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What does it mean to see? Is visual experience an illusion? The term 'grand illusion' arose as a result of research into 'changing blindness' and 'inattentional blindness'. The term 'the grand illusion' stands for the idea that the richness of our visual world is an illusion. Alva Noë states with his 'new skeptism' that the brain builds an inner model of the world, so that we are actually misled about the nature of our experiences. An illusion is not something that does not exist (like a fairy or a spirit), but something that is not what it seems to be.There are two types of theories about visual experience. The first idea is that there is a stream of conscious visual impressions that must be explained. The implication of this is that there is an infinite number of parts at any moment in an infinite visual stream. The second idea is that seeing means having internal mental pictures; the idea that the visual world is represented in our heads. This idea is at least a few centuries old and Leonardo da Vinci was the first to describe the eye as a 'camera obscura', a dark room in which an image of the world was projected. James says we can not take in everything we see while looking around. Yet we are not aware that we have looked over things. How is it that we do not perceive these 'gaps'? In vision, the brain will fill in the missing parts themselves. Another possibility is that it is not necessary to fill in the holes, because the gaps stand for a lack of information.There are all kinds of visions about gaps:The brain actually fills in all the details so that a complete image is created in the brain (or in consciousness?); this is called 'isomorphic filling-in' and probably takes place at low levels of the visual system. As we have already seen, Koch states that active processes such as completion...
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The problem of consciousness is related to some of the oldest questions of philosophy: what does the world consist of? Who am I? It relates to the mind-body problem: what is the relationship between the physical and the mental?
Despite the fact that we are learning more and more about the functioning of the brain, consciousness remains a mystery. In the past, they used the term 'élan vital' to explain how non-living things could be made alive. Nowadays this concept is no longer used, since we know that biological processes are responsible for this. Some scientists believe that the same will also happen with the term consciousness. Once we understand how brain processes create a sense of consciousness, then we might not need to use this term anymore.
Consciousness requires some sort of dualism: objectivity vs. subjectivity, inner vs. outer, mind vs. body...
For example: Take a pencil in your hand and look at it. You see the pencil from your own unique perspective, which you cannot share with others. The pencil is part of the outside world, your experience with the pencil is part of your inner world.
The way philosophers view the consciousness problem can generally be divided into monist theories, which suggest that there are one kind of things in the world, and dualist theories, which suggest that there are two kinds of things. Some theories state that the mental world is fundamental and some theories state that the physical world is fundamental.
Monistic theories assume that the world consists of only one kind of matter (body or mind). Some monistic theories state that everything consists of the mind, according to these theories we only have ideas and perceptions of a pencil. We do not know if a pencil really exists. People who assume this are called mentalists or idealists. Berkeley supported this principle. The disadvantage of this perspective is that we can never know for certain whether objects with fixed characteristics exist.
Materialists are also monists. They believe that there is only matter. An example for this is the identity theory, which states that mental experiences are the same as physical experiences. Another example is functionalism, which assumes that mental experiences are the same as functional experiences.
Epiphenomenalism assumes that physical processes cause mental events, but that mental events have no effect on physical events. Huxley was a supporter of this idea. He did not deny that consciousness or subjective experiences existed, but stated that they have no (causal) connection with physical processes. He used
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