Indiscriminability and the Phenomenal

Indiscriminability and the Phenomenal

Physics and the Phenomenal World

The paper challenges the assumption, common amongst philosophers, that the reality described in the fundamental theories of microphysics is all the reality we have. It will be argued that this assumption is in fact incompatible with the nature of such theories. It will be shown further that the macro-world of three-dimensional bodies and of such qualitative structures as colour and sound can be...

Perception Preattentive and Phenomenal

Recent work in experimental psychology and neuroscience has revealed a rather surprising architecture for early (or preattentive) perceptual processes. This paper will describe some of the surprising features of that architecture, and how they bear on recent philosophical debates about the notion of phenomenal consciousness. I will argue that the common sense idea that states of phenomenal cons...

Feelings and Phenomenal Experiences

Following an initial emphasis on " cold " cognitive processes, which could be conceptualized within the computer metaphor of the information processing paradigm, social cognition researchers rediscovered " hot " cognition in the 1980's. Two decades later, their interest in the interplay of feeling and thinking is shared by researchers in decision making, cognitive psychology, and related fields...

Smelling phenomenal

Qualitative-consciousness arises at the sensory level of olfactory processing and pervades our experience of smells to the extent that qualitative character is maintained whenever we are aware of undergoing an olfactory experience. Building upon the distinction between Access and Phenomenal Consciousness the paper offers a nuanced distinction between Awareness and Qualitative-consciousness that...