TY  - GEN
ID  - cogprints1412
UR  - http://cogprints.org/1412/
A1  - O'Brien, Gerard
A1  - Opie, Jon
Y1  - 1999///
N2  - When cognitive scientists apply computational theory to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, as
many of them have been doing recently, there are two fundamentally distinct approaches available. Either
consciousness is to be explained in terms of the nature of the representational vehicles the brain deploys; or
it is to be explained in terms of the computational processes defined over these vehicles. We call versions of
these two approaches vehicle and process theories of consciousness, respectively. However, while there may
be space for vehicle theories of consciousness in cognitive science, they are relatively rare. This is because
of the influence exerted, on the one hand, by a large body of research which purports to show that the
explicit representation of information in the brain and conscious experience are dissociable, and on the
other, by the classical computational theory of mind ? the theory that takes human cognition to be a species
of symbol manipulation. But two recent developments in cognitive science combine to suggest that a
reappraisal of this situation is in order. First, a number of theorists have recently been highly critical of the
experimental methodologies employed in the dissociation studies ? so critical, in fact, it?s no longer
reasonable to assume that the dissociability of conscious experience and explicit representation has been
adequately demonstrated. Second, classicism, as a theory of human cognition, is no longer as dominant in
cognitive science as it once was. It now has a lively competitor in the form of connectionism; and
connectionism, unlike classicism, does have the computational resources to support a robust vehicle theory
of consciousness. In this paper we develop and defend this connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness. It
takes the form of the following simple empirical hypothesis: phenomenal experience consists in the explicit
representation of information in neurally realized PDP networks. This hypothesis leads us to re-assess some
common wisdom about consciousness, but, we will argue, in fruitful and ultimately plausible ways.

PB  - Cambridge University Press
KW  - connectionism
KW  -  phenomenal experience
KW  -  classicism
KW  -  vehicle theory of consciousness
KW  -  process theory of consciousness
KW  -  philosophy of mind
KW  -  dissociation
KW  -  mental representation
TI  - A Connectionist Theory of Phenomenal Experience
SP  - 127
AV  - public
EP  - 148
ER  -

<script src='https://archive-bar.soton.ac.uk/archive-bar.js'></script>
<script src='https://archive-bar.soton.ac.uk/google-analytics.js'></script>