I've been reading a little bit about so called representational accounts of the mind. — jkg20

OK.

The idea seems to be that what is essential to the mental is that mental states are always about things, and thus the mark of the mental is its representational nature. But, if the idea is that we are going to be able to explain the mind in terms of representational states, don't we end up in a circle, since "representation" is not a two-way relation between a representer and a representee, but a three-way relation: one thing represents another thing to or for some third thing, and that third thing is always something concsious - and so explaining the mind in terms of representation is to explain the mind in terms of the mind : hardly an illuminating circle. Also, is it even true that all mental states are about things? What about the unfocussed anxiety I often experience when I'm hungover?

Are you talking about intentionality? Since if you are, then you might want to brush up on your Brentano, there. Brentano distinguished between mental phenomena and physical phenomena, with intentionality being the main trait that distinguishes them from eachother (physical phenomena don't exhibit intentionality).

"Every idea or presentation which we acquire either through sense perception or imagination is an example of a mental phenomenon.1 By presentation I do not mean that which is presented, but rather the act of presentation. Thus, hearing a sound, seeing a colored object, feeling warmth or cold, as well as similar states of imagination are examples of what I mean by this term. I also mean by it the thinking of a general concept, provided such a thing actually does occur. Furthermore, every judgement, every recollection, every expectation, every inference, every conviction or opinion, every doubt, is a mental phenomenon. Also to be included under this term is every emotion: joy, sorrow, fear, hope, courage, despair, anger, love, hate, desire, act of will, intention, astonishment, admiration, contempt, etc.
Examples of physical phenomena, on the other hand, are a color, a figure, a landscape which I see, a chord which I hear, warmth, cold, odor which I sense; as well as similar images which appear in the imagination."
-Franz Brentano, "Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint", p. 60, 61.

"Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental)† inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on.
This intentional in-existence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it. We can, therefore, define mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves."
-Ibid. p. 68.

If Bretano did claim that every mental phenomenon includes something as object, then isn't jkg20's unfocussed anxiety a counterexample? A general feeling of unease doesn't really have an object does it?

If Bretano did claim that every mental phenomenon includes something as object... — ProcastinationTomorrow

"If"?! Didn't I post the relevant paragraphs?

...then isn't jkg20's unfocussed anxiety a counterexample? A general feeling of unease doesn't really have an object does it?

"Something quite similar is true of the preceding argument. Maudsley is not incorrect in saying that mental activity depends on the organic life of the brain. Whichever of the possible views we adhere to, no one can deny that the processes of the brain which manifest themselves in a succession of physical phenomena exert an essential influence upon mental phenomena and constitute their conditions. It is thereby clear that, even if the vegetative sequence of brain processes, apart from the differences due to the influence of mental phenomena themselves, always took place in the same way, pure psychological analysis would give us nothing but empirical laws requiring further elucidation, because it would not take account of such important joint causes. In other respects, at least the universal validity of its laws would suffer no limitation in this case. But this would not be so if the vegetative life of the brain can vary as a result of different physical influences, and if it is subject to strong abnormal disturbances which produce anomalous mental phenomena. Since this is actually the case, it is clear that the empirical laws discovered by psychological means are valid only within certain limits. It will be necessary, therefore, to determine, on the basis of reliable signs, if we are confronted with one of these limits. However, this has already been done with considerable success. Drunkenness, for example, betrays itself even to the non-psychologist in manifestations which cannot easily be misunderstood. Only within these limits may we trust the laws under discussion, but within these limits we are right in so trusting them."
-Franz Brentano, "Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint", p. 46, 47.

Note that I'm quoting from a text called "Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint", not from "The Phenomenology of Drunkenness".

Yes, you did cite Bretano, but citation and interpretation are two distinct things. Sometimes philosophers - and I'm presuming Bretano was a philosopher - say contradictory things even within a single work. My hestitation was merely a manifestation of a principle of charity that would allow Bretano some room to shift his position in the face of an apparent counterexample. Already in the three citations you've given there seems plenty to disagree with in Bretano, and anyone who begins a claim with "no one can deny that....." is usually providing a hostage to fortune. Also, jkg20's counterexample was not about drunkenness - unfocussed anxiety may result from a binge drinking session, but could have other causes. The point is that it is a mental phenomena which does not (at least seems not) to have an object, and that would be a counterexample to Bretano's principle that the identifying characteristic of mental phenomena are that they always have an object. I presume also it would be a counterexample to a purely representational account of the mind. Bretano in his "empirical psychologist" mode may try the David Hume approach and insist that such counterexamples are exceptional and can be ignored as insignificant, but that does not seem a very scientific approach: after all it was anomalies like the perihelion of Mercury that partly motivated physicists to look for ways other than Newton's to account for the gravitational "force", and look how that turned out.

Yes, you did cite Bretano, but citation and interpretation are two distinct things. Sometimes philosophers - and I'm presuming Bretano was a philosopher - say contradictory things even within a single work. My hestitation was merely a manifestation of a principle of charity that would allow Bretano some room to shift his position in the face of an apparent counterexample. — ProcastinationTomorrow

Notice that the dude has been dead for a while now. I don't think he's in any position to shift his position on any matter anymore.

Already in the three citations you've given there seems plenty to disagree with in Bretano,

OK. Write a book about it or something, I'm not interested. I was talking to jkg20, who seems to have a somewhat limited notion of intentionality... Which is fine, since Brentano and his work aren't all that well known for some reason. Me quoting the relevant paragraphs highlights the context of said concept though. It's rooted in the Brentanian view of the mind, as can be noted.

Also, jkg20's counterexample was not about drunkenness - unfocussed anxiety may result from a binge drinking session, but could have other causes.

Here's what he stated:

"What about the unfocussed anxiety I often experience when I'm hungover?"

Tell me if I missed something. Also, moving the goalposts is rather impolite dude. Don't do that.

But, if the idea is that we are going to be able to explain the mind in terms of representational states, don't we end up in a circle, since "representation" is not a two-way relation between a representer and a representee, but a three-way relation: one thing represents another thing to or for some third thing, and that third thing is always something concsious — jkg20

Representation is a part of the mind. Representation is conscious.

I've been reading a little bit about so called representational accounts of the mind. — jkg20

Hi jkg20, welcome to the forum.

The Representational Theory of the Mind/Consciousness (or RTM) is not a specific, well-defined corpus of philosophical treaties. That's often lost because in Philosophy of Mind, we have come to present RTM as an alternative to CTM (Computational Theories of the Mind), which are all fairly new and easily circonscribable into a Theory worthy of its capitalization.

In opposition, RTM goes back to at least Aristotle. Its starting point is the non-theoritical, common-sense position that the natural, representational language of folk psychology (representations, jugdgement, emotions, etc) is at least accurate enough to accuratly explain mental processes such as thinking and reasonning.

Ying refered to Brentano, who along with Husserl, are probably the most important philosophers on this subject. There are a lot of others, of course. Dennett, Churchland, Dretske and Fodor to name but a few.

In regards to your question qua intentional regress ; at least for Brentano there is no such regress that is possible. Brentano's theory of representation describes a functional scaffolding : at the basis of every mental event there is a representation. On the basis of this representation the mind can take position, i.e., obtain a judgement. On the basis of this judgement the mind can enact an emotion. There are subtleties which justify why judgement goes before emotion, but the important part, for Brentano at least, is that this scaffolding means that every mental event has, necessarily, a representation. It's not so much an explanation of the mind in terms of the mind, but more a foundational account of psychology. It's true that, at first, the realisation of the intentionality of the mental may seem like a sterile tautology, but if you look up the list of philosophers in the 20th century that have treated of intentionality, you'll see that it is quite a fertile ground. Although, it is becoming more and more popular to claim that Husserl's phenomenological project failed because of the emphasis on intentionality.

Thanks Akanthinos and Ying for the explanations and pointers to further reading. Not that I'm taking any sides here - but what about this unfocussed anxiety of mine? Whether or not it be self-inflicted as a result of drinking too much, it's a mental phenomenon (I presume, although perhaps it depends on definitions of terms) but doesn't seem to have an object. Do any RTM or CTM philosophers ancient or modern talk about apparently objectless mental phenomena?

Thanks Akanthinos and Ying for the explanations and pointers to further reading. Not that I'm taking any sides here - but what about this unfocussed anxiety of mine? Whether or not it be self-inflicted as a result of drinking too much, it's a mental phenomenon (I presume, although perhaps it depends on definitions of terms) but doesn't seem to have an object. — jkg20

Well, it actually does matter if something is caused by a psychoactive substance or not. As for "unfocused anxiety", well, that would be a topic for psychiatry. What causes such neurotic symptoms can vary though, and there are multiple theories on why such things happen.

"Well, it actually does matter if something is caused by a psychoactive substance or not."
Why? The question I'm interested in is the one ProcastinationTommorow clarified: do such mental phenomena provide counterexamples to theories of mind that require all mental phenomena to have objects? Is it that the investigation of the causes of the state will reveal that it actually has an object after all, despite its superficial "lack" of a target?

Why? — jkg20

Brentano talks about why in the last paragraph I provided.

The question I'm interested in is the one ProcastinationTommorow clarified: do such mental phenomena provide counterexamples to theories of mind that require all mental phenomena to have objects?

OK. I'm not.

Is it that the investigation of the causes of the state will reveal that it actually has an object after all, despite its superficial "lack" of a target?

Talk about the cause of neurosis isn't generally part of phenomenology. So if we are going with the literature instead of mere navelgazing then yes, symptoms like "unfocused anxiety" would point to deeper psychological issues. What kinds of issues? Depends on the type of psychiatrist you're talking to. These issues can range from sexuality, inferiority feelings and psychodevelopmental issues to repressed trauma and delusions. You know, fun stuff like that. And yes, this is categorically different than a mere hangover from the perspective of psychiatry.

The question I'm interested in is the one ProcastinationTommorow clarified: do such mental phenomena provide counterexamples to theories of mind that require all mental phenomena to have objects? Is it that the investigation of the causes of the state will reveal that it actually has an object after all, despite its superficial "lack" of a target? — jkg20

Mind consists of both conscious and non-conscious processes. The interplay between the two is greatly debated in many different fields. Since it’s of pertinence, one of David Hume’s innovations in philosophy was his bundle theory of self/mind wherein the mind is considered to be a commonwealth of agencies. His model of mind, however, was impoverished by a lack of (at least explicit) acknowledgement concerning the unitary though ever-changing nature and presence of a first person point of view.

The conscious self can be stated to emerge from the unconscious self (e.g., that which holds presence while one sleeps); I’m myself preferential to the conscious self being a gestalt-like form emerging from various agencies of the unconscious mind which serve as its constituents. This is of course debatable, but serves as at least one illustration of what could be the case. Logically analyzed, however, to the degree that the conscious self holds agency, so too do those aspects of mind which are not part of consciousness yet with which consciousness is intimately entwined. One relatively easy, though in some ways extreme, example of this is that of the conscience. You take a shortcut and some sensation we term conscience conveys to you—typically in manners lacking phenomenal characteristics of the physiological senses, i.e. lacking in auditory, visual, tactile, etc. attributes ( … unlike children’s cartoons where there’s a good and bad angel on each shoulder whispering things into one’s ears)—again, conveys to you that it would be prudent and wise to not take this shortcut which you as a conscious self are momentarily intent on taking. Here, your conscience is an agency of your mind that—despite apprehending the same context in which the conscious you finds yourself in—is other than you as a conscious agency, for it holds different intentions (and along with these, perspectives) regarding what should be done in relation to what is. We lack proper terms for these both mundane and oftentimes beneficial experiences, as is the case with the presence of a conscience: this conscience of which you become momentarily aware of is not you as conscious agent which decides whether or not to act as one’s conscience informs is best; yet neither is this conscience a subconscious or unconscious process of mind at the time it is experienced, for it makes up part of one’s consciously apprehended mind of which one is consciously attuned to. Less extreme examples are emotions which drive, motivate, and tempt—these too are often “felt” rather than being a unitary enactive aspect of one’s being as a conscious self, and these too, I'll maintain, hold context aware aims of which you as a conscious self is not always consciously aware of. At any rate …

Long story short, what can consciously appear to be an activity of mind lacking intentionality, such as that of an unfocused anxiety, can nevertheless hold intentionality from the vantage of those unconscious processes of mind of which one as a conscious self is not consciously aware of. These activities of mind can, for example, be learned reactions to stimuli that play out at unconscious levels of mind—thereby yet holding objects of awareness (i.e., the stimuli, which can be as much of the external world as they can be of the internal realms of one's total mind—see again the example of one’s conscience holding one’s conscious self as stimuli for its activities/processes) and, hence, can all be process of mind that hold intentionality.

Again, this is very reminiscent of David Hume’s bundle theory of mind/self—flawed as his model of mind was on account of lacking the unitary presence of the first person point of view, if for no other reason.

As Ying points out, there are numerous different psychologies of mind which often address such troublesome unconscious processes differently. Yet, as regards philosophy of mind, examples such as the one you’ve provided do not contradict any model of mind in which it is accepted that there is such a thing as unconscious processes whose agencies are not identical to that of the conscious self (cf., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_cognition).

Not that I'm taking any sides here - but what about this unfocussed anxiety of mine? — jkg20

It depends. You have to realize, from the start, that the mental events that Brentano and Husserl primarily interested themselves with where more of the "higher-order kind", such judgements with propositional contents. Psychology back then was still a dirty word, especially if prefixed with "experimental", so the objects of psychology where the objects of Philosophy of Mind. Brentano's approach to psychology is very reminescent, in many ways, to that of Aristotle, if only perhaps more instructed. The laws of psychology were the laws of of logic in the context of the their application by a rational mind. That's why Brentano could not stand Freud, even as a student, nor could he fathom the possibility of a subconscious content which would have an influence on the conscious content.

However, it is also important that Brentano and Husserl where at the turning point of psychology, in it's becoming a proper field of study, and were conscious of this. They started to see how the problems from experimental psychology could be linked to the problems of "higher" psychology, as it was called back then, just a little after William James did. They were preparing the field, so to speak, for the possibility of talk of supervenience or eliminativism.

Whether or not it be self-inflicted as a result of drinking too much, it's a mental phenomenon (I presume, although perhaps it depends on definitions of terms) but doesn't seem to have an object. — jkg20

Since the rise (and fall) of phenomenology, there have been a lot of thought experiments offered to point to mental acts without objects. Classically, the idea of the ineffable or even the sublime seems to refer by definition to mental events which do not have a specific or easily definable object. More modernly, events of pain have been offered as an example, since there is extensive research into pain therapy, and we know that events of pain can be "without location", entirely diffused across the nervous system. I've always felt that these criticism misses the mark. Is an event of pain without object simply because you cannot pinpoint what area the pain is stimulated from? Is it not simply possible that some event of pain do not have a location to refer to, despite having an object (possibly, you, as an entirety)?

Then again, what point is there in applying Brentano's and Husserl's phenomenology to mental acts such as these? They did not deploy the type of phenomenological propedeutic necessary to handle talk of qualia or unconscious processes. Theirs is rather the type of study which leads to general axioms of psychology, with a psychologism bent, such as "Any object that present itself to perception also occlude some of itself". You could look into Dennett's heterophenomenology, which interest itself more with mental acts conceived as cognitive acts rather than representational. Needless to say, it is entirely a different beast than Brentano's or Husserl's or Merleau-Ponty's or etc... And many philosophers find Dennett's style and approach rather rebuking. But I think he's still very important to read in Philosophy of Mind.

Edit : Although, now I remember that Merleau-Ponty did talk quite a bit of neurosis, face-blindness and other cognitive-bent problems in Phenomenologie de la Perception. You might want to check it up. It's a great read, as is pretty much everything by M-P.

Not that I'm taking any sides here - but what about this unfocussed anxiety of mine? Whether or not it be self-inflicted as a result of drinking too much, it's a mental phenomenon (I presume, although perhaps it depends on definitions of terms) but doesn't seem to have an object. — jkg20

I think this is where representationalism fails, as Procrastination Tomorrow explains. All the emotions derive from vague feelings, such as your feeling of unfocussed anxiety, and the conscious mind in apprehending the feeling forms a representational object for that feeling. Consider desire, hunger for example. It starts as an uneasy feeling within, like your unfocussed anxiety. The conscious mind learns to recognize and apprehend it, assigning to it a name, making it an object, but a very general object, the desire to eat. Then in each instance of occurrence it produces an intentional object of further specificity, what will be eaten, and so you proceed to eat that item. So it is quite clear that the inner feelings begin in vague generalities, not objects of representation, and the conscious mind apprehends and manipulates these generalities to produce specific objects of intention.

Edit : Although, now I remember that Merleau-Ponty did talk quite a bit of neurosis, face-blindness and other cognitive-bent problems in Phenomenologie de la Perception. You might want to check it up. It's a great read, as is pretty much everything by M-P. — Akanthinos

I don't remember him talking about neurosis in that text (he did talk about aphasia and the like). A quick control+f of the text yielded no results either (I have both a physical and digital copy of the text). Maybe I missed something though?

I don't remember him talking about neurosis in that text — Ying

Sorry, lost in translation. I took neurosis here to mean nevrose in French, which is just a general term for a (generaly mild) psychopathology.

M-P talks about ghost limbs and anosognosie (PP 91-96), aphasia (PP 144-156), hysteria (190) and aphony (PP 192).

Sorry, lost in translation. I took neurosis here to mean nevrose in French, which is just a general term for a (generaly mild) psychopathology. — Akanthinos

Ah, ok. I posted that after just waking up so it might have been a brainfart. Apparently not. :)

M-P talks about ghost limbs and anosognosie (PP 91-96), aphasia (PP 144-156), hysteria (190) and aphony (PP 192).

I've got the Routledge translation here. I'm guessing you've got a French edition?

So it is quite clear that the inner feelings begin in vague generalities, not objects of representation, and the conscious mind apprehends and manipulates these generalities to produce specific objects of intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not quite so clear at all. Of course you are free to subscribe to whatever theory of emotion and agency you wish to justify your theory, but I can do the same to defend representationalism against these flimsy charges. After all, you are the one who decided to locate emotions entirely within the realm of the mental. I rather see emotions and events of pain and physical pleasure as purely physical events which (may) inform conscious thought. This is the division of work that I refered jkg20 to. I don't see a need for emotions of events of pain to have an intentional object themselves, only the higher-order understanding of those events of pain or emotions must have an intentional object. And they do. The object of the fully diffused pain is simply the body as a nervous system suffering from whatever illness it is suffering from. The object of jealousy is the logic of possession which you enact despite not necessarily having realized it.

I've got the Routledge translation here. I'm guessing you've got a French edition? — Ying

Yes, his complete works ; http://www.gallimard.fr/Catalogue/GALLIMARD/Quarto/OEuvres2

Nice. My French sucks so I have to rely on translations. :)

Yes, his complete works — Akanthinos

This volume leaves out "La structure du comportement", unfortunately, doesn't it?

On edit: However, I just found out a freely available (for non-commercial use, in Canada or wherever else intellectual rights expire after 50 years) edition of this specific text. (And also quite a few more)

This volume leaves out "La structure du comportement", unfortunately, doesn't it? — Pierre-Normand

Ah, good catch, it certainly does. In fact, I think I overstated the "complete" part quite a bit. There isn't "Cinema et la nouvelle psychologie, "Le monde sensible et le monde de l'expression", "l'institution" and quite a few others.

I rather see emotions and events of pain and physical pleasure as purely physical events which (may) inform conscious thought. — Akanthinos

Right, I agree with this. But my point is that these "feelings" do not inform conscious thought as objects. Nor does the conscious thought of an individual apprehend or represent one's own feelings as objects. They are apprehended by the conscious mind in a way like jkg20's "unfocused anxiety", rather than as objects. So this is where representationalism fails, in accounting for how the conscious thought of an individual apprehends one's own feelings.

But my point is that these "feelings" do not inform conscious thought as objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, because the feeling is quite obviously not the object of the emotion. Its object is the perceived but perhaps not thematized dynamic, which reveals itself to consciousness through the feeling.

As to how theses are apprehended, at least from the point-of-view of phenomenology, it is not possible to apprehend them as anything else than objects. Their becoming available to apprehension is their constitution as objects.

Yes, because the feeling is quite obviously not the object of the emotion. Its object is the perceived but perhaps not thematized dynamic, which reveals itself to consciousness through the feeling. — Akanthinos

There is no object though, it is an "unfocused anxiety". That is how these emotions, feelings of desire and intentionality present themselves to the conscious mind. So there is no object to be represented.

As to how theses are apprehended, at least from the point-of-view of phenomenology, it is not possible to apprehend them as anything else than objects. Their becoming available to apprehension is their constitution as objects. — Akanthinos

If phenomenology stipulates that the conscious mind cannot apprehend anything other than objects, then perhaps you ought to consider that phenomenology doesn't accurately describe the capacities of the conscious mind.

There is no object though, it is an "unfocused anxiety". That is how these emotions, feelings of desire and intentionality present themselves to the conscious mind. So there is no object to be represented. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's an "unfocused" anxiety specifically because its object has not made itself fully available to consciousness yet. Through introspective works, the subject can become cognizant of the object of his unfocused anxiety. Or perhaps, again, this anxiety is really only a physical event with an affect on consciousness, and thus does not need to be described through intentionality.

If phenomenology stipulates that the conscious mind cannot apprehend anything other than objects, then perhaps you ought to consider that phenomenology doesn't accurately describe the capacities of the conscious mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok, let's try this : describe to me something of which you are conscious, in such a way that I cannot describe that something as the object of your consciousness. It'll be pretty hard. Being ineffable is not sufficient. If you are conscious of something, then it is because that something is available or constituted by your mind as an objectivity for your consciousness.

Getting back to the point of the discussion you started, and concerning so-called unfocused anxiety, representationalism has three ways of dealing with it: deny it exists; accept it exists but deny it has no object; accept it exists and has no object, but claim that it lies outside the domain of representationalism. I've seen posts on here that seem to align themselves with the second or third option, but no denials. Is there really such a thing as unfocused anxiety?

...don't we end up in a circle, since "representation" is not a two-way relation between a representer and a representee, but a three-way relation: one thing represents another thing to or for some third thing, and that third thing is always something concsious — jkg20

Representationalism has fallen out of favour in cognitive psychology, and replaced by an ecological or embodied view, for that reason.

If the mind is understood dualistically as a data display, a computational transformation of physical inputs into perceptual output, then there is always the issue of the homuncular self that is then needed to see the display.

So the only proper way to set things up is to take the step up from a dualistic to a triadic framework. The "self" has to be brought into the process as merely a part of it. And this is achieved in a similar fashion by a number of triadic approaches, such as enactive psychology, Peircean semiotics, and generative neural networks.

In short, the "self" becomes the stability of a point of view, the regularity of some set of conceptual habits that constrain the particular acts of perception. There is a dualism between stability and the plasticity of the "conscious experience". The "I-ness" stems from there being an anchoring consistency in terms of the long-run existence of a point of view. Then the "data display" is the fact that this point of view expresses itself across a whole dynamical variety of short-run occasions.

And then the whole of this duality between a stable self with plastic experience is situated within the larger thing of a modelling relation with the world. There is only a mind to the degree that something is being done. If you lie in a sensory deprivation chamber with nothing to do or experience, then your mind, your sense of self, dissolves away as it does in sleep. If you are not in action, you aren't creating the relation that sustains yourself as a self ... in contrast to a world.

So representationalism is out in a general way. We have to understand consciousness in terms of a triadic modelling relation where "we" are habits of interpretance forming the fleeting signs - the states of impression - which co-ordinate a state of active engagement in a world.

Consciousness, as a thing, doesn't exist without all three parts in play. Take away any one and the wholeness ceases to apply.

What about the unfocussed anxiety I often experience when I'm hungover? — jkg20

This again treats consciousness as something "I" have. And this "I" should be conscious of actual perceptual objects ... because the world is, of course, "composed of objects".

So the chain of reasoning depends on each of the three parts of the modelling relation having separate existence. There is the consciousness, there is the representational display, and then there is the physical reality.

But really, the brain has evolved to do a job of evaluating the world. And anxiety and vigilance are states of interpretance that take, as their signs, that something is not quite right about the world. The "perceptual object" which the mind is responding to, what it is attending, is a perceived absence, a perceived lack, a perceived context which is significant in terms of its possibilities, not its actualities.

Again, a computational or representational model of cognitive function makes this difficult to reconcile. If the brain relies on data coming in from the outside world, then it doesn't seem straightforward that the mind would see things that are not actually there.

But an embodied modelling relations view of the computational process says the mind works the other way around. We are constantly projecting an expectation about what we should be seeing in the world. The "output" starts the ball rolling by us guessing the likely perceptual state of what is imminently taking place. And that in turn means that our own intentions and interpretations are already in play.

It is only following that that the world actually does something - or doesn't - and we get its "input" as feedback on the value or stability of our anticipations. We learn the degree to which we were right or wrong, and so must update our habits of interpretation.

That is why it is so natural to feel anxiously vigilant and expectant - aware something could be about to happen in a generalised way, even before any such object appears to justify our mental state.

And a lack of anxiety or vigilance is also a state of prediction - the natural kind of expectation we would be in if we interpret our current context as safe and unsurprising. We just tend not to notice that contrasting state as any kind of state at all. When all seems stable, it lacks the dynamism that we use to distinguish between the uncertainty of the world and the certainty of our own selves.