Spatial experience, spatial reality, and two paths to primitivism

Saad, Bradford

doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02410-7

Synthese

2019

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-019-02410-7

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Spatial experience, spatial reality, and two paths to primitivism

Bradford Saad

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2024

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Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“… 12 Tracking theory defenders, proponents, and sympathizers include see Armstrong ( 1999 , Ch. 10, 12), Byrne & Tye ( 2006 ), Cutter & Tye ( 2011 ), Dretske ( 1995 ), Hill ( 2009 , p. 75), Hilbert & Klein ( 2014 ), Kriegel (2011), Lycan ( 1996 , 2001 ), Saad ( 2021 ), and Tye ( 1995 , 2000 ); cf. Kraut ( 1982 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Internal constraints for phenomenal externalists: a structure matching theory

Dalbey

Saad

2022

Synthese

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We motivate five constraints on theorizing about sensory experience. We then propose a novel form of naturalistic intentionalism that succeeds where other theories fail by satisfying all of these constraints. On the proposed theory, which we call structure matching tracking intentionalism, brains states track determinables. Internal structural features of those states select determinates of those determinables for presentation in experience. We argue that this theory is distinctively well-positioned to both explain internal-phenomenal structural correlations and accord external features a role in fixing phenomenology. In addition, we use the theory to shed light on how one comes to experience “missing shades”.

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confidence: 99%

Internal constraints for phenomenal externalists: a structure matching theory

Dalbey

Saad

2022

Synthese

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Should dualists locate the physical basis of experience in the head?

Saad

2024

Synthese

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Dualism holds that experiences are non-physical states that exist alongside physical states. Dualism leads to the postulation of psychophysical laws that generate experiences by operating on certain sorts of physical states. What sorts of physical states? To the limited extent that dualists have addressed this question, they have tended to favor a brain-based approach that locates the physical basis of experience in the head. In contrast, this paper develops an argument for a form of dualism on which experience has a physical basis that reaches out into the world. Specifically, the argument uses a puzzle about spatial experience to support a theory I call tracking dualism. On tracking dualism, a psychophysical law generates experiences by operating on complex physical states that involve both brain states and tracking relations that they bear to features of the environment. To develop the argument, I discuss tracking dualism alongside its more familiar physicalist counterpart, the tracking intentionalist theory associated with Dretske, Lycan, and Tye. I conclude by outlining a tracking dualist research agenda.

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Lessons from the void: What Boltzmann brains teach

Saad

2024

Philosophical Books

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Some physical theories predict that almost all brains in the universe are Boltzmann brains, that is, short‐lived disembodied brains that are accidentally assembled as a result of thermodynamic or quantum fluctuations. Physicists and philosophers of physics widely regard this proliferation as unacceptable, and so take its prediction as a basis for rejecting these theories. But the putatively unacceptable consequences of this prediction follow only given certain philosophical assumptions. This paper develops a strategy for shielding physical theorizing from the threat of Boltzmann brains. The strategy appeals to a form of phenomenal externalism about the physical basis of consciousness. Given that form of phenomenal externalism, the proliferation of Boltzmann brains turns out to be benign. While the strategy faces a psychophysical fine‐tuning problem, it both alleviates cosmological fine‐tuning concerns that attend physics‐based solutions to Boltzmann brain problems and pays explanatory dividends in connection with time's arrow.

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Spatial experience, spatial reality, and two paths to primitivism

Cited by 3 publications

References 31 publications

Internal constraints for phenomenal externalists: a structure matching theory

Internal constraints for phenomenal externalists: a structure matching theory

Should dualists locate the physical basis of experience in the head?

Lessons from the void: What Boltzmann brains teach

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