#15 - Pete Mandik: Perceiving the World

In this episode, Geoff Allen speaks with Pete Mandik about perception and reality. They touch on some of the most intriguing issues concerning representation, egocentricity and perspective. Moreover, they discuss the different ways that minds make sense of reality – such as, the conception of hydrogen versus the conception of a hipster. Geoff and Pete start with a more general discussion of backgrounds and upbringings. They swap stories of being children with philosophical thoughts and, later, discovering philosophy as a path. They also cover: popularising philosophy; mixing philosophy with art and music; drawing on empirical work; the PR problems of academics and intellectuals; political persecution of academics (in Mexico and Hungary); totalising projects for unifying knowledge; intellectual modesty; and other topics. *** Pete Mandik is a Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University. He is the author of the books Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind (2010) and This is Philosophy of Mind: An Introduction (2013), and a co-author of the book Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Mind and Brain (2006). His latest book, Physicalist Theories of Consciousness, will be published by Cambridge University Press as part of the Elements in Philosophy of Mind series, edited by Keith Frankish. Pete’s research touches on points of intersection between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences, especially neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. He is primarily interested in naturalistic accounts of consciousness and intentionality. His main lines of research to date have focused largely on three areas: (i) neurophilosophical explanations of phenomenal consciousness; (ii) artificial-life experiments on the evolutionary emergence of representational content; and (iii) the role of action-oriented representations as the basis for enactive cognition and perception. http://www.petemandik.com *** Follow Extrapolator on social media for all the latest news: instagram.com/extrapolatorpod facebook.com/extrapolatorpod linkedin.com/company/extrapolator