Sensory Experiences as Cryptic Symbols of a Multimodal User Interface

Abstract

Abstract According to current theories of perception, our visual experiences match or approximate the true properties of an objective physical world. Ecological optics claims this match is direct, unmediated by psychological or computational processes. Computational theories claim that this match is indirect, the result of sophisticated algorithms that instantiate, e.g., the inferential methods of Bayesian estimation. The assumption of all of these theories that there is an objective, i.e., mind independent, physical world has proved incapable, so far, of yielding a scientific theory for the mind-body problem, a scientific theory of the relationship between conscious experiences and the brain. Therefore I explore, instead, the pos-sibility that sensory experiences constitute a multimodal user interface (MuI) between the perceiver and an objective world, an interface useful precisely because it does not match, approximate, or resemble that world. I also explore conscious realism, the ontological claim that the objective world itself is comprised entirely of conscious agents. Together, MUI theory and conscious realism provide a straightforward solution to the mind-body problem, and entail epiphysicalism: physical objects, such as quarks and brains and stars, are constructed by conscious agents, but such physical objects have no causal powers.