Joel Parthemore
I am second author on an upcoming article in the Journal of Consciousness Studies describing research I have been engaged in with my thesis supervisor, in the area of synthetic phenomenology.
Research theme
Key Words : synthetic phenomenology, conceptual knowledge, non-conceptual specifications of conceptual content
My research to date has focused on developing the notion of concepts as interlocking building blocks, looking for non-conceptual means for specifying the contents of concepts through that spatially structured metaphor. I'm interested in consciousness as it relates to theories of concepts (looking for example at those of Jerry Fodor and Jesse Prinz) and in particular to self-referential concepts like the concept SELF (or better: the various inter-related concepts of self) or the concept CONCEPT itself.
There are, I believe, two accounts one needs to give for concepts. One, a functional account, explains concepts in terms of (mental, but not internal) representations and in terms of other concepts. The other, which might be called an operational account (as the term is used in autopoiesis theory), explains concepts in terms of non-conceptual entities, without reference to representations.Video and experimental material
Videos : I would have several short videos from the research project described above, using an AIBO robot to implement a model of change recognition / change blindness.
Experimental demonstration : It is possible I might get permission to bring along an AIBO and give a demonstration of our work.