The prediction function is not a detached function of our brain like the visual cortex, it is the fundamental function of the entire brain. It fundamentally is our brain. — Christoffer

Predictions are overtly conscious and intentional on the events, movements of objects or functional processes which are uncertain in their results. It sounds illogical and unsound to suggest that our brain keeps making predictions on everything it sees, just because it is their nature to do so.

I don't see how this isn't answered? How we perceive non-existing objects has already been answered. It's a hallucinatory flow of predictions detached from sensory inputs and composed by a collage of previous experiences and concepts of objects that we have stored in memory. The nature of them is that they are hallucinations detached from sensory information or minorly influenced by it while imagining or hallucinating in an awaken state. Internally they differentiate to existing objects in that they are pure memory information formed into prediction calculations by the brain that detaches from sensory grounding, transforming memory representations of real objects into a malleable conceptualized mental model that can be reshaped internally. During dreaming, this process happens without our ability to control it, since the flow of this collage of memories flowing together is influenced by the brain's process of fusing long term memory with the new short term memories. — Christoffer

Prior to your seeing something from your memory, you must be conscious of the content of your memory, or know what you are remembering about. You cannot see something from your memory, if you cannot remember what they were.

Seeing hallucinatory images from one's past memories is what is happening in one's dreams doesn't quite assuredly explain the nonexistent objects appearing in dreams, if the dreamer has never seen, encountered or experienced the object in his / her life ever.

I'm not sure what else you're asking for, because with this field of science in mind, the answers are somewhat clear or at least rationally explained enough by the current understanding of our consciousness and how we function. — Christoffer

You say, that your explanations are from the scientific research on the topic, but it seems to have basic logical flaws in the arguments. Blindly reading up the popular scientific explanations on the topics, and accepting them without basic logical reflections on their validity appears to be unwise and unhelpful for finding out more logical explanations and coming to better understanding on the subject.

Predictions are overtly conscious and intentional on the events, movements of objects or functional processes which are uncertain in their results. It sounds illogical and unsound to suggest that our brain keeps making predictions just because it is their nature to do so. — Corvus

I think you are severely misunderstanding how this works. I suggest that you engage with the scientific material surrounding predictive coding theory.

The best way to describe it is through a comparison to how the AI models operate today. People saying they just collage together other images do not know how these neural network models work. They essentially "dream" up images based on their training data. Constructing something never seen out of the decoding of massive amounts of data through a prediction process. Predicting based on a construct concept of what such an image should be looking like. Effectively hallucinating forward an image by predicting every single part that makes up the image.

This AI has never seen a white tiger. Yet here it is in front of predicting what badly drawn tigers should look like.



Increasing this complexity to function real time in which a constant feedback of sensory data grounds this process and does it over time forms the perception of seeing the world. If the AI model is grounded by the prompt that's written, the sensory data grounds each moment in time for the hallucinated constructed concept of the world around us.

What you are describing is the mental deliberate predictive action of us as individuals, not the fundamental process of how we function. Those are two very different forms of predictions. What you are describing is more akin to what I described as how we are able to tap into this process when using our imagination, but at its core it is also the foundation of all perception and thinking.

Prior to your seeing something from your memory, you must be conscious of the content of your memory. You cannot see something from your memory, if you cannot remember what they were.
Seeing hallucinatory images from one's past memories is what is happening in one's dreams doesn't quite assuredly explain the nonexistent objects appearing in dreams, if the dreamer has never seen, encountered or experienced the object in his / her life ever. — Corvus

Here you are also looking at the concept of "hallucination" in the textbook description of it, not as what it means as a mental process. Our entire experience is a hallucination that our brain is constructing, it is perception itself. The hallucination of dreams and psychedelics is only the version of that hallucination that isn't grounded by our real time sensory data grounding it through correlation.

And you are never seeing anything original, ever. Everything in our dreams is a construct, a collage and combination of concepts and previous memories flowing together through a predictive process that is lacking grounding.

Saying that you are seeing something truly original is just believing in the illusion that you do. There are no original things within us, there are only remixes.

The problem with your argument is that it relies on a false premise of our mind being able to construct something that has never been. But everything we perceive as deliberate imagination or dreams is always just a remix of our memories.

If I imagine a shortnecked giraff, my brain is using its predictive generative ability to generate an internal image that is based on my memories of a giraff and my memory of spatial relations in 3D space. It then predicts this scenario within me and I see something that doesn't exist in the real world. But it's all drawing from memory. And it's drawing from memories of other animals or objects that aren't long, that have a different form, a dog doesn't have a long neck; fusing together a prediction of what a giraff with a short neck like other animals having short necks.




And it extends to other memories as well. Not everything is constructed of visual memory. We have memory of tastes, sounds, we have memory of previous constructs as well. When we imagine something, we add that to our memory as well.

Everything is a constant stream of updating parameters that is the foundation of our brain's hallucinated perception of life as a whole.

You say, that your explanations are from the scientific research on the topic, but it seems to have basic logical flaws in the arguments. Blindly reading up the scientific explanations on the topics, and accepting them without basic logical reflections on their validity appears to be unwise and unhelpful for finding out more logical explanations and come to better understanding on the subject. — Corvus

What are you actually saying here? Are you saying it's a logical flaw that I create an argument that has roots in actual research? Even providing links to that research?

That reasoning is an ironic fallacy. You basically call the correct argumentative process of forming premises out of actual facts and research "blind", while at the same time provide arguments that even admits to be blind to how things work:

I am not too sure on the details of technicality of hallucination on why and how it occurs. But that is my idea on it. — Corvus

The validity of what I say is rooted in the research, facts and empirical tests that has been done on consciousness and how our mind works. It's the research itself that forms the validation.

Where else do we find validation for the premises of an argument in this? I fail to understand the logic of what you say here. It mostly seems like you attack the scientific research because it comes into conflict with how you think and engage with the subject. But, sorry to say, you have to.

Because if you ask these questions and the research provides you with the latest answers out of the research that's been going on for over a hundred years on the subject, then what do you have to support the skepticism against those findings?

You have a lot of research you can read up on, I'm pointing towards the body of evidence, so what's your counter argument against all that? I'm not blindly accepting these research findings. I understand their implications and that's what I'm drawing on to make my argument.

I've answered your questions many times over now, but it seems like you simply don't like the answers and it seems like you rely on the answers being something else and want to force forward answers that does not conflict with the implications of your initial questions.

If that's the case, it's impossible to engage with the question without you rejecting everything that doesn't support a satisfying conclusion you already seem to have.

Basically, we do not form original, novel images in our mind, deliberately or unconsciously. It's all a remix under the illusion of us being free in thought. We are not free, we are pushed by causes that forms these remixes and nothing is truly original. Your question is therefor faulty in what it asks for as it relies on an assumption that isn't true. You are looking for an answer to a faulty question and the only thing anyone can do is to answer the real question; how these imagined concepts form within us, which I have answered to the best of my ability out of the entire scientific field that researches this very question.

I think you are severely misunderstanding how this works. I suggest that you engage with the scientific material surrounding predictive coding theory. — Christoffer

That is a peculiar way to use the concept of prediction.  From my idea, prediction is always for the unknown future.  You don't predict how a cup of coffee will look like, when you are seeing a cup of coffee.   The cup of coffee is sending you a vivid and forceful image to your eyes.   You are perceiving it with certainty and realistic assurance for its existence.  Why do you have to predict it?   It is just a logical flaw and nonsense.
OK you say, you are using the concept of prediction differently to describe how you structure the images in your perception, and it is Scientific research.  But why would you do that?  Why do you have to change the meaning of the concept prediction in order to describe the perceptual process in that context?  

Here you are also looking at the concept of "hallucination" in the textbook description of it, not as what it means as a mental process. Our entire experience is a hallucination that our brain is constructing, it is perception itself. The hallucination of dreams and psychedelics is only the version of that hallucination that isn't grounded by our real time sensory data grounding it through correlation. — Christoffer

Again, it is a simple basic logic of remembering something. If you are seeing a cup of coffee from your memory, then logically you cannot fail to recall the factual past content of your memory when you are seeing it. If you are seeing an image from your memory, it wouldn't be just the object of the image, you would also see the background, material detail of the cup, the type of the coffee and where it was lying on etc etc.

You don't have to hallucinate the image to see it, and insist it was from your past memory, because the images you see in your memory are conscious and intentional and factual. If you are hallucinating images in your perception, that cannot be from your memory. If you read "The doors of perception" by A. Huxley, you will find more about Hallucination. Again your writings have the basic logical flaw in the argument insisting it is hallucination from your memory, which is not acceptable.

You are looking for an answer to a faulty question and the only thing anyone can do is to answer the real question; how these imagined concepts form within us, which I have answered to the best of my ability out of the entire scientific field that researches this very question. — Christoffer

As I said, the OP is not about how we form and see images from some scientific research. It is about how we see non existing images sometimes, and what is the nature of non existing objects. I have asked a few questions on the nature of non existing objects and perceiving non existing objects in my previous posts, but you have not answered any of them, but just kept going on about the prediction and hallucination.

You must be aware of the fact that scientific research explanations and theories are not all eternal and infallible truths. When new research and experiments prove otherwise, the present scientific theories and principles are destined to collapse. That is the way scientific explanations work, and you have to be always open minded on the scientific explanations and answers on the abstract topics.

Philosophy is not about accepting and adopting the scientific explanations into their inquiries without analysis, logical and critical reflections.

That is a peculiar way to use the concept of prediction.  From my idea, prediction is always for the unknown future.  You don't predict how a cup of coffee will look like, when you are seeing a cup of coffee.   The cup of coffee is sending you a vivid and forceful image to your eyes.   You are perceiving it with certainty and realistic assurance for its existence.  Why do you have to predict it?   It is just a logical flaw and nonsense. — Corvus

You are literally calling predictive coding theory logically flawed and nonsense while I've already shared you some research papers and links to the actual science behind it. You're just getting lost in word definitions and use a simplified idea of what perception is. The neurological process that handles our consciousness is what makes perception happen. This process is a form of prediction algorithm in its function. Generating an internal concept of outside reality in which our sense information stabilizes it into accurate correlation with the outside world.

You are just saying that "we perceive the cup of coffee", that it's sending a "vivid and forceful image to our eyes". And how do you think our brain process that information? What happens with the photons that our receptors register? What happens to the nerve signals from our eyes? How does the visual cortex see anything?

Before you call actual scientific theories nonsense I think you need to engage with the material some more. You're looking at perception in the most simplified way, without taking into account how the brain process perception. And it's this process that predictive coding theory is about.

Without fully understanding what I'm actually talking about here it breaks apart further reasoning.
Repeating the most basic information again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding

OK you say, you are using the concept of prediction differently to describe how you structure the images in your perception, and it is Scientific research.  But why would you do that?  Why do you have to change the meaning of the concept prediction in order to describe the perceptual process in that context? — Corvus

There's no changing the meaning of "prediction", you are misunderstanding how the term is used in this context and theory.

If you are seeing a cup of coffee from your memory, then logically you cannot fail to recall the factual past content of your memory when you are seeing it. If you are seeing an image from your memory, it wouldn't be just the object of the image, you would also see the background, material detail of the cup, the type of the coffee and where it was lying on etc etc. — Corvus

You aren't seeing anything. The internal image you "see" is a generated construct, a remix of different memories.

It's the reason why witnesses in court cases are considered very unreliable. Because the memory they recall is filled with errors, changing colors of jackets, changing clothes entirely, sometimes even environmental differences to the real place. It's why the legal process sometimes take witnesses back to the scene of the crime, trying to ground their memory in current sensory information.

The reason memories change like this is because they're not a solid stored information, they're a mental generative construct of reality. The more vivid the sensory inputs at the time we form memories, the more accurate those memories become. The cup of coffee you got on a wonderful vacation, staring out into the sunset as your loved one smiles next to you, with the smell of newly baked sweets at the café you were at can significantly ground your memory to that location, making it easier to recall. But if I ask you to remember a cup of coffee from a Thursday three weeks ago, it might be impossible for you to remember it and even if you remember it, you cannot be sure how other similar days of drinking coffee is affecting that internal image.

You are therefore never "seeing" anything in memory, everything is a construct, a hallucination. With deliberate recall we are hallucinating with the grounding of stored sensory memories, which are never as accurate as current real time sensory information in the present. But even in the present we are experiencing this construct of reality. The whole concept of optical illusions is based around how our mind is using predictive coding to form our perception.

Therefore you cannot see both at the same time:

As I said, the OP is not about how we form and see images from some scientific research. It is about how we see non existing images sometimes, and what is the nature of non existing objects. I have asked a few questions on the nature of non existing objects and perceiving non existing objects in my previous posts, but you have not answered any of them, but just kept going on about the prediction and hallucination. — Corvus

No, I've answered them. You are ignoring how perception actually works and keeps trying to get answers that aren't there. Like if the scientific research into the concept of perception isn't giving you the right answers. You are literally ignoring actual research here because you simply don't understand what it means.

You're stuck in wanting your questions to lead somewhere else, but the science of perception is right there pointing our that the problem is in your question, the premise of seeing non-existing images is not correct. We never see anything in our brain. Why are you stuck in this loop of thinking? Your question relies on a false premise.

You must be aware of the fact that scientific research explanations and theories are not all eternal and infallible truths. When new research and experiments prove otherwise, the present scientific theories and principles are destined to collapse. That is the way scientific explanations work, and you have to be always open minded on the scientific explanations and answers on the abstract topics. — Corvus

But predictive coding theory has empirical evidence and experiments behind it. I don't know why you aren't actually engaging with the material provided? This is just a cognitive bias in which you try to argue against the concept of science itself because it threatens your line of thinking.

Being "open minded" does not equal ignoring the science that oppose the ideas you have, it is about the opposite of that. Being open minded is to understand that new information expose flaws in your thinking and ideas, and when you need to gather more information about a subject before continuing. I've provided tons of information here, including links for further reading and you just put on the blinders and regurgitating the initial question over and over, demanding answers that aren't there.

Philosophy is not about accepting and adopting the scientific explanations into their inquiries without analysis, logical and critical reflections. — Corvus

Where did you get that idea? You think philosophy does not rely on facts?

Sorry, but what you're doing now is grasping at straws trying to justify your originally flawed question. You're trying to redefine how science, facts and philosophy functions because what's being said here doesn't align with your question and the answers that you want.

I recommend you to sit down and read up on the science of perception and cognition. Take time in studying and be open to abandon ideas that does not work.

Otherwise you are not doing philosophy at all, you're just trying to fight for a fundamental belief you already have. Accept the cognitive dissonance you experience and let it guide you to study further.

Otherwise you're going to get stuck and never evolve intellectually.

Otherwise you're going to get stuck and never evolve intellectually. — Christoffer

Not all science is nonsense.  But saying that images  in our seeing are formed by prediction sounds illogical and nonsense.   You see a cup of coffee in front of you. You are seeing it vividly and solidly. But you also predict how it will look? Why? Prediction is a conscious act of telling the future of events which are uncertain or unknown.

Also you saw an image in your dream which you claim from your past memory, but you don't recall what the image was about, and the image you saw in your dream is the result of your hallucination sounds not making sense.  If you saw an image in your dream for the first time in your life, then how could it be from your past memory? If something is from your memory, then why do you have to hallucinate about it?

Moreover, insisting that those points are from the scientific research, therefore we must accept them no matter how absurd they are, sounds blind and nonthinking. 

Our empathic ability. It's the ability to mentally construct, visualize, and actually feel things that we are not directly exposed to. So if you know what it feels like to see things, then you probably have the ability to evoke the same or similar feeling when you don't see anything. The same areas in the brain are activated when you see something and when you imagine seeing it. — jkop

Does it mean that we could mentally construct, visualize and actually feel the image and existence of God, souls, spirits too? What about time and space? How do we perceive them?

What exists for us to experience of God, souls, spirits etc. are our own and other people's descriptions, pictures, sculptures, plays performed by actors, movies with special effects, churches or art museums designed specifically with an ambience that tends to evoke sacred or otherworldly experiences.

Time and space may not be objects of perception, but we can use our knowledge of descriptions and theories of them in order to evoke relevant experiences of duration, extension etc.

Time and space may not be objects of perception, but we can use our knowledge of descriptions and theories of them in order to evoke relevant experiences of duration, extension etc. — jkop

If time is not an object of perception, how do they know today is a Saturday night? If space is not an object of perception, how do they know where the Eiffel tower is located?

What exists for us to experience of God, souls, spirits etc. are our own and other people's descriptions, pictures, sculptures, plays performed by actors, movies with special effects, churches or art museums designed specifically with an ambience that tends to evoke sacred or otherworldly experiences. — jkop

But how do we experience the real God, souls and spirits? Not other people's descriptions, pictures, sculptures, plays performed by actors, movies with special effects.

If time is not an object of perception, how do they know today is a Saturday night? — Corvus

They experience days and nights following previous days and nights, not the time in which they follow each other.

If space is not an object of perception, how do they know where the Eiffel tower is located? — Corvus

They see the Eiffel tower, its extension and relations to other buildings, not the space that its extension and relations occupy.

But how do we experience the real God, souls and spirits? — Corvus

If they are real, then we can experience them systematically, also by those of us who don't expect them to be real. But since we don't, there's little reason to assume that they're real.

I didn't combine anything at all. I just chose words to make up sentences. Anyway, it is not the same thing as seeing the images in your dreams.

I'm sorry, I'll correct what I said.

You CHOSE words and COMBINED them together to make sentences.

Happy?

They experience days and nights following previous days and nights, not the time in which they follow each other. — jkop

If they say, we are going to meet in the cafe in 1 hour, how do they know when to meet, if they don't perceive time?

They see the Eiffel tower, its extension and relations to other buildings, not the space that its extension and relations occupy. — jkop

Every part and corner of the space is mapped with the co-ordinates, so drones can pin-point the objects in them, and airplanes can reach the location. If space is not perceivable, how can it happen?

If they are real, then we can experience them systematically, also by those of us who don't expect them to be real. But since we don't, there's little reason to assume that they're real. — jkop

When you say "they are real", what do you mean by that? What do you mean by "we can experience systematically"?

You CHOSE words and COMBINED them together to make sentences. — night912

Yes, I did. But I chose the words consciously reflecting the contents of my thoughts. In dreams, I have no consciousness of real world, hence things appear without my choice, and I have no control of the dreams.

Happy? — night912

Philosophical discussions are not about being happy. It is about trying to come to the agreed conclusion via good arguments.

When you say "they are real", what do you mean by that? What do you mean by "we can experience systematically"? — Corvus

Some things, e.g. molecules, exist independent of us. So, for example if we humans go extinct, and in a couple of million years some new life form emerges and investigates our planet, they can rediscover molecules.

Other things have modes of existing that depend on our beliefs, habits, or sense organs. For example, money, doesn't exist in nature unless we believe that certain pieces of paper, metal coins, or numbers used in certain contexts is money. The reality of money depends on our systematic use of coins, paper bills, number etc. which in turn depend on our belief that these things represent money and not only metal, paper, or numbers.

The reality of colours is disputed, but I think their reality depends on our eyes and interaction with the wavelength components of light. The wavelengths in the visible spectrum fix our colour experiences so that we see colours systematically. It means that we can identify, discriminate, discover resemblances and talk about colours consistently and meaningfully.

Imaginary, nonexistent, or nonactual things such as ghosts are not real in the sense that molecules are real, nor in the sense that colours are real. Ghosts are fiction. But similar to how we construct money, we can construct pictures and descriptions that exemplify a fiction, and some fictions are as recognizable as money. However, our use of fictions is different from our use of money. We don't get paid in ghost stories, and there's little sense in constructing models of fictions like we construct models of financial transactions. Nevertheless we get exposed to fictions, experience them, and sometimes we confuse their mode of existing with other modes. Hence some believe, incorrectly, that ghosts are real in the same sense that colours, money, or molecules are real.

Imaginary, nonexistent, or nonactual things such as ghosts are not real in the sense that molecules are real, nor in the sense that colours are real. Ghosts are fiction. — jkop

When you say ghosts are not real, does it mean that there are the real ghosts? If there is no real ghosts, then how do you know ghosts are not real? To know "not real", you must know "real". Would you agree?

When you say ghosts are not real, does it mean that there are the real ghosts? — Corvus

No, I said that ghosts are fiction. For example, Casper the friendly ghost is real in the sense that some pictures or descriptions have the recognizable properties that refer to the fiction. That's a different way of being real than the ways in which molecules, money, or colours are real.

how do you know ghosts are not real? — Corvus

By knowing the sense in which ghosts are real, and that when we use a different sense, e.g. the sense in which molecules are real, we get the negation, because ghosts and molecules are not real in the same sense.

To know "not real", you must know "real". Would you agree? — Corvus

No, it is sufficient to know in what sense a particular thing is real, and avoid confusing it with other senses.

You seem to suggest that there are different type of "real" objects in the world. Why Casper, the friendly ghost is real while the other ghosts are not?

You just say somethings are real, while others are not. But you need to give reasons for what makes something real. For instance, you say money is real, but ghosts are fiction. But who is to say the ghosts in fiction don't exist or is not real?

In ancient times before the civilisation, the cavemen didn't have money. They went out and hunted for their food, and there was no shops or money. At the time, was money real? What are the properties / qualities which makes something real? What is the real real? If something is real to me, then is it real to you too?