Jeffrey Alan Gray - Representation

Representation

Gray was opposed to the idea that the brain contains a representation of the external world. He considered that the external world, as described by physics, is nothing like what it appears to be in conscious perception. He also dismissed, what he called the 'fall back position', which is to think that the perception of something, a cow for example, is a representation, in the sense of resembling a cow as it really exists. Gray argued that our only direct knowledge of the cow is a brain state. We have no direct knowledge of the cow as it really is, and it is meaningless to say that the cow brain-state is a representation of the real cow.

Instead, Gray thought that conscious perceptions should be treated as signals. Signals have no need to resemble the thing about which they communicate. A whistle might warn thieves of the approach of a policeman, but a whistle is nothing like a policeman. Perceptual experiences are seen as signals about what observers might expect about their environment. However, he stressed that these perceptual signals arise in the brain, and do not have any kind of external existence. This is not to say that we cannot deduce useful information about the visual world from perception. Thus, for example, in his view, visual perception is a good guide to the reflectance of surfaces, which in turn often have survival value for the organism. Gray took the view that in investigating consciousness, discussions about intentionality and representation should be discarded, and research should be concentrated purely on qualia or subjective experience, as being the only aspect of the brain that involves consciousness.