CONSCIOUSNESS

1. Philosophy 45
hood conscious mind process these raw stimuli into a perception of three-dimensional objects.
These objects are not produced in the mind, rather imaginary sense data, the subjective effect
of abstract sense data fed into consciousness, frequently or typically produces a 1:1 perceptual
rapport with the empirical world in all of its inherent three-dimensionality. The theory of
abstract and imaginary sense data aligns with indirect realist claims that “sense data” are not
directly perceived and are an inherent intermediary level involved in the process of perception.
The indirect realist claim “that sense data originate from an unknowable source” accords
with this theory in that, in part, abstract sense data exist outside our normative sense of time
and space. Abstract sense data, as opposed to imaginary sense data, differ from indirect realist
conceptions of “sense data” in that abstract sense data are not private, internal and subjective
phenomena pertaining only to individual perception. Abstract sense data are empirical and
exist external to human cognitive processes. As such, abstract sense data affect the senses and
transform into private, individual and subjective imaginary sense data when transmitted to
human consciousness. At this point, the Kantian imagination in conjunction with sensorimotor
schemata function to synthesize and concretize, if you will, the 1:1 perceptual rapport
between abstract and imaginary sense data; which is the relationship between the external
world and internal experience that we call consciousness. The disciplined altering of sensorimotor
schemata modulates the flow of abstract and imaginary sense data within cognitive
processes. Altering the flow of these data in cognitive processes can potentially transform the
very nature of their synthesis thereby allowing for the contribution of data to a first-person
science of consciousness. P11
10 The Spread Mind: Is Phenomenal Experience Identical with Physical Processes
Larger Than Those Taking Place Inside the Nervous System? A Defense of Process
Phenomenal Externalism Riccardo Manzotti
(Communication and Behaviour, IULM University, Milan, Italy)
It is often assumed, both in science and in philosophy, that phenomenal properties supervenes
on what takes place inside the nervous system: “if you are a physicalist of any stripe, as
most of us are, you would likely believe in the local supervenience of qualia” (Kim 1995, p.
159). As a proof of this tenet, it is often reported that the a grown up brain seems capable of
producing – autonomously and in isolation from the environment – phenomenal experiences
such as dreaming, hallucinations, afterimages and, by and large, most cases of indirect perception
(Koch 2004; Tononi 2004; Edelman 2003; etc.). I will run afoul this view trying to defend
an alternative framework suggesting a different physical supervenience substratum for phenomenal
experience. My argument is divided in three steps. First, I will try to show that the
aforementioned internalist view is based on a few questionable hypotheses as to the causal and
temporal limits of physical phenomena – namely the roughly instantaneous notion of present.
I challenge these hypotheses trying to outline the conditions of isolations for a physical system
and then to check whether they are satisfied by the brain in allegedly isolated cases (like
dreams, memory or mental imagery). The tentative conclusion is that they are never wholly
satisfied as long as the brain is working properly and hence that the brain is never isolated
from its surroundings. Second, if the above twist in a fundamental assumption such as to the
boundary of physical phenomena is acceptable, a more radical framework can be fleshed out:
The neural activity is a subset of the physical bundle of events and processes either responsible
or identical with consciousness. I suggest to call the resulting spatio-temporal manifold,
which suggests that phenomenal experience is physically spread beyond the limits of the subject’s
body: the “spread mind”. Clearly, it is a variant of externalism. Yet it has not received
much support up to now. Even proponents of various forms of externalisms restrained from
considering seriously the possibility that the physical substratum of consciousness is literally/
physically more extended than the subject’s body (Clark, 2008; Chalmers 2007). Similarly, to
a certain extent, enactivists (O’Regan, Noe, Hurley) steered for a more epistemic view so as
to avoid committing to any problematic ontology. In fact, to hold this stand, the “spread mind”
faces a serious threat: not veridical perception and mistaken perception. Which brings us back
full circle to where we started. As a third step, thus, I will try to address a few cases of not
veridical perception such as dreaming, afterimages and hallucinations trying to show whether