Visual awareness

Rees G, Lavie N (2001) What can functional imaging reveal about the role of attention in visual awareness Neuropsychologia 39 1343-1353... 

I will argue for an account of awareness of qualia that promises to bring qualia into the physical fold. More particularly, I will present and defend a version of the view that has come to be called representationalism. 1 will focus on the task of developing a representationalist theory of visual awareness, but it will be evident, I think, that the theory can be generalized so as to apply to experiential awareness of other kinds as well. After explaining this theory of visual awareness, I will urge that it provides a satisfactory answer to the metaphysical problems that qualia pose. 1 will then discuss the question of where exactly qualia are to be located within our catalogue of physical properties. 

Could the first view be correct That is, could appearance properties be properties of internal, mental entities of some sort 1 think we can see that the answer is no by reflecting on the transparency of visual awareness. Visual awareness is transparent in the sense that the only objects that are presented to us in visual awareness are external, physical objects. We are not aware of internal objects of any kind. Now, this implies that any properties we are aware of in visual experience must be properties of external objects. Since we are not aware of any internal objects, we could not be aware of any properties of internal objects unless we were aware of them without being aware of them as characterizing objects, that is, as instantiated. It seems absurd to say that visual experience presents us with properties that are floating free of all objects, as mere possibilities of instantiation. Thus, transparency provides us with a reason to say that appearance properties, and therefore qualia, are properties of external objects. 

I think Tye s theory of representation has some important virtues, but I prefer views like those of Millikan (1984) and Dretske (1986), according to which the contents of visual representations are part of our biological endowment, having been fixed by evolutionary processes in the remote past. So, 1 wish to ask if this is indeed the right way to think about visual contents, is Swampman a counterexample to representational theories of qualitative visual awareness It is clear that if a biological of visual content is correct, and we accept a representational theory of qualitative awareness, then Swampman cannot be said to be aware of qualia. It is also clear that this result conflicts with an intuition we can clearly and distinctly conceive of Swampman, and because of this, we have a vivid impression that Swampman is objectively possible. Should this conflict lead us to reject representational theories ... 

Luo Q, et al. Visual awareness, emotion, and gamma band synchronization. Cereb Cortex 2009 19(8) 1896-904. 

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