Modeling Mental Qualities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10698209 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Angela Y Lee (0000-0002-1899-0511, New York University, Rice University, and University of Oslo, corresponding author), Andrew Y Lee |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 130 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 263-298 |
| Publication date | 2021-05-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00318108-8809919 |
| OpenAlex | W3175994614 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 7 |
Conscious experiences are characterized by mental qualities, such as those involved in seeing red, feeling pain, or smelling cinnamon. The standard framework for modeling mental qualities represents them via points in multidimensional spaces, where distances between points inversely correspond to degrees of phenomenal similarity. This article argues that the standard framework is structurally inadequate and develops a new framework that is more powerful and flexible. The core problem for the standard framework is that it cannot capture precision structure: for example, consider the phenomenal contrast between seeing an object as crimson in foveal vision versus merely as red in peripheral vision. The solution the article proposes is to model mental qualities using regions, rather than points. The article explains how this seemingly simple formal innovation not only provides a natural way of modeling precision but also yields a variety of further theoretical fruits: it enables one to formulate novel hypotheses about the space and structures of mental qualities, formally differentiate two dimensions of phenomenal similarity, generate a probabilistic model of the phenomenal sorites, and deploy a new theoretical tool in the empirical investigation of consciousness. A noteworthy consequence of this new framework is that the structure of the mental qualities of conscious experiences is fundamentally different from the structure of the perceptible qualities of external objects
Cognitive science · Consciousness · Contrast (vision) · Epistemology · Feeling · Image (mathematics) · Natural (archaeology) · Object (grammar) · Property (philosophy) · Similarity (geometry) · Simple (philosophy) · Space (punctuation) · Variety (cybernetics) · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Multisensory perception and integration · Neural dynamics and brain function · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Visual perception and processing mechanisms
Why Perceptual Experiences cannot be Probabilistic
How Seriously Should We Take AI Welfare? Constraints From the Epistemology of Consciousness
Idealist Panpsychism and Spacetime Structure
Objective Phenomenology
The Integrated Information Theory Needs Attention
Does Cognitive Phenomenology Support Dualism
On the alleged explanatory impotence/conceptual vacuity of substance dualism
Enriched category as a model of qualia structure based on similarity judgements
Towards a structural turn in consciousness science
Category theory in consciousness science
Three arguments against metaphysical structuralism in consciousness research
What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience
Let sleeping dogs lie
Knowledge and the flow of information
On the Theory of Scales of Measurement
An information integration theory of consciousness
Consciousness and topologically structured phenomenal spaces
The Structure of Appearance
Exactness, inexactness, and the non-transitivity of perceptual indiscriminability
On the Reality (and Diversity) of Objective Colors
| Citations per year | 3.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |