Mangan, Bruce

May 18, 2010 11:00 AM

 v bright,  sharp... we had dinner  v first nite at TSC  and

chatted briefly

at  INstit of Cognit and Brain  Studies off campus.

173  James in the 21st Century  Bruce Mangan <mangan@cogsci.berkeley.edu> (Institute

of Cognitive and Brain Studies, Oakland, CA)

William James stays  forever new, but his phenomenological analysis of  the “fringe” of

consciousness,  especially  the  feeling  I will  call  “rightness”, has been  relatively neglected.

Now  various  strands  of  experimental  research  –  from metacognition  and  tacit  learning  to

the study of intuition – have confrmed the thrust of James’ account, linking a wide range of

empirical  fndings with  the most  powerful,  scientifcally  grounded  phenomenology  in  our

language. This offers a new way to integrate and extend consciousness research, and opens up

what might be called a bio-engineering investigation of the mechanisms of conscious/noncon-

scious interaction. We can begin to explain the character and structure of our phenomenology

via its function, just as we explain other aspects of our biology. This new kind of functional

analysis is not hostage to functionalism in its current sense nor to the disembodied presump-

tions of AI. Fringe experiences are diaphanous, have no evident sensory content, and elude the

“grasp” of focal attention. Yet on James’ analysis they are at the heart of conscious cognition,

constituting among other things feelings of meaningfulness, expectation and evaluation. The

evaluative aspect is paramount: “the most important feeling in these fringes ... is the feeling

of harmony or discord, of a right or wrong direction in the thought.” (Psychology: The Briefer

Course, 183.) James did not develop this point, but it throws light on some of our most puz-

zling and rewarding experiences: the intense feeling of rightness that apparently constitutes

the “Aha!” of great  insight,  the zap of great art,  the sense of universal coherence and  inef-

fable disclosure of mystical experience. Functional analysis links James’ phenomenology to

two basic fndings of the cognitive revolution: while the relative capacity of consciousness is

miniscule, consciousness is supported by vast amounts of parallel, non-conscious processing.

We argue that the fringe fnesses the limited capacity of consciousness by radically condens-

ing  context  information. Rightness  signals  the  degree  of  integration:  the more  tightly  our

conscious/nonconscious cognitive system is integrated, the stronger the experience of right-

ness.  PL1

James in the 20th century.

he studies  fringe consc and penumbra.

the locus of aesthetic experience

phenomenolgy is shaped by its function.    Kant Husserl.

Non consc  parallel search.

rain soaks in    (describing a KITE ... obliquely)

birds are flying by it.

children  running with it;  newspapers weork better than magazines.

global sense of meaningfulness;

nonconsc processing;  " a grat internal lmachine shop"  (the brain)

the RIGHTNESS ZAP  is the AHA  as the pieces come together to say "KITE"

Coherence of the pieces;

he is a student of Dreyfus.

I tell him abt constraint satisfaction and xword puzzles;

that's a good way to reinitiate a conversation.