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Externalism in Philosophy of Perception and Argument(S) from Dreaming Externalism in Philosophy of Perception and Argument(s) from Dreaming by Doğan Erişen B.A., Bilkent University, 2015 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Sciences © Doğan Erişen 2019 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2019 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Doğan Erişen Degree: Master of Arts Title: Externalism in Philosophy of Perception and Argument(s) from Dreaming Examining Committee: Chair: Holly Andersen Associate Professor Kathleen Akins Senior Supervisor Professor Martin Hahn Supervisor Associate Professor Murat Aydede External Examiner Professor Department of Philosophy University of British Columbia Date Defended/Approved: April 11, 2019 ii Abstract A recurrent pattern of debate between the proponents of internalism and externalism over mental phenomena is as follows: externalists pick a target mental phenomenon, say, visual perception, and argue that it has the characteristics it has because of a property that is not possessed internally. Internalists, in return, substitute an analogue mental phenomenon, one that putatively suits their position, to argue that it shows every characteristic that the original target phenomenon shows, thus the allegedly crucial external property plays no ineliminable role. Within these debates a particular analogue phenomenon frequently appears: dreaming. In what follows, I discuss the ways in which externalism comes under dispute through dream phenomena. I then investigate the scientific literature to evaluate whether the way dreaming is conceived by internalists is substantiated by the available body of evidence. I conclude that the current state of sleep science does not lend support to internalists’ conception of dreaming. Keywords: dreaming; externalism; embodiment cognition; perceptual experience; constitutive explanation iii Acknowledgements This work sprung out from a senior thesis I wrote for my undergraduate at Bilkent University, and since then it kept surprising me how complex and far-fetching the underlying issues are. What value, if any, this work consists of comes from the questions it brings forward, and not from my attempts at answering them. I am primarily grateful to my senior supervisor, Kathleen Akins, for her patience and support along the way. I’m also grateful to my supervisor Martin Hahn for his help with understanding the externalist position, and to Murat Aydede for accepting to examine this manuscript. In addition, many thanks to my former supervisor Istvan Aranyosi for his valuable suggestions, and to Hilmi Demir for his helpful pointers to relevant literature. Last but not least, thanks to my friends Navid Tarighati, Hesham Kahil and the members of the NeuroGroup at SFU, in particular Dzintra Ullis, for their comments on various parts of this work. I acknowledge that the material in chapter 4 between the pages 62-64 is taken from book my review of Jennifer Windt’s landmark work, Dreaming (in Philosophical Psychology 31 (1): pp. 150-154) and the material in chapter 5 between the pages 78-93 is taken from a work in progress I carry out in collaboration with Elizaveta Solomonova. iv Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. v List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................. viii Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1. Internalism vs. Externalism ...................................................................... 4 1.1. Varieties of Externalism ......................................................................................... 5 1.1.1. Content Externalism ........................................................................................ 6 1.1.2. Vehicle Externalism ...................................................................................... 10 1.1.3. Externalism and Its Scope ............................................................................ 11 1.2. Varieties of Dependence ...................................................................................... 13 1.3. Varieties of Explanation ....................................................................................... 15 Chapter 2. The Concept of Dreaming ....................................................................... 19 2.1. What is it like to Dream? ...................................................................................... 19 2.1.1. Dreaming in Historical and Contemporary Accounts .................................... 20 2.1.2. Depth vs. Breadth of Dreaming ..................................................................... 27 2.2. Theoretical Commitments of Dreaming ................................................................ 31 2.2.1. Equivalency Thesis ....................................................................................... 31 2.2.2. Dormancy Thesis .......................................................................................... 35 2.2.3. Uniformity Conjecture ................................................................................... 39 Chapter 3. Argument(s) from Dreaming .................................................................. 42 3.1. Against the Embodied Mind Thesis ...................................................................... 43 3.2. Against the Enacted Mind Thesis ......................................................................... 44 3.3. Against the Embedded Mind Thesis .................................................................... 48 3.4. Offline Mental Simulations and Argument(s) from Dreaming Reconsidered ........ 50 Chapter 4. Dreaming and Sleep ................................................................................ 58 4.1. Against the Equivalence Thesis ........................................................................... 58 4.2. Setting the Stage for Alternatives ......................................................................... 62 4.3. Against the Dormancy Thesis .............................................................................. 66 Chapter 5. Science of Sleep and Alternative Conceptions of Dreaming .............. 68 5.1. Sleep Mechanisms and Individuating Dream-Sleep ............................................ 69 5.2. Awareness of External Stimuli During Sleep and Sensory Incorporation into Dream Content ................................................................................................................ 75 5.3. Varieties of Incorporation ..................................................................................... 86 5.4. An Alternative: The Vigilance Hypothesis ............................................................ 88 v Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 91 References ..................................................................................................................... 93 vi List of Tables Table 1. Some EEG Markers of Cognitive Activity During Sleep .................................... 76 Table 2. Some Examples of Sensory Incorporation into Dream Content ....................... 77 Table 3. Varieties of Incorporation .................................................................................. 87 Table 4. Summary of Responsivity and Arousal Potentials with Respect to Modality .... 88 vii List of Acronyms MST Minimal Substrate Thesis EEG Electroencephalogram PGO Ponto-Geniculate-Occipital AIM Activation-Input-Modulation ISTH Immersive Spatio-Temporal Hallucination EMT Embodied Mind Thesis ENT Enacted Mind Thesis EDT Embedded Mind Thesis LMS Larger Mechanism Story SCS Special Contribution Story PC Predictive Coding IBE Inference to the Best Explanation REM Rapid Eye Movement NREM Non-Rapid Eye Movement SWA Slow Wave Activity AAS Ascending Activation System viii Introduction There is a recurrent pattern of debate in philosophy and cognitive science between the proponents of internalism (cognitivism, computationalism, representationalism etc.) and externalism (embodiment, enactivism, extended mind etc.), originating from their opposing claims regarding in what way mental phenomena depends on bodily and environmental properties. While internalists claim that nothing essential happens beyond the extent of the brain, externalists claim that a correct explanation of mental phenomena must include the organism’s wider brain-body-environment relationships. The pattern of the debate often takes the following form: externalists pick a target mental phenomenon, say, visual perception, and argue that it has the characteristics it has because
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