Imagination and perception

[From Bill Powers (2006.06.12.2128 MDT)]

I am pleased to report corroboration of an hypothesis by no less an authority than Dante. My classical education has come mainly through quotations in British murder mysteries, and this latest is of that genre. Colin Dexter, in an Inspector Morse tale, offers the following:

Imagination, that dost so abstract us
That we are not aware, not even when
A thousand trumpets sound about our ears!
      Dante, Purgatorio

It will be recalled that in B:CP I postulated an "imagination connection" through which outputs normally sent to lower systems as reference signals are instead routed back into the perceptual channels, as if the reference signal had been perfectly and immediately, and without effort, matched by the lower-level perception.

This however, suggests something that does not happen: the simultaneous experiencing of a real perception from lower levels and an imagined perception of the same kind, but in a different state, in the same pathway, generated by the imagination connection. I took care of that problem by postulating a switch that permitted either the real perceptual signal or the imagined one to pass into the upgoing perceptual pathway, but never both.

It now appears that Dante notice the same phenomenon.

Best,

Bill P.

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[From Bill Powers (2006.06.12.2128 MDT)]

  >This however, suggests something that does not happen: the simultaneous experiencing of a real perception from lower levels and an

magined perception of the same kind, but in a different state, in the

same pathway, generated by the imagination connection. I took >care >of that problem by postulating a switch that permitted either the real perceptual signal or the imagined one to pass into the >upgoing

perceptual pathway, but never both.

Who or what 'throws' the 'switch, and under what circumsatances?

It now appears that Dante notice the same phenomenon.

Yes, it seems another good piece of fiction and imagination.

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-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Powers <powers_w@FRONTIER.NET>
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.UIUC.EDU
Sent: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:39:12 -0600
Subject: Imagination and perception

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