<> "The repository administrator has not yet configured an RDF license."^^ . <> . . "A Connectionist Theory of Phenomenal Experience"^^ . "When cognitive scientists apply computational theory to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, as\nmany of them have been doing recently, there are two fundamentally distinct approaches available. Either\nconsciousness is to be explained in terms of the nature of the representational vehicles the brain deploys; or\nit is to be explained in terms of the computational processes defined over these vehicles. We call versions of\nthese two approaches vehicle and process theories of consciousness, respectively. However, while there may\nbe space for vehicle theories of consciousness in cognitive science, they are relatively rare. This is because\nof the influence exerted, on the one hand, by a large body of research which purports to show that the\nexplicit representation of information in the brain and conscious experience are dissociable, and on the\nother, by the classical computational theory of mind – the theory that takes human cognition to be a species\nof symbol manipulation. But two recent developments in cognitive science combine to suggest that a\nreappraisal of this situation is in order. First, a number of theorists have recently been highly critical of the\nexperimental methodologies employed in the dissociation studies – so critical, in fact, it’s no longer\nreasonable to assume that the dissociability of conscious experience and explicit representation has been\nadequately demonstrated. Second, classicism, as a theory of human cognition, is no longer as dominant in\ncognitive science as it once was. It now has a lively competitor in the form of connectionism; and\nconnectionism, unlike classicism, does have the computational resources to support a robust vehicle theory\nof consciousness. In this paper we develop and defend this connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness. It\ntakes the form of the following simple empirical hypothesis: phenomenal experience consists in the explicit\nrepresentation of information in neurally realized PDP networks. This hypothesis leads us to re-assess some\ncommon wisdom about consciousness, but, we will argue, in fruitful and ultimately plausible ways.\n"^^ . "1999" . . "22" . . "Cambridge University Press"^^ . . . "Behavioral and Brain Sciences"^^ . . . . . . . . . . . "Jon"^^ . "Opie"^^ . "Jon Opie"^^ . . "Gerard"^^ . "O'Brien"^^ . "Gerard O'Brien"^^ . . . . . . "A Connectionist Theory of Phenomenal Experience (PDF)"^^ . . . . . . . . . "A_connectionist_theory_of_phenomenal_experience.pdf"^^ . . . "A Connectionist Theory of Phenomenal Experience (Indexer Terms)"^^ . . . . . . "indexcodes.txt"^^ . . "HTML Summary of #1412 \n\nA Connectionist Theory of Phenomenal Experience\n\n" . "text/html" . . . "Computational Neuroscience" . . . "Cognitive Psychology" . . . "Philosophy of Mind" . . . "Behavioral & Brain Sciences" . .