Papers by Kenneth Williford
This paper aims to assess whether the recently proposed "inner screen model" of conscio... more This paper aims to assess whether the recently proposed "inner screen model" of consciousness that follows from the free-energy principle (FEP) can be regarded as a minimal unifying model (MUM) of consciousness, thereby providing a common foundational model for consciousness studies, and integrating approaches to consciousness based on the FEP. We first present the inner screen model, which follows from applying the quantum information theoretic version of the FEP to the known sparse (nested and hierarchical) neuroanatomy of the brain. We then review models of consciousness that are premised on the FEP. Specifically, we review Bayesian versions of the global workspace and attention schema theories, theories premised on world-models and self-models, and models formalizing the computational structure and properties of time-consciousness. We then discuss how extant FEP-theoretic models of consciousness can be situated with respect to the candidate MUM.
arXiv (Cornell University), Aug 12, 2018
Brain Sciences
Consciousness has been described as acting as a global workspace that integrates perception, imag... more Consciousness has been described as acting as a global workspace that integrates perception, imagination, emotion and action programming for adaptive decision making. The mechanisms of this workspace and their relationships to the phenomenology of consciousness need to be further specified. Much research in this area has focused on the neural correlates of consciousness, but, arguably, computational modeling can better be used toward this aim. According to the Projective Consciousness Model (PCM), consciousness is structured as a viewpoint-organized, internal space, relying on 3D projective geometry and governed by the action of the Projective Group as part of a process of active inference. The geometry induces a group-structured subjective perspective on an encoded world model, enabling adaptive perspective taking in agents. Here, we review and discuss the PCM. We emphasize the role of projective mechanisms in perception and the appraisal of affective and epistemic values as tied t...
Review of Philosophy and Psychology
English translation of L’Imagination (The Imagination) by Jean-Paul Sartre
Open MIND, 2-vol. set
Tobias Schlicht argues that subjective character derives from the integration of mental states in... more Tobias Schlicht argues that subjective character derives from the integration of mental states into a complex of representations of the organism and that therefore there is no need try to account for subjective character in terms of "reflexivity" or self-acquaintance, as I do. He further argues that the proper subject of consciousness is the whole organism and not the episode or stream of consciousness, as I maintain. He maintains that his account solves problems about the individuation and synchronic unity of conscious mental states that mine does not. While I agree that we need an account of the individuation of episodes of consciousness and an account of the synchronic and diachronic unities of consciousness (something I bracketed in my paper), I disagree that making the organism into the phenomenological subject of consciousness helps with these problems. However, I am willing to concede that the organism is the subject of consciousness in some non-phenomenological sense.
Open MIND, 2-vol. set
In this study I argue for the following claims: First, it's best to think of subjective character... more In this study I argue for the following claims: First, it's best to think of subjective character as the self-acquaintance of each instance of consciousness-its acquaintance with itself. Second, this entails that all instances of consciousness have some intrinsic property in virtue of which they, and not other things, bear this acquaintance relation to themselves. And, third, this is still compatible with physicalism as long as we accept something like in re structural universals; consciousness is a real, multiply instantiable, natural universal or form, but it likely has a highly complex, articulated structure, and "lives" only in its instances. In order to make these cases, I give a characterization of subjective character that accounts for the intuition that phenomenal consciousness is relational in some sense (or involves a subject-object polarity), as well as the competing and Humean intuition that one of the supposed relata, the subject-relatum, is not phenomenologically accessible. By identifying the subject with the episode or stream of consciousness itself and maintaining that consciousness is immediately self-aware ("reflexively" aware), these competing intuitions can be reconciled. I also argue that it is a serious confusion to identify subjective character with one's individuality or particularity. I argue that deeper reflection on the fact that consciousness has only incomplete self-knowledge will allow us to see that certain problems afflicting acquaintance theories, like the one I defend, are not the threats to certain forms of physicalism that they might seem to be. In particular, I briefly consider the Grain Problem and the apparent primitive simplicity of the acquaintance relation itself in this light.
ProtoSociology, 2019
The three classic regress problems (the Extensive Regress of states, the Intensive Regress of con... more The three classic regress problems (the Extensive Regress of states, the Intensive Regress of contents, and the Fichte-Henrich-Shoemaker Regress of de se beliefs) related to the Self-Awareness Thesis (that one’s conscious states are the ones that one is aware of being in) can all be elegantly resolved by a self-acquaintance postulate. This resolution, however, entails that consciousness has an irreducibly circular structure and that self-acquaintance should not be conceived of in terms of an independent entity bearing an external or mediated relation to itself but rather in terms of a realized relation-instance relating to itself as well as to something other than itself. Consciousness, on this account, has a categorially curious status. It is like a relation-particular hybrid. This can be formalized in terms of the theory of hypersets, which in turn can be used to elucidate the problem of individuality, one source of the conceptual difficulty with adequately characterizing de se co...
Review of Radical Political Economics, 2019
In The Quest for Prosperity Raphael Sassower combines elements of postmodernism, Marxian analysis... more In The Quest for Prosperity Raphael Sassower combines elements of postmodernism, Marxian analysis, and Popperian philosophy to mount a unique, three-pronged investigation of the theoretical and practical foundations of capitalism and an inquiry into new conceptualizations of capitalism that promise novel solutions to its perennial problems; problems inherent in its foundations but perhaps most evident in implemented and ramified mainstream liberal political economy. Sassower canvasses the ideological, philosophical, and even mythological origins of the foundational concepts of capitalism from historical and systematic points of view, emphasizing capitalism's most recent twists and turns. The author attempts to reconceptualize much of political economy, with varying degrees of success, and further suggests some provisional solutions to the problems of capitalism on this newly articulated basis. Throughout, Sassower vividly illustrates how flawed ideas and dangerous assumptions perpetuate flawed and dangerous systems no matter the changes in "optics." Sassower's critique is "radical" in the sense that it draws into question the very roots of capitalist political economy: individual property rights, the efficiency of markets, the scarcity assumption, the insatiability of human acquisitiveness, and the global scalability of an economic monoculture. The book could serve as a good, mid-level text for introductory courses on the radical critique of liberal political economy or on philosophy of economics from a radical point of view. The unusual combination of often-opposing analytical orientations adds an interesting dimension lacking in many similar but more traditional texts. Sassower's ambitious and wide-ranging but generally responsible sampling of relevant ideas from philosophy, economics, and other disciplines also adds to its richness. Part I, "Assumptions Underlying Theories," offers a penetrating analysis of the conceptual bases of general capitalist political economy, covering scarcity and abundance, the state of nature and the social contract, human nature and the human condition, individual versus communal property rights, markets, and economic growth. Sassower stresses how the framing of foundational concepts affects the concepts built upon them. To take a familiar instance, a society's view of human nature (e.g., that it is essentially good, bad, or a moral blank slate), which may be set by religious or ideological factors, will largely dictate how that society organizes itself in the politico-economic sphere, determining, for example, the relative prevalence of individual versus communal property rights, biases built into regulatory frameworks, etc. Sassower's analysis of scarcity in Part I is one of the most interesting in the book. For many on both Left and Right, scarcity is a concept that is presupposed, and hopes of a post-scarcity world seem fanciful. Sassower, however, argues that the grain of truth in the so-called "law of scarcity" is something rather trivial. The law merely entails that we are always restricted to a finite level of resources. This finitude does not, by itself, entail that there is "not enough to go around." In fact, in most cases, conditions of scarcity are only a function of distributional 820958R RPXXX10.
Axiomathes, 2017
I aim to provide some evidence that Husserl’s description of perceptual updating actually fits ve... more I aim to provide some evidence that Husserl’s description of perceptual updating actually fits very nicely into the Bayesian Brain paradigm, articulated by Karl Friston and others, and that that paradigm, in turn, can be taken as an excellent example of “Neurophenomenology”. The apparently un-phenomenological Helmholtzian component of the Bayesian Brain paradigm, according to which what one consciously seems to see is a product of unconscious causal reasoning to the best explanation of one’s sensory stimulations, can be finessed, I claim, in a way that makes it compatible with a phenomenological orientation. I begin by roughly characterizing the Bayesian Brain paradigm as it relates to perceptual cognition. I then show how Husserl’s descriptions of the conscious perceptual process relate to the paradigm. I conclude with some considerations about how to understand the relation between conscious and unconscious brain process in the present case and in relation to Neurophenomenology generally.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2013
In the Logical Investigations, Ideas I and many other texts, Husserl maintains that perceptual co... more In the Logical Investigations, Ideas I and many other texts, Husserl maintains that perceptual consciousness involves the intentional "animation" or interpretation of sensory data or hyle, e.g., "color-data," "tone-data," and algedonic data. These data are not intrinsically representational nor are they normally themselves objects of representation, though we can attend to them in reflection. These data are "immanent" in consciousness; they survive the phenomenological reduction. They partly ground the intuitive or "in-the-flesh" aspect of perception, and they have a determinacy of character that we do not create but can only discover. This determinate, non-representational stratum of perceptual consciousness also serves as a bridge between consciousness and the world beyond it. I articulate and defend this conception of perceptual consciousness. I locate the view in the space of contemporary positions on phenomenal character and argue for its superiority. I close by briefly arguing that the Husserlian account is perfectly compatible with physicalism (this involves disarming the Grain Problem).
Minds and Machines, 2005
Neural Correlates of Consciousness: Empirical and Conceptual Questions is a collection of papers ... more Neural Correlates of Consciousness: Empirical and Conceptual Questions is a collection of papers culled from a conference of the same title that took place in Bremen, Germany, 19-22 June 1998. The collection merits reading because it provides a cross-section of the highly variegated work that is underway in the 'neural correlates' domain. This work is 'highly variegated' in that, unsurprisingly, there are contributions from a number of disciplines (philosophy, neuro
British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2009
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PSYCHE, 2006
Abstract: Dan Zahavi has argued persuasively that some versions of self-representationalism are i... more Abstract: Dan Zahavi has argued persuasively that some versions of self-representationalism are implausible on phenomenological and dialectical grounds: they fail to make sense of primitive self-knowledge and lead to an infinite regress. Zahavi proposes an alternative view of ...
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Papers by Kenneth Williford