BeyondBlurFinalAccepted.pdf (236.83 kB)
Beyond the 'Bayesian blur': predictive processing and the nature of subjective experience
Recent work in cognitive and computational neuroscience depicts the brain as in some (perhaps merely approximate) sense implementing probabilistic inference. This suggests a puzzle. If the processing that enables perceptual experience involves representing or approximating probability distributions, why does experience itself appear univocal and determinate, apparently bearing no traces of those probabilistic roots? In this paper, I canvass a range of responses, including the denial of univocality and determinacy itself. I argue that there is reason to think that it is our conception of perception itself that is flawed. Once we see perception aright, as the slave of action, the puzzlement recedes. Perceptual determinacy reflects only the mundane fact that we are embodied, active, agents who must constantly engage the world they perceptually encounter.
Funding
ERC Advanced Grant XSPECT; ERC; DLV-692739
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Journal of Consciousness StudiesISSN
1355-8250Publisher
Imprint AcademicIssue
3-4Volume
25Page range
71-87Department affiliated with
- Philosophy Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2019-03-25First Open Access (FOA) Date
2020-01-01First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2019-03-22Usage metrics
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