I take a look around me.  Computer.  Phone.  Books and papers.  A window with a nice view of nature outside.  There is a world out there.  And in my brain I maintain a working
representation of my world.  My brain
constructs what my eyes see into abstract, intelligible objects and interactions.  They are in time and space.  So far, so good.  But how rich is this representation?  Is it like a snapshot?  For example, can I study my beloved’s face
for as long I wish, then close my eyes, and then be able to report on various
fine details by examining my internal representation?  Sadly, the answer is probably not, unless I am one of those rare
possessors of an eidetic memory.  My
internal representation is actually quite vague and schematic.  The poverty of my representation is
analogous to the well-known poverty (overcoming saccadic jumps, blind spots,
retinal inversion, etc.) of visual input with which I construct a world
model. 

This contrast between what one would naïvely expect
and the manifest poverty of the actual representation is the ‘Grand Illusion‘ of Noë’s collection of
fourteen essays by noted cognitive scientists. 
There is also a grand illusion at play in the internal ‘what it seems
like’.  When I introspect, just as when
I survey the external world, a similar false sense of unity and richness
arises.  And this chimera has led to
much philosophic confusion.  One of the
best-known advocates of the need to deconstruct phenomenology is Daniel
Dennett.  He has an essay in Noë’s book,
and his influence is palpable throughout.

The traditional skeptical view is that we have no
certainty in claiming that our representations and ‘streams of consciousness’
bear a close correspondence to the real world. 
The Grand Illusion essays take
a more radical approach.  They claim
that there are grave errors even in our conceptions of what these perceptual
experiences are.  As Noë suggests in his
introductory essay, "[I]t turns out that we are mistaken in our assessment
of how things seem to us [to] be." 
And if we have been wrong since Descartes in accurately describing
first-person phenomenology, then we open the door for an improved, and
essentially third-person, account.

One is, nonetheless, surprised when a change to the world is called to one’s
attention.  Does this surprise not
suggest that we are maintaining a fairly complete mental representation, albeit
a slightly flawed one?  No, say the
authors.  We like to think that we maintain a complete world
model, hence the surprise factor, but mainly what we do is to constantly check
on the world itself as a form of in situ
memory.  This is an interactive,
sensorimotor process.  (I can close my
eyes and walk down the basement stairs much better than I could tell you what
the carpeting looks like.)  The sense of
completeness and accuracy is betrayed by numerous careful studies, which are
detailed in the book.

So, how complete is my mental world-model? How do I
notice details or changes in things that are not in my primary focus of
attention?  Noë suggests that this is a
form of amodal perception, as when,
in the Kanisza optical illusion, the viewer supplies the missing detail to complete
the suggested illustration.  The viewer
perceives, in a word, what she cannot really have perceived.  We use the world as a ‘repository of
information’ about itself.  This is what
gives me a sense of continuity.

If, on the other hand, I return home tonight and
notice that the neighbors have installed a hideous pink flamingo statue in
their front yard, does this not suggest that, for one aspect of the world at
least, I have a fairly good representation? 
Or, if my beloved has had a hard day, can I not perceive that fact
immediately through some very subtle clues in her visual appearance?  These are certainly not rigorous objections,
but I am still not entirely convinced that the ghost has been exorcised here.  Nonetheless, Noë’s book is a well-balanced set
of essays.  There seems to be genuine
controversy between the various contributors. 
And we definitely seem to be working toward a richer model of
perception, whether or not this eliminates the ‘hard problem’.

©
2003 Michael L. Anderson

Michael L. Anderson (omniapraeclara @ yahoo.com)
holds an MSEE from Penn State Univ.  He
consults as an electrical engineer in instrumentation and software for AI,
robotics, auditory and visual processing. 
He is also a graduate student of philosophy at West Chester University,
Pennsylvania, USA.

Categories: Philosophical