Silencing the Experience of
Change
Sebastian Watzl (Harvard University)
1
Our focus today:
Visual experiences as of change.
Change of Color
Change of Size
Change of Shape
Change of Location (Movement)
A further fact?
Experiences as of ...
Color
Shape
Size
Change Change Change
of
of
of
Color Shape
Size
Location
...
Change
of
Location
Maybe not ...
Your stream of experiences
of color
Your experience
of change of color
fixes
time
=
time
=
Cinematic Atomism
Experiences as of changes in quality Q supervene on
the temporal order and duration of experiences as of Q
Cinematic Atomism
Attractions:
No-further-fact-intuition
Would allow “reading-off” the changes your experience
presents to you from your stream of experience of the
properties that are experienced as changing.
Simplicity
Explains something complex (experience as of change) in
terms of something simple and uncontroversial (experience as
of non-temporal properties).
Obviousness
If you first experience red, and the experience blue, isn’t
that just what it is to experience a sudden change from red to
blue? What could be missing?
My Goal
Show that a newly discovered visual illusion directly
challenges cinematic atomism.
Natural extensions of cinematic atomism attempting to
capture the “no-further fact” idea do not succeed in
overcoming that challenge.
The experience of change is a further fact:
experiencing a certain quality as changing (at a certain
rate) is a separable and phenomenally manifest dimension of
visual experience
The Illusion*
Change of Color
StationaryPhase
Rotation
Phase
*Suchow and Alvarez (2011): Motion silences awareness of visual change. Current Biology
The Illusion*
Change of Color
*Suchow and Alvarez (2011): Motion silences awareness of visual change. Current Biology
The Illusion*
Change of Size
*Suchow and Alvarez (2011): Motion silences awareness of visual change. Current Biology
The Illusion*
Change of Shape
*Suchow and Alvarez (2011): Motion silences awareness of visual change. Current Biology
The Illusion*
*Suchow and Alvarez (2011): Motion silences awareness of visual change. Current Biology
Against Cinematic Atomism
Focus on a particular dot
#53
Against Cinematic Atomism
Stream of
Actual Colors
Your stream of experiences
of color
Your experience
of change of color
Stationary Phase
time
time
=
Rotation Phase
time
time
≠
Against Temporal Atomism
Non-temporal sameness
At each time t during the rotation phase (TR) just like during the
stationary phase (TS), you experience the dots as having the hues
(brightness, size, form) they have at (roughly) t, i.e. your experience
of hue (brightness, size, form) is (roughly) veridical at each time
during both phases.
-> No difference in the (order and duration of) experiences of
non-temporal quality Q.
Change Difference
You experience relatively slow changes of hue (brightness, size,
form) during TR, while you experience relatively faster changes
during TS.
-> Difference in the experience of changes of Q.
Against Cinematic Atomism
So, experiences of a change of Q do not supervene on
the order and duration of experiences as of Q.
So, Cinematic Atomism is false.
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
1. The Freezing Proposal
Maybe motion does not silence the experience of change
but freezes the experience of Q?
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
1.
The
Freezing
Proposal
Stream of
Your stream of experiences
Actual Colors
of color
Your experience
of change of color
Stationary Phase
time
time
≠
Rotation Phase
time
time
≠
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
1. The Freezing Proposal
An experimental test:
The Flip Experiment
Stream of
Actual Colors
Your stream of
experiences
of color
Your stream of
experiences
of color
Rotation Phase
time
time
Silencing Proposal
time
Freezing Proposal
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
1. The Freezing Proposal
An experimental test:
The Flip Experiment
Stream of
Actual Colors
Your stream of
experiences
of color
Your stream of
experiences
of color
Rotation Phase
time
Flip color back to original color
time
time
Silencing Proposal
Freezing Proposal
subjects do
notice this flip!
subjects do
not notice this flip!
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
1. The Freezing Proposal
An experimental test:
The Flip Experiment
Stream of
Actual Colors
Your stream of
experiences
of color
Your stream of
experiences
of color
Rotation Phase
time
time
Silencing Proposal
“Flip” color to “close” color
subjects do
not notice this flip!
time
Freezing Proposal
subjects do
notice this flip!
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
1. The Freezing Proposal
time
from Suchow and Alvarez (2011): Motion silences awareness of visual change. Current Biology
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
1. The Freezing Proposal
On the basis of The Flip Experiment, the freezing
proposal should be rejected.
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
Doesn’t the Silent Updating Interpretation make
unwarranted assumptions concerning how determinate
our visual experience is?
Maybe during the rotation phase our experience is just
less determinate. So, no need to believe in silent
updating.
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
a. Radical Hue Indeterminacy
During TS you do not experience # 53 as having any
specific hue at all (i.e. indeterminate between all hues on
the color wheel)
Problems:
how would something with experienced as having a
completely indeterminate hue look like?
would have to be correct for all dots: But then all dots would
look to be the same hue! But they don’t!
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
b. Mild Hue Indeterminacy
During TR you experience # 53 as having a more
indeterminate hue h (e.g. h could be indeterminate
between red and orange) than during TS.
Problem:
Is the experienced h constant througout the rotation phase?
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
Dilemma:
Assume that # 53 is experienced as having a constant h, e.g.
(generic, indeterminate) red.
Incompatible with the results of The Flip Experiment
red
red
red
red
red
red
red
red
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
Dilemma:
Assume that # is experienced as having a non-constant h
Stationary Phase
Rotation Phase
red
yellow
green
blue
At what rate does h appear to change (one cycle
from red to ... to red again) during TR?
red
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
Dilemma:
Assume that # is experienced as having a non-constant h
Stationary Phase
Rotation Phase
red
yellow
green
blue
Subjects indicate that:
the apparent rate of change (one cycle) during TR << the
apparent rate of change (one cycle) during TS.
So, apparent rate of change of h during TR ≠ apparent
rate of change of the determinates of h during TS.
red
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
Dilemma:
Assume that # is experienced as having a non-constant h
Stationary Phase
Rotation Phase
red
yellow
green
blue
But then the apparent rate of change in color is not
fixed by the temporal order and duration of the
experiences of color.
red
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
Dilemma:
Assume that # is experienced as having a non-constant h
Stationary Phase
Rotation Phase
red
yellow
green
blue
But then the apparent rate of change in color is not
fixed by the temporal order and duration of the
experiences of color.
red
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
c. “Sortal” Indeterminacy
During TS you do not experience each dot indivually, but
only the dots collectively.
Problem:
Might be true, but doesn’t explain the difference in
temporal phenomenology (measured by the silencing
factor) during the two phases:
During TS the dots appear to change fast.
During TR the dots appear to change slower.
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
2. Indeterminacy Proposals
None of the indeterminacy proposals can by themselves
account for all the phenomenal and experimental data.
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
3. The “Seeing-that” Proposal
The Standstill case can be seen as a form of change
blindness: a change is happening in front of your eyes,
but you fail to see it.
Fred Dretske* has recently proposed that other forms
of change blindness are cognitive, and not perceptual
failures:
not failure of seeing a change (since temporal atomism is
true you can’t specifically be blind to changes).
But failure to see that there is a difference between how
something is at one time and how it is at a different
time.
Can this idea be applied here?
*Dretske, F. I. (2004). Change blindness. Philosophical Studies, 120, 1-18
Cinematic Atomist Proposals?
3. The “Seeing-that” Proposal
No, the “seeing-that” proposal cannot be applied here
(Dretske, I believe, would agree!):
Can’t explain appearance of slowing down.
Changes are not concealed, but phenomenally manifest
(phenomenally present during TS, and phenomenally
absent/slowed down during TR).
Would mistakently say that during TR you do experience
fast changes, while you report/believe that there are slow
changes. This is phenomenally inadequate.
1st Conclusion:
Cinematic Atomism fails
because it can’t account for your experiences
during The Illusion.
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
1
s
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
1. Non-cinematic atomism
s
In The Illusion the experience of motion silences the
experience of chance.
Non-Cinematic atomism about the experience of change
can explain that, and captures what was essential to the
atomistic idea!
Non-cinematic atomism
Experiences as of temporal properties supervene on
the temporal order and duration of experiences as of
non-temporal properties.
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
1. Non-cinematic atomism
s Your experience
Total stream of experiences
of change of color
Your experience
of change of location
Stationary Phase
time
≠
Rotation Phase
time
≠
≠
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
1. Non-cinematic atomism
s
Non-cinematic atomism is unmotivated:
1. Must give no-further-fact intuition, simplicity and
obviousness.
Can’t in any obvious way “read-off” the experience of
temporal properties from the experience of nontemporal properties.
Given the temporal order and duration of your experience as of
non-temporal properties, it remains an empirical question
which temporal properties/changes you experience. In
this sense, the experience of change is a clear further fact!
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
1. Non-cinematic atomism
s
2. Must give up cinematic motivation.
“[E]xperience presents temporal phenomena in
virtue of its own temporal layout […] [where there is a]
direct link between the temporal properties of
perception, and its temporal content […]”*
Experience would not “present temporal phenomenal in virtue
of its own temporal layout.” The temporal contents of
experience do not even crucially depend on the temporal
properties of the experience itself.
*Lee, G. (2007). Consciousness in a space-time world. Philosophical Perspectives, 21 (1), 341-374
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
1. Non-cinematic atomism
s
3. Must give up naive realist motivation.
“the world induces experience’s temporal structure (at
least in the good case).”*
“Object-time” (here: the rate at which the dots are represented as
changing) and “act-time” (here: the rate at which your experience
is changing) can come apart:
Your experience of hue in both phases changes in the same way,
while the changes that your experience presents to you in both
phases differ.
*Philips, I. (2009). Experience and time. Ph.D. Thesis (University College London)
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
1. Non-cinematic atomism
s
Non-cinematic atomism does not vindicate the “non-further
fact” idea and as such is unmotivated.
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
2. Holistic Unificationism (Dainton?*)
Total stream of experiences
s
fixes
Experiences of change
(in location, color, size, shape, ..)
time
+
Diachronic unity relation
*Dainton, B. (2008). Sensing change. Philosophical Issues, 18(1), 362-384
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
2. Holistic Unificationism (Dainton?*)
s
The silencing results imply the (empirical) possibility of
a fragmentation of time consciousness:
You do experience (fast) changes of location
You do not experience (fast) changes of color/size/
shape)
*Dainton, B. (2008). Sensing change. Philosophical Issues, 18(1), 362-384
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
2. Holistic Unificationism (Dainton?*)
s
So, experiences as of change do not supervene on:
Total stream of experiences
time
+
Diachronic unity relation
*Dainton, B. (2008). Sensing change. Philosophical Issues, 18(1), 362-384
Extending Cinematic Atomism?
3. Holistic Retentionism (Husserl?*)
s as of change do not
By the same argument, experiences
supervene on: total streams of experience + retentions of earlier
total experiences
Total stream of experiences
time
+
Retention of earlier
total experience
* discussed in: Dainton, B. Temporal consciousness, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
2nd Conclusion:
Natural extensions of cinematic atomism
attempting to capture the no further
fact intuition fail as well:
Non-cinematic atomism
Holistic Unificationism
Holistic Retentionism
So, after all, the experience of change
is ...
A further fact!!
Experiences as of ...
Color
Shape
Size
Change Change Change
of
of
of
Color Shape
Size
Location
Change
of
Location
...
Change is a separable and phenomenally manifest dimension of
visual experience
One Further Implication:
Change Blindness
Since the silencing illusion depends on the absence of focal
attention, my result suggests that outside attention the
experience of change is selectively impoverished.
Change-blindness, thus, generally may just be what the term
suggest: a selective blindness to change. It provides no
support to the view that our visual experience of nontemporal properties is poor (or absent) outside the focus of
attention (as suggested by Tye (2010)*).
*Tye, M. (2010). Attention, seeing, and change blindness. Philosophical Issues, 20 (1), 410-437
The END
Thanks especially to:
Jordan Suchow for
the beautiful
experiments, very
insightful comments,
and general help.
Thanks also to:
George Alvarez,
Susanna Siegel,
Enrico Grube,
and Sean Kelly
for very helpful
comments and
discussion.