Mental Reality Representation: Levels and Forms

Posted on Dec 4, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

1.1. Representation Forms and Levels of Mental Reality

We describe the various cognitive processes that enable humans to represent reality, comparing and highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. We will explore how language is the key process that allows a qualitative leap in our representation of the world and the construction of our knowledge.

There are three levels of representation, each operating from the data offered by the previous level. This is called constructivism, and it forms the basis of our knowledge of the world.

1.1.1. Perception

This is the first level, consisting of two processes:

  • Gathering information (sense data): Sensation (passive process)
  • Interpretation of this data: Perception (active process)

The result is what we call the percept, the object of perception. It has the following characteristics:

  1. Requires the presence of the stimulus.
  2. Constructed from sense data (raw material: sensation).
  3. Presented uniquely (one by one) and concretely (in detail).
  4. Exists in a specific time and space.
  5. Direct, clear, and accurate, allowing for detailed examination.
  6. Its qualities are imposed upon us; we cannot modify them at will.

Fundamental theories:

  • Associationism: We first perceive separate and independent parts of the object and then see it as a whole.
  • Gestalt (or form): We first perceive the whole as a form and then perceive the individual parts.

1.1.2. Representations

This is the second level, also consisting of two psychological processes:

  • Retaining and reproducing information in the absence of the stimulus that caused it: Memory
  • Re-elaborating stored information: Imagination (the ability to create and produce images)

The result is what we call the image: the object of representation. It has the following characteristics:

  1. Does not require the presence of the stimulus.
  2. Reproduced or reconstructed from earlier perceptions (raw material: perception).
  3. Presented uniquely and specifically.
  4. Not necessarily bound to a specific time or space.
  5. Appears as incomplete, more diffuse, less defined, and more manipulable.
  6. We can change its properties at will.

1.1.3. Symbolization

This is the third level, consisting of two psychological processes:

  • Re-elaboration of information into abstract and symbolic thought and language.

The result is what we call the concept (a word that represents something real): the object of symbolic processes (a symbol represents reality). It has the following characteristics:

  1. Does not require the presence of the stimulus or the image.
  2. Constructed from previous perceptions and representations (raw material: percepts and images).
  3. Presented universally (not a single object but the entire class defined by the concept).
  4. Presented in abstract form (not the characteristics of each object, but only those common to all members of the defined class).
  5. Presented as a symbol (apart from sensory and imaginative components).

1.1. The Relationship Between Knowledge and Reality

We will examine the four most important perspectives that have emerged throughout the history of philosophy regarding the relationship between our knowledge of things and what they truly are.

1.1.1. Naive Realism

This was the dominant view until the beginning of modern philosophy.

THOUGHT → IDEAS → REALITY

Ideas are:

  • Caused by things.
  • A faithful reflection of them.

This view posits an identity relationship: our knowledge is a true and identical copy of reality.

1.1.2. Moderate Realism

Descartes argues for the validity of knowledge starting from the first truth: “I think, therefore I am.” This means we can doubt everything except the fact that we are doubting. We can question the content of thought but not the activity of thinking itself. From this truth, Descartes infers the existence of God, based on the idea of perfection. His reasoning is as follows: I have the idea of a perfect being, but I am imperfect; therefore, I cannot be the cause of that idea. The cause of that idea must be a perfect being: God. God created the world and humankind and is good. God guarantees that what I have in mind coincides with reality.

Moderate realism asserts a resemblance relationship: our knowledge reflects some aspects of things (those that are quantifiable and mathematizable), but we cannot be sure that the qualities perceived through the senses actually belong to them. Rationalist philosophers are wary of sensory information and give more validity to measurable qualities because mathematical truths, they argue, offer certainty resulting from the exclusive use of reason.

1.1.3. Phenomenalism

This view posits a causal relationship: our knowledge is caused by things, but we cannot know if it is similar to what they truly are. We can only know what appears to our consciousness: the phenomenon.

1.1.3.1. Hume’s Phenomenalism

Hume argues that there are two elements in knowledge: impressions and ideas. Impressions are the direct and immediate apprehension of reality through the senses, while ideas are mental. For Hume, all valid ideas must be based on impressions.

Everything that appears in our mind, Hume calls phenomena. He posed the question: Do I have an impression of the relationship between my ideas and external reality? The answer is no. Therefore, the existence of an external reality, and whether our ideas are caused by it, is unprovable. There is probably something external, but we cannot know it (skepticism).

1.1.3.2. Kantian Phenomenalism

Phenomenon: the result of the subject’s imposition of forms onto the given matter that comes from the outside, which is chaotic until it is organized by the subject. Noumenon: the thing itself, independent of how we perceive it, which we cannot know.

Kant argues that we only know the phenomenon, but we cannot know reality itself. When we perceive things, we impose cause and effect, which doesn’t inherently exist because everything is a construct. The mind constructs the object.