Contents
Refereed Papers
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Derek Hodgson
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Ways of Seeing: The Innocent Eye, Individual View and Visual Realism in
Art Abstract
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David J.R. Bourget
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Quantum Leaps in Philosophy of Mind: A Critique of Stapp’s Theory
Abstract
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Henry P. Stapp
-
Quantum Leaps in Philosophy of Mind: Reply to Bourget’s Critique
Abstract
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Shaun Gallagher
-
The Minds, Machines, and Brains of a Passionate Scientist: An Interview
With Michael Arbib
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Charles Whitehead
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Everything I Believe Might Be an Illusion — Whoa! Tucson 2004: Ten Years
On and Are We Anywhere Nearer to a Science of Consciousness?
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Paavo Pylkkänen
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Gordon G. Globus, Quantum Closures and Disclosures
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John Dance
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Matthew Elton, Daniel Dennett
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Al Scott
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Philip Ball, Critical Mass
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Steven Johnson, Emergence
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Julian Candy
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Brian L. Lancaster, Approaches to Consciousness
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Peter Howorth
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A. Mele & P. Rawling, The Oxford Handbook of Rationality
Annual Indexes
Index of Titles 2004
Index of Authors 2004
TEN YEAR CUMULATIVE INDEX
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Ten Year Index of Authors
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Ten Year Index of Titles
ABSTRACTS
David J.R. Bourget
Quantum Leaps in Philosophy of Mind: A Critique of Stapp’s Theory
Abstract: The quantum mechanical theory of consciousness and freewill offered
by Stapp (1993; 1995; 2000; 2004) is exposed and clarified. Decoherence-based
arguments against this view are undermined in an effort to draw attention
to the real problems it faces: Stapp’s separate accounts of consciousness
and freewill are incompatible, the interpretations of QM they are tied
to are questionable, the Zeno effect could not enable freewill as he suggests
because weakness of will would then be ubiquitous, and the holism of measurement
in QM is not a good explanation of the unity of consciousness for essentially
the same reason that local interactions may seem incapable of accounting
for it.
Correspondence: David J. R. Bourget, Department of Philosophy, University
of Toronto, 9th floor, 215 Huron St. Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A2, Canada.
Email: dbourget@chass.utoronto.ca
Henry P. Stapp
Quantum Leaps in Philosophy of Mind: Reply to Bourget’s Critique
Abstract: David Bourget (2004) has raised some conceptual and technical
objections to my development of von Neumann’s treatment of the Copenhagen
idea that the purely physical process described by the Schrödinger
equation must be supplemented by a psychophysical process called the choice
of the experiment by Bohr and Process 1 by von Neumann. I answer here each
of Bourget’s objections.
Correspondence: Henry P. Stapp, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University
of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
Shaun Gallagher
The Minds, Machines, and Brains of a Passionate Scientist: An interview
with Michael Arbib
Michael Arbib was born in England, grew up in Australia, and studied at
MIT where he received his PhD in Mathematics in 1963. He helped to found
the Department of Computer and Information Science and the Center for Systems
Neuroscience, the Cognitive Science Program, and the Laboratory for Perceptual
Robotics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Today he is Fletcher
Jones Professor of Computer Science, a Professor of Neuroscience and the
Director of the USC Brain Project at the University of Southern California.
The title of his first book, Brains, Machines and Mathematics (1964,
second edition 1987), gives a good indication of his scientific interests.
For all his extensive research in these areas, however, Arbib has not ignored
philosophical, social, and even theological topics (Arbib 1985; Arbib and
Hesse 1986). Central to his work in all of these areas is the concept of
schema, and this is one of the topics that we discuss here.
Correspondence: Shaun Gallagher, Department of Philosophy, Colbourn
Hall 411, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-1352, USA. Email:
gallaghr@mail.ucf.edu
Derek Hodgson
Ways of Seeing: The Innocent Eye, Individual View and Visual Realism In
Art
Misconceptions Concerning Perception, Recognition and Knowledge In Relation
to the Innocent Eye
Based upon the studies to be outlined, I will argue that the innocent eye
should not be thought of as a kind of raw sensory data which, through various
artistic devices, can become a focus of attention. In effect, I submit,
various commentators have misrepresented this concept to the extent that
it has caused much confusion in debates relating to art. In short, they
continue to promote the notion of a viewer-centred representation as pure,
untainted visual information that can be accessed without recourse to visual
knowledge (e.g., Read, 1965, pp. 76,78; Winner, 1982; Howe, 1989; Thomas
and Silk, 1990; Snyder and Thomas, 1997; Humphrey, 1998; etc.).
Here, I suggest, there is no pre-formed image that is presented
to the later stages of the visual brain for further analysis. What may
exist at these earlier levels is a set of algorithms, which are a function
of the way the neural system is arranged to deal with incoming information.
These algorithms are not in themselves images but rather rules implicit
in the way neurones fire relative to one another so that they are able
to encode incoming information efficiently and reliably (for more on this
see below). Beyond this early stage of processing further analysis deals
with larger chunks of information. This stage is characterised by those
evolutionarily-mediated affordances integral to the visual system that
have enabled rapid, efficient disambiguation of the world; more specifically,
where information is sufficiently ‘labelled’ so that it can be recognised
quickly and economically thereby leading to constancy for form. This I
will refer to as the ‘expeditious eye’, (or usual/typical view as realised
by recourse to what I term ‘first- order neurones’) because it is a preliminary,
yet essential, capacity that promotes survival in an uncertain environment.
Correspondence: Derek Hodgson, 2 Belle Vue Street, York YO10 5AY, UK.
Email: dhgsob@email.com
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