#118 - Meet The MIT Philosopher Proving Aphantasics Have Unconscious Imagery

The Giants Shoulder

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What Is an Unconscious Visual Representation?

Matthias argues cognitive science supports unconscious representations and discusses 'blank access' where cognition lacks phenomenology.

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Matthias Michel is an MIT philosopher and co-founder of the MIT Consciousness Club who has developed one of the most provocative theories of consciousness in recent years: Perceptual Reality Monitoring. He argues your brain runs a constant reality check on every signal it receives — deciding what's real and what's noise — and that this mechanism IS consciousness.

Expect to learn how your brain tells the difference between perception, memory, imagination and noise, why conscious vision lags 400 milliseconds behind reality, why every fast action you've ever taken was driven entirely unconsciously, why fish probably have no conscious visual experience at all, how aphantasics may have mental imagery they can't consciously access, why conscious mental imagery might actually be a bug in the system, what blindsight patient GY's experience reveals about unconscious vision, and much more

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Timestamps:

0:00 Matthias Michel — What Is Perceptual Reality Monitoring?

2:58 How does the brain tell reality from imagination?

5:30 Snake fear in Malaysia: when prediction systems misfire

6:22 Blood vessel shadows and the stuff your brain erases

7:50 Motion-induced blindness: your brain deleting real objects

9:50 Is schizophrenia a broken reality monitor?

11:02 Where does reality monitoring happen in the brain?

12:53 Can you be conscious without a frontal cortex?

15:49 Mark Solms and brainstem consciousness

18:15 What does it mean to see without conscious vision?

18:40 "Tell me what it's like to see behind your head" — blindsight patient GY

20:48 Do fish have conscious vision?

22:05 Why conscious vision is 350-400ms too slow for action

24:07 Two visual systems: one conscious, one not

25:30 The hollow face illusion fools your eyes but not your hand

26:21 Binocular rivalry: your eyes know things you don't

29:24 Sensory horizons: why water limits conscious vision

33:17 Could coral reef fish or octopuses be the exception?

37:31 Are fish complete zombies? (60% confidence)