Consciousness & the Computational Interface between Egocentric & AllocentricRepresentations Pete MandikAssociate ProfessorCoordinator, Cognitive Science LaboratoryChairman, Department of PhilosophyWilliam Paterson University, New Jersey USA

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Egocentric and Allocentric Neural Representations

1. What are mental representations?2. What are conscious mental states?

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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. encapsulation Inferential promiscuity

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Mental reps in folk-psychGeorge is opening the fridge because:George desires that he drinks some beerGeorge sees that the fridge is in front of himGeorge remembers that he put some beer in the fridge

George’s psychological states cause his behaviorGeorge’s psychological states have representational content

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Positive Chemotaxis

Movement toward the source of a chemical stimulus

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2-D food finding

Sensors

Brain

Steering Muscles

2-Sensor Chemophile:

Steering muscles orient creature toward stimulus

Perception of stimulus being to the right fully determined by differential sensor activity

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1-D food finding

Sensor

Brain

Steering Muscles

1- Sensor “Lost” Creature

left/right stimulus location underdetermined by sensor activity

only proximity perceived

Adding memory can help

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C. Elegans

Caenorhabditis Elegans

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Synthetic C. Elegans

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Memory in Chemotaxis

Experimental Set Up 3 orientation networks: Feed-forward,

Recurrent, and Blind five runs each, for 240 million steps mutations allowed only for neural

weights fitness defined as lifetime distance Initial weights: Evolved CPGs with un-

evolved (zero weights) orienting networks

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Series1

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Results

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What the representations are

States of neural activation embedded in structures isomorphic to structures of environmental states

Sensory statesMemory statesMotor-command states

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Against causal theories

Structure preserving representation schemes are more learnable/evolvable than non-structure preserving schemes

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Egocentric representations

The representations involved in minimally cognitive behaviors a solely egocentric

Egocentric representations are alone insufficient for consciousness

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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”?)

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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

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Levels of visual processing

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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

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So, where is consciousness?

Not at either end of the Egocentric-Allocentric continuum

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Consciousness is not purely egocentric Patient DF’s visual form agnosia (Milner and

Goodale 1995)Bilateral ventral stream damage to area LO

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Consciousness is not purely egocentricPatient DF’s visual form agnosiaPerceptual consciousness of form and orientation

destroyed, but sensorimotor skill intact

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Consciousness is not purely egocentric

Visual consciousness is conceptually informed

Theory ladeness of perception

Dog Dog sniffing ground Dog’s butt facing

you Did I mention the

dog?

What is this a picture of?Hints:

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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)

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Consciousness is not purely allocentric

. . .this . . . this, . . . or this . . .

. . .but not this.

THREE HOUSES

Visual consciousness is never viewpoint independent. The contents are like. . .

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So, where is consciousness?

Pure Allocentric Pure Egocentric

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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

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The need for recurrence:

TMS: feedback from area MT+/V5 to V1 necessary for visual awareness

Backward masking invokes feedforward activation but suppresses recurrence

Feedforward activation recorded in anesthetized animals

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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

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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

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Phenomenal Character

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

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Ongoing research

Evolutionary robotics implementations of the allocentric-egocentric interface

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THE END