Sascha Benjamin Fink

Meeting in the Dark Room: Bayesian Rational Analysis and Hierarchical Predictive Coding

At least two distinct modeling frameworks contribute to the view that mind and brain are Bayesian... more At least two distinct modeling frameworks contribute to the view that mind and brain are Bayesian: Bayesian Rational Analysis (BRA) and Hierarchical Predictive Coding (HPC). What is the relative contribution of each, and how exactly do they relate? In order to answer this question, we compare the way in which these two modeling frameworks address different levels of analysis within Marr’s tripartite hierarchy for explanation in cognitive science. Whereas BRA answers questions at the computational level only, many HPC-theorists answer questions at the computational, algorithmic, and implementational levels simultaneously. Given that all three levels of analysis need to be addressed in order to explain a behavioral or cognitive phenomenon, HPC seems to deliver more complete explanations. Nevertheless, BRA is well-suited for providing a solution to the dark room problem, a major theoretical obstacle for HPC. A combination of the two approaches also combines the benefits of an embodied-...

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Why Care beyond the Square? Classical and Extended Shapes of Oppositions in Their Application to “Introspective Disputes”

So called “shapes of opposition”—like the classical square of opposition and its extensions—can b... more So called “shapes of opposition”—like the classical square of opposition and its extensions—can be seen as graphical representations of the ways in which types of statements constrain each other in their possible truth values. As such, they can be used as a novel way of analysing the subject matter of disputes. While there have been great refinements and extensions of this logico-topological tool in the last years, the broad range of shapes of opposition are not widely known outside of a circle of specialists. This ignorance may lead to the presumption that the classical square of opposition fits all disputes. A broader view, which takes expanded shapes of opposition into account, may come to a more nuanced appraisal of possible disputes. Once we take other shapes of opposition into account, some alleged disputes may turn out to be Scheindisputes. In order to do the wide range of linguistic expressions justice and to differentiate Scheindisputes from real ones, a broader view is adv...

Progress by Paradox – Paradoxien als Katalysator intellektuellen Fortschritts

Von Schildkröten und Lügnern, 2018

Analytische Explikationen & Interventionen

Independence and Connections of Pain and Suffering

Is a phenomenal pain a conscious primitive or composed of more primitive phenomenal states? Are p... more Is a phenomenal pain a conscious primitive or composed of more primitive phenomenal states? Are pain experiences necessarily or only contingently unpleasant? Here, I sketch how to answer such questions concerning intra-phenomenal metaphysics using the example of pain and unpleasantness. Arguments for a symmetrical metaphysical independence of phenomenal pain and unpleasant affect are presented, rejecting a composite view like the IASP definition and dimensional views. The motivating intuition of these views is explained by common binding mechanisms in consciousness and characterized as fallacious if generalized. There are, however, underlying commonalities between pain perception and unpleasant affect, e.g. formal content or evolutionary ancestry.

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A Natural State without a Nature? Dealing with the Ambiguity of "Pain" in Science and Ethics

finks.de

Abstract Can we find necessary and sufficient conditions for a state to be a pain state? Are ther... more

Phenomenal Precision and Some Possible Pitfalls

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A structural constraint on neural correlates of consciousness

by Sascha Benjamin Fink and Lukas Kob

Philosophy and the Mind Sciences

Researchers on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) need to distinguish mere statisticalN... more Researchers on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) need to distinguish mere statisticalNCCs from NCCs proper. Some neural events may be co-occurrent, probabilistically coupled,or coincidental with a type of conscious experience but lack any deeper connection to it, whilein other cases, the relation between neural states and a type of experience hints at a strongmetaphysical relation, which distinguishes such NCCs proper from mere statistical NCCs. In orderto address this issue of how to distinguish NCCs proper from mere statistical NCCs, we proposea position we call neurophenomenal structuralism. The position hinges on the uncontroversialidea that phenomenal experiences relate to each other in degrees of similarity and difference.These complex structures are used to identify and individuate experiences in the methods ofneuroscience, psychophysics, and phenomenology. Such individuation by structure leads to phenomenalholism, which has implications for how to investigate cons...

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Progress and paradigms in the search for the neural correlates of consciousness

Philosophy and the Mind Sciences

An introduction to the second part of the special issue celebrating the neural correlates of cons... more

A structural constraint on neural correlates of consciousness

Philosophy and the Mind Sciences

Researchers on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) need to distinguish mere statisticalN... more Researchers on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) need to distinguish mere statisticalNCCs from NCCs proper. Some neural events may be co-occurrent, probabilistically coupled,or coincidental with a type of conscious experience but lack any deeper connection to it, whilein other cases, the relation between neural states and a type of experience hints at a strongmetaphysical relation, which distinguishes such NCCs proper from mere statistical NCCs. In orderto address this issue of how to distinguish NCCs proper from mere statistical NCCs, we proposea position we call neurophenomenal structuralism. The position hinges on the uncontroversialidea that phenomenal experiences relate to each other in degrees of similarity and difference.These complex structures are used to identify and individuate experiences in the methods ofneuroscience, psychophysics, and phenomenology. Such individuation by structure leads to phenomenalholism, which has implications for how to investigate cons...

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Look who's talking! Varieties of ego-dissolution without paradox

Philosophy and the Mind Sciences

How to model non-egoic experiences – mental events with phenomenal aspects that lack a felt self ... more How to model non-egoic experiences – mental events with phenomenal aspects that lack a felt self – has become an interesting research question. The main source of evidence for the existence of such non-egoic experiences are self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences. In these, a person says about herself that she underwent an episode where she was conscious but lacked a feeling of self. Some interpret these as accurate reports, but this is questionable. Thomas Metzinger (2004, p. 566, 2018), Rocco Gennaro (2008), and Charles Foster (2016, p. 6) have hinted at the self-defeating nature of such statements if we take them to be genuine reports: Apparently, the reporter (a) explicitly denies her existence during the selfless experience, but (b) implicitly affirms her existence as a witness to that selfless experience in order to give a first-person report about it. So the content of such a report conflicts with the pragmatics of reporting. If all self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences...

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A double anniversary for the neural correlates of consciousness: Editorial introduction

Philosophy and the Mind Sciences

This special issue celebrates the double anniversary of the neural correlates of consciousness (N... more This special issue celebrates the double anniversary of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs): 30 years since the research programme for finding neural correlates of consciousness was brought back onto the scientific agenda and 20 years since the standard definition of an NCC was published in a seminal anthology. Here, we take up some of the conceptual, methodological, and empirical questions raised and take stock of how the field has developed since then.

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Introspective disputes deflated: the case for phenomenal variation

Philosophical Studies

Introspective disputes deflated: the case for phenomenal variation

Philosophical Studies

Commentary: The Concept of a Bewusstseinskultur

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A Deeper Look at the “Neural Correlate of Consciousness”

A main goal of the neuroscience of consciousness is: find the neural correlate to conscious exper... more A main goal of the neuroscience of consciousness is: find the neural correlate to conscious experiences (NCC). When have we achieved this goal? The answer depends on our operationalization of “NCC.” Chalmers (2000) shaped the widely accepted operationalization according to which an NCC is a neural system with a state which is minimally sufficient (but not necessary) for an experience. A deeper look at this operationalization reveals why it might be unsatisfactory: (i) it is not an operationalization of a correlate for occurring experiences, but of the capacity to experience; (ii) it is unhelpful for certain cases which are used to motivate a search for neural correlates of consciousness; (iii) it does not mirror the usage of “NCC” by scientists who seek for unique correlates; (iv) it hardly allows for a form of comparative testing of hypotheses, namely experimenta crucis. Because of these problems (i–iv), we ought to amend or improve on Chalmers's operationalization. Here, I present an alternative which avoids these problems. This “NCC2.0” also retains some benefits of Chalmers's operationalization, namely being compatible with contributions from extended, embedded, enacted, or embodied accounts (4E-accounts) and allowing for the possibility of non-biological or artificial experiencers.

Eine kurze Einführung in die epistemische Logik

A short German introduction to epistemic logic, aimed at beginners. Introduces a simple language ... more

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Phenomenal Precision and Some Possible Pitfalls

Ground Representationism is the position that for each phenomenal feature there is a representati... more Ground Representationism is the position that for each phenomenal feature there is a representational feature that accounts for it. Against this thesis, Ned Block has provided an intricate argument that rests on the notion of “phenomenal precision”: the phenomenal precision of a percept may change at a different rate from its representational counterpart. If so, there is then no representational feature that accounts for a specific change of this phenomenal feature. Therefore, Ground Representationism cannot be generally true. Although the notion of phenomenal precision is intuitive, it is admittedly in need of clarification. Here, I reconstruct Block’s argument by suggesting away of estimating phenomenal precision that is based on the assumption that parts of perceptual wholes can share phenomenal features independently of their place in the whole. Understood like this, the overall argument shows what it is supposed to show.
A more thorough look at the notion of phenomenal precision suggests tension with Block’s other work: in order to be non-trivial, we have to accept that some of our phenomenality is not concrete, but only generic. Such “solely generic phenomenology”, however, is a position mainly held by opponents to Block’s “Access- vs. Phenomenal Consciousness”-distinction. Interpreting phenomenal imprecision as constituted by introspective imprecision does not suffice as a way out. It seems that phenomenal precision is either trivial, self-contradictory, or incompatible with Block’s position elsewhere. So some additional elucidation on this crucial notion is needed.

Independence and Connections of Pain and Suffering

Is a phenomenal pain a conscious primitive or composed of more primitive phenomenal states? Are p... more Is a phenomenal pain a conscious primitive or composed of more primitive phenomenal states? Are pain experiences necessarily or only contingently unpleasant? Here, I sketch how to answer such questions concerning intra-phenomenal metaphysics using the example of pain and unpleasantness. Arguments for a symmetrical metaphysical independence of phenomenal pain and unpleasant affect are presented, rejecting a composite view like the IASP definition and dimensional views. The motivating intuition of these views is explained by common binding mechanisms in consciousness and characterized as fallacious if generalized. There are, however, underlying commonalities between pain perception and unpleasant affect, e.g. formal content or evolutionary ancestry.

The Ambiguity of Pain

Making Sense of Pain

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