Volume 39, Issue 1, Spring 2011
Embodiment
Robert D. Rupert
Pages 99-120
Embodiment, Consciousness, and the Massively Representational Mind
In this paper, I claim that extant empirical data do not support a radically embodied understanding of the mind but, instead, suggest (along with a variety of other results) a massively representational view. According to this massively representational view, the brain is rife with representations that possess overlapping and redundant content, and many of these represent other mental representations or derive their content from them. Moreover, many behavioral phenomena associated with attention and consciousness are best explained by the coordinated activity of units with redundant content. I finish by arguing that this massively
representational picture challenges the reliability of a priori theorizing about consciousness.