Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:18:56.340Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Illusions of Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Robert M. Anderson Jr.
Robert M. Anderson Jr.*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University Medical School, Stanford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

On reading the grain argument as advanced by Meehl and Sellars, I find that there is not one but two grain arguments. According to one argument, mental events cannot be the same as neural events because mental events have a continuity that neural events do not have. The other argues for the same conclusion from the simplicity of experienced quality. I answer these arguments by claiming that these properties of experience are illusory. I detail a dual threshold theory of visual experience and show that given this model the mind-brain identity theory predicts the existence of these illusions.

Type
Contributed Papers: Session IV
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1974 , 1974 , pp. 549 - 561
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, R. M. Jr.,: 1975, ‘Wholistic and Particulate Approaches in Neuropsychology’, in W. B. Weimer and D. S. Palermo (eds.), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes, V. H. Winston, Washington, D.C., 1975.Google Scholar
De Valois, R.L., and Jacobs, G.H.: 1968, ‘Primate Color Vision”, Science 162, 533-540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eccles, J.C.: 1970, Facing Reality, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feigl, H.: 1967, The ‘Mental’ and the ‘Physical’, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Hubel, D. H. and T. N., Wiesel: 1962, ‘Receptive Fields, Binocular Interaction and Functional Architecture in the Cat’s Visual Cortex’, Journal of Physiology 160, 106-154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubel, D. H. and T. N., Wiesel: 1963, ‘Shape and Arrangement of Columns in Cats’ Striate Cortex’, Journal of Physiology 165, 559-568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kabrisky, M.: 1966, A Proposed Model for Visual Information Processing in the Human Brain, University of Illinois Press, Urbana.Google Scholar
Köhler, W. and H. Wallach: 1944, ‘Figural After-Effects: An Investigation of Visual Processes’, Proceedings of American Philosophical Society 88, 296-357.Google Scholar
Maxwell, G.: 1968, ‘Scientific Methodology and the Casual Theory of Perception’, in I., Lakatos and A., Musgrave (eds.), Problems in the Philosophy of Science, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1968.Google Scholar
Meehl, P. E.: 1966, ‘The Complete Autocerebroscopist: A Thought-Experiment on Professor Feigl’s Mind-Body Identity Thesis’, in P. K., Feyerabend and G., Maxwell (eds.), Mind, Matter, and Method: Essays in Philosophy and Science in Honor of Herbert Feigl, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1966.Google Scholar
Mountcastle, V. B.: 1957, ‘Modalitity and Topographic Properties of Single Neurons of Cat’s Somatic Sensory Cortex’, Journal of Neurophysiology 20, 408-434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pepper, S.: 1967, Concept and Quality, University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Poggio, G. F.: 1968, ‘Central Neural Mechanisms in Vision’, in V. B., Mountcastle (ed.), Medical Physiology, C. V., Mosby, St. Louis, Missouri, 1968.Google Scholar
Pribram, K. H.: 1971, Languages of the Brain: Experimental Paradoxes and Principles in Neuropsychology, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliff, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Russell, B.: 1954, The Analysis of Matter, Dover, New York.Google Scholar
Sellars, W.: 1963, Science, Perception, and Reality, Humanities Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sellars, W.: 1966, ‘The Refutation of Phenomenalism: Prolegomena to a Defense of Scientific Realism’, in P. K., Feyerabend and G., Maxwell(eds.), Mind, Matter, and Method: Essay in Philosophy and Science in Honor of Herbert Feigl, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1966.Google Scholar
Talbot, S. A. and Marshall, W. H.: 1941, ‘Physiological Studies on Neural Mechanisms of Visual Localization and Discrimination’, American Journal of Ophtthalmology 24, 1255-1263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar