University of Sussex
Browse
BeyondBlurFinalAccepted.pdf (236.83 kB)

Beyond the 'Bayesian blur': predictive processing and the nature of subjective experience

Download (236.83 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 17:08 authored by Andrew ClarkAndrew Clark
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 Studies

ISSN

1355-8250

Publisher

Imprint Academic

Issue

3-4

Volume

25

Page range

71-87

Department affiliated with

  • Philosophy Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2019-03-25

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2020-01-01

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2019-03-22

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC