Consciousness & the Computational Interface between Egocentric & Allocentric Representations Pete Mandik Associate Professor Coordinator, Cognitive Science Laboratory Chairman, Department of Philosophy William Paterson University, New Jersey USA

2 Egocentric and Allocentric Neural Representations 1. What are mental representations? 2. What are conscious mental states?

3 What is the egocentric allocentric distinction? ALLOCENTRICEGOCENTRIC Self-specifying contents Non-self-specifying contents Online (sensorimotor) Offline (memory and planning) Analog, isomorphism Conceptual, categorical Info. encapsulationInferential promiscuity

4 Mental reps in folk-psych George is opening the fridge because: George desires that he drinks some beer George sees that the fridge is in front of him George remembers that he put some beer in the fridge n George’s psychological states cause his behavior n George’s psychological states have representational content

5 Positive Chemotaxis Movement toward the source of a chemical stimulus

6 2-D food finding Sensors  Brain  Steering Muscles  2-Sensor Chemophile: n Steering muscles orient creature toward stimulus n Perception of stimulus being to the right fully determined by differential sensor activity

7 1-D food finding Sensor  Brain  Steering Muscles  1- Sensor “Lost” Creature n left/right stimulus location underdetermined by sensor activity n only proximity perceived n Adding memory can help

8 C. Elegans Caenorhabditis Elegans

9 Synthetic C. Elegans

10 Memory in Chemotaxis n Experimental Set Up u 3 orientation networks: Feed- forward, Recurrent, and Blind u five runs each, for 240 million steps u mutations allowed only for neural weights u fitness defined as lifetime distance u Initial weights: Evolved CPGs with un-evolved (zero weights) orienting networks

11 Results

12 What the representations are States of neural activation embedded in structures isomorphic to structures of environmental states n Sensory states n Memory states n Motor-command states

13 Against causal theories Structure preserving representation schemes are more learnable/evolvable than non- structure preserving schemes

14 Egocentric representations n The representations involved in minimally cognitive behaviors a solely egocentric n Egocentric representations are alone insufficient for consciousness

15 Three Problems of Consciousness What is state consciousness? (What makes a mental state conscious and not unconscious?) What is transitive consciousness? (What are we conscious of?) What is phenomenal character? (What are qualia? What is “what it is like”?)

16 The Allocentric-Egocentric Interface Theory of Consciousness Consciousness consists in the interface between allocentric and egocentric coding schemes for perceptible features Conscious states are hybrids of allocentric and egocentric representations and phenomenal character is determined by their contents and vehicular properties

17 Levels of visual processing

18 What is the progression of levels? Egocentric-to-Allocentric transformations Low-level (LGN and V1) Egocentric reps Intermediate-level (IT and PP) Egocentric/Allocentric Hybrid reps Highlevel (Frontal Cortex and Hippocampus) Allocentric reps

19 So, where is consciousness? Not at either end of the Egocentric- Allocentric continuum

20 Consciousness is not purely egocentric Patient DF’s visual form agnosia (Milner and Goodale 1995) Bilateral ventral stream damage to area LO

21 Consciousness is not purely egocentric Patient DF’s visual form agnosia Perceptual consciousness of form and orientation destroyed, but sensorimotor skill intact

22 Consciousness is not purely egocentric Visual consciousness is conceptually informed Theory ladeness of perception n Dog n Dog sniffing ground n Dog’s butt facing you n Did I mention the dog? What is this a picture of? Hints:

23 Consciousness is not purely allocentric Thoughts alone have no phenomenal character: “Pi is an irrational number” “Natural selection depends on the variable inheritance of fitness” “Democracy and capitalism are incompatible” Apparent phenomenality of thought due to associated imagery (Jackendoff 1987)

24 Consciousness is not purely allocentric...this... this,... or this......but not this. THREE HOUSES Visual consciousness is never viewpoint independent. The contents are like...

25 So, where is consciousness? Pure AllocentricPure Egocentric

26 Pure Allocentric Pure Egocentric Retinocentric Body-centered Limited viewpoint invariance Amodal Category knowledge The Allocentric- Egocentric Interface The reciprocally influencing representations jointly comprise a conscious state

27 The need for recurrence: u TMS: feedback from area MT+/V5 to V1 necessary for visual awareness u Backward masking invokes feedforward activation but suppresses recurrence u Feedforward activation recorded in anesthetized animals

28 State Consciousness Conscious states are composed of mutually influencing egocentric and allocentric representations Contra HO theories, metarepresentational states are unnecessary Contra FO theories, involvement of higher-level states is necessary

29 Transitive Consciousness What we are conscious of are the contents of the allocentric-egocentric hybrid reps Contra HO theories, contents need not include other mental states Contra FO theories, contents need not exclude other mental states

30 Phenomenal Character What it is like to be in a conscious state is fully determined by the representational content of that state.

31 Ongoing research Evolutionary robotics implementations of the allocentric- egocentric interface

32 THE END