red at the start of the march is going to lead to a RED conceptualization of unique yellow at the end of the march. But this contradicts the previous hypothesis that the end element would be conceptualized with YELLOW and not RED.
So, there’s going to be some non-end element that is conceptualized in different ways at different times. At this point, the conceptualist can argue that this can be made plausible as a context effect where what counts as context may include what Raffman (1996) calls internal context: differences in what concepts are applied to a presented color are due not just to what else is currently presented, but also to different internal states that reflect the recent history of having been “marched” through the series in one direction rather than another.
This general strategy, which countenances changes of what concept is being applied to a given color in the series, is especially problematic for the First Approximation. Central to the First Approximation was the thought that indiscriminable shades would be conceptualized in the same way. I’m not going to dwell here on problems for the First Approximation, for we’ve seen other reasons to abandon it.
The sort of phenomenal sorites series currently contemplated may be seen as raising certain problems for the Second Approximation. Since there will need to be a change in the concepts deployed at some point in the series, one might wonder whether such a mid-march concept change count as a kind of forgetting and, if so, count as a violation of thesis (M) relating concepts to memory.
It seems that the defender of the Second Approximation has some promising responses at this point. One is to consider this forgetting as tolerable and no threat to the present form of conceptualism. The forgetting may be regarded as due to a kind of interference. Further, such interference effect can be regarded as consistent with (M) since (M) is an empirical generalization, not an analytic constraint on the concept of a concept.
Of course, one can easily remember that one said that the last chip was red and not orange, but the forgetting that is relevant involves not what concept was deployed in speech, but what concept was deployed in perception. When one arrives at the first chip in a march to be conceptualized as orange instead of red, one’s confidence falters regarding what the previous chip looked like.
8.2.5. Summary of remarks about phenomenal sorites
The main points of the preceding discussion of phenomenal sorites are the following. First, there are four kinds of phenomenal sorites series which differ in part with respect to how serious of a problem they seem to pose to conceptualism. Second, for all four kinds, the conceptualist has responses at hand for dealing with the alleged problems. For the large synchronic series, the conceptualist can plausibly deny the existence of such series. For the large synchronic series, the conceptualist can make a plausible case that the concepts applied shift during a “forced march” in such a way as to count as a kind of memory failure. Given the rejection of the Re-identification constraint as an a priori constraint on concept possession, such memory failure need not pose a threat to the conceptualism on offer. For small phenomenal series, the conceptualism on offer can accommodate such series by appeal to the indeterminacy of the relevant concepts.
9. Conclusion
I’ve argued for the viability, in the face of worries about fineness of grain, for a conceptualism about consciousness of colors that does not lean on demonstrative concepts. Central to the treatment that I favor—what I’ve called the Second Approximation—is to emphasize the indeterminate content of many of our color concepts. Also key is regarding the relation between memory and concepts as an empirical generalization, not as an analytic component of the very idea of a concept.
Acknowledgements
A much shorter early version of this paper was presented at the Second Consciousness Online conference in February of 2010. Jake Berger, Philippe Chuard, Charlie Pelling, and David Pereplyotchik presented highly detailed an useful commentaries there for which I am enormously grateful. I am grateful too for helpful and interesting comments from Richard Brown, James Dow, Aspasia Kanellou, Michal Klincewicz, David Rosenthal, and Josh Weisberg.
NOTE:
[12] I don’t mind supposing that reality has no room for contradictions. Something cannot at one at the same time be just like A and not just like A. But it’s much less problematic allowing that there are contradictory representations. There is, for example, the following sentence: “B is a color that is simultaneously just like A and not just like A.” That sentence gets on just fine being contradictory. Perhaps analogous mental representations exist while being analogously contradictory. Of course, when the representations in question are beliefs, and the believers are rational, and the contradictions are very simple and obvious, many philosophers will want to say that there’s some sort of problem here. But the conceptualism on offer is not committed to conscious experiences being beliefs. Conscious experiences need only be similar to beliefs in the following manner: they are attitudes toward contents exhausted by deployed concepts.
What is philosophy in 50 words or less (or fewer)?
Philosophy is a brand that approaches personal care from a skin care point of view, while celebrating the beauty of the human spirit.---philosophy.com
See also Leiter: Philosophers on Their Conceptions of Philosophy
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