Imagining one experience to be another
Bence Nánay
Abstract
I can imagine a banana to be a phone receiver. I can also imagine the flapping of my arms to be flying. So it is possible to imagine one thing to be another-at least for some types of 'things'. I will argue that although it is possible to imagine an object to be another object and it is also possible to imagine an activity to be a different activity, one cannot imagine one's present sensory experience to be a different sensory experience with different qualitative character. This claim will have some important consequences beyond the philosophy of imagination, for example, for some accounts of depiction.
Topics & Concepts
Object (grammar)DepictionMetaphysicsCharacter (mathematics)Philosophy of languageAestheticsPhilosophy of scienceEpistemologyPhilosophy of mindPsychologyPhilosophyComputer scienceArtificial intelligenceLinguisticsGeometryMathematicsAesthetic Perception and AnalysisPhilosophy and Theoretical ScienceVisual perception and processing mechanisms