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---------- Forwarded message --------- De : Ivan V. Ivanov <[email protected]> Date: lun. 30 août 2021 à 13:24 Subject: Memory and Mind: A Sofia-Grenoble Workshop (16-17 September 2021) To: <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, < [email protected]> Dear Colleagues, The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and The Centre for Philosophy of Memory at Université Grenoble Alpes are pleased to invite you to the following online event: MEMORY AND MIND: A SOFIA - GRENOBLE WORKSHOP 16-17 September 2021 Keynote: Markus Werning (Ruhr University Bochum) --- The abstracts of the talks are attached below. The schedule is as follows (all times CEST): *16 September 2021* 09:00-09:15. Welcome. 09:15-10:45. KEYNOTE. The true scope of episodic memory: When remembering is based on experiences other than perception. Markus Werning (Institut für Philosophie II, Ruhr-Universität Bochum). 10:45-11:00. Coffee break. 11:00-12:00. Beyond the hybrid view: Splitting the difference between relationalism and representationalism about memory. Ivan Ivanov (Department of Philosophy, Sun Yat-sen University). 12:00-13:00. Lunch break and informal virtual gathering. 13:00-14:00. Memory of music-based emotions. Marina Bakalova (Institute for Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). 14:00-15:00. Memory retrieval and justification. Anna Ivanova (Department of Philosophical Sciences, University of Veliko Tarnovo). 15:00-15:15. Coffee break. 15:15-16:15. How simulationist can you get? Remembering as imagining the (personal?) past. Kourken Michaelian (Centre for Philosophy of Memory, Université Grenoble Alpes). 16:15-17:15. The continuity of perception: Is what I remember the same as what I have perceived? Madelaine Angelova-Elchinova (Department of Philosophy, Sofia University). *17 September 2021* 9:00-10:00. The transparency of mental files. Michael Murez (Centre Atlantique de Philosophie, Université de Nantes). 10:00-10:15. Coffee break. 10:15-11:15. Lucidity as a test case for the knowledge argument. Stefan Petkov (Department of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University). 11:15-12:15. Memory and the fragmented mind. Nikola Andonovski (Centre for Philosophy of Memory, Université Grenoble Alpes). 12:15-13:15. Lunch break and informal virtual gathering. 13:15-14:15. Why do we remember our dreams so well? Reconsidering the "hallucination" versus "imagination" debate. Ludwig Crespin (Laboratoire Philosophies et Rationalités, Université Clermont Auvergne). 14:15-15:15. Anscombe on memory. Rémi Clot-Goudard (Institut de Philosophie de Grenoble, Université Grenoble Alpes). 15:15-15:30. Coffee break. 15:30-16:30. Embodied personal narrative: Biological vs. psychological criteria for personal identity. Radostina Minina (Institute for Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). 16:30-16:45. Closing remarks. ----- Please join the workshop on Zoom with the details below. Registration is not required. Zoom link: https://univ-grenoble-alpes-fr.zoom.us/j/95610516625?pwd=MkhKcUtzTnNMcVlTcWtFWEQxUlpVUT09 Meeting ID: 956 1051 6625. Password: 100382. --- Organizers: Nikola Andonovski (Centre for Philosophy of Memory), Marina Bakalova (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Ivan Ivanov (Sun Yat-sen University), Kourken Michaelian (Centre for Philosophy of Memory). --- Abstracts: *The true scope of episodic memory: When remembering is based on experiences other than perception* Addressing the scope of episodic memory, Cheng & Werning (2016) have argued that episodic memory should be regarded as a natural kind in the homeostatic property cluster sense, i.e., as the maximal class whose members are likely to share their properties because of some uniform underlying causal mechanism. This mechanism, Werning (2020) proposes, can be identified with a minimal hippocampal trace, i.e., a causal, but non-representational link to fragments of a previous, neuronally distributed experiential state. Using a predictive processing framework, the argument goes, such a minimal trace suffices for the construction of a scenario of the past (Cheng, Werning, & Suddendorf, 2016). The pitfalls of both preservationism (Bernecker, 2010) and radical simulationism (Michaelian, 2016) are thus avoided. Regarding the maximality of that class, the question immediately arises whether experiences other than those of personally perceived events might be encompassed in the class of episodic memories if only the underlying causal mechanisms linking them to a remembering are sufficiently similar. Candidates are (a) non-veridical experiences such as dreams and hallucinations (Werning & Liefke, to appear), (b) vicarious experiences (Kopietz et al., 2010; Pillemer et al., 2015) and (c) narrative experiences. Regarding (a), there is evidence that neural activation patterns during hallucinatory or oneiric experiences, the hippocampal trace and the mnemonic construction mechanism might not be different in kind from that of perception-based memories (Cheng & Werning, 2013). With regard to (b) and (c), much depends on the nature of linguistic comprehension processes. According to the embodied-emulative view of language comprehension (Cosentino et al., 2017; Pulvermüller & Fadiga, 2010, for review; Werning, 2012), sensorimotor as well as emotional processes (Eck et al., 2011; Mroczko-Wąsowicz & Werning, 2012; Reuter et al., 2017) are involved in a way similar to when perceptions, actions and emotions actually take place. *Beyond the Hybrid* *View: Splitting the Difference between Relationalism and Representationalism about* *Memory* Taking a cue from a recent proposal of how to reconcile representationalism with relationalism about perception (Schellenberg 2016), it has been argued (Sant’ Anna 2020) that the representationalist view of memory can be reconciled with the view that memories are constituted by relations to past events. I argue that the analogy between perception and memory is inapt in that, unlike perception, memory cannot be construed as a form of acquaintance. Still, the inaptness reveals another reason to hold a relational view of memory. Episodes of recollection seem aptly described as constituted by representations, but of a special, relationally-individuated sort. This result should be good news for representationalists about memory, since, as I argue, the purported reconciliation between acquaintance and representation does not succeed in the perceptual case. On the other hand, the *sui generis* type of representation invoked makes the prospect of subsuming memories under a more general type of representations slim. *Why do we remember our dreams so well? Reconsidering the* *‘hallucination’ versus ‘imagination’ debate* When compared to daydreaming and mind wandering, it seems that dream memory is pretty good. So why do most dream researchers call for an explanation for the supposed weakness of dream memory? Perhaps the reason is that they compare dream memory to memory for waking hallucinations. Indeed, according to the orthodox view, dreaming is hallucinating, not imagining. I will begin this talk by recalling some of the main reasons that support the orthodox view. I will then ask whether our good memory of dreaming, compared to the wandering of the mind, might not in itself be a strong argument for the orthodox view. Indeed, given the highly vanishing nature of mind wandering, I cannot help but think that if dreams were a form of imagination, we might not even know that there is such a thing as dreams while we sleep … *The* *Continuity of Perception - Is what I remember the same as what I have perceived?* The heated debate between representationists and direct realists in the philosophy of perception concerns the nature of the perceived object. My talk was inspired by a recent claim made by Mika Suojanen, according to whom both represntationism and direct realism are too simplified, because they do not address problems regarding the continuity of perception. Suojanen proposes that if we examine such issues related to perceptual continuity more carefully, we would see that perception of one and the same object requires memory traces (of some sort or another). Let`s call this hypothesis ‘the memory-dependence of sameness’ (MDS). I do not agree with Suojanen and I would like to argue against his proposal by building a defense in favor of two distinctive claims, each of which is opposing MDS. First, I will aim to show that ‘to remember X’, ‘to perceive X’, and ‘to identify X’ are expressions which correspond to three different operations, each of them involving a different process or a combination of processes. I am inclined to think that champions of the MDS hypothesis somehow fail to recognize this difference. Consequently, if one is to acknowledge the difference between memory, perception, and identification, the inability of A to identify X as one and the same thing would no longer entail that A is not perceiving X – that is – that A is not perceiving one and the same thing. Further, I am going to defend externalism in regards to perception by addressing the central issue – the role of memory for the continuity of perception. I intend to show that there is a key difference between the representational component and the perceptual component of the operation ‘to identify X’ notwithstanding the fact that both components are required for the recognition of sameness. An argument in favor of MDS would suggest that we are to neglect this difference and endorse internalism. This, in turn, would bring about an absurd consequence: people with memory problems (or small children, as a matter of fact) do not really perceive the things they see. In conclusion, I reject MDS and attempt to show how the role of memory for perceiving the continuity of one and the same thing can be incorporated in the original debate between representationists and direct realists without integrating MDS at the same time. *The* *Transparency of Mental Files* Concepts are said to be "transparent" if a subject can discern solely through introspection whether or not they are deploying the same one. While there has been much discussion of threats to transparency stemming from semantic externalism, another threat to transparency has garnered somewhat less attention, viz. the identification of concepts with mental representations construed as psychological vehicles, such as mental files. In this talk, I explain why this view of concepts threatens their transparency, provide an empirical illustration involving files which suggests the threat is serious, and critically examine some attempts to dispel it. Instead of abandoning transparency altogether, I argue for a "modest" version of it, based on a psychofunctionalist approach, according to which the extent to which concepts/files are transparent is an open empirical issue. *Memory Retrieval and Justification* For their occurent beliefs, subjects draw justification from memory either by recalling stored justified beliefs or by retrieving representations of past events further used to provide some sort of evidence. These two cases are rather different in terms of the sceptical concerns that they raise. However, they have one feature in common – in the evaluative context of justification, the accuracy of the retrieved information is tested against certain conditions, imposed by the epistemological problem of looking for evidence. The epistemic assessment of occurent beliefs guides the acts of memory retrieval in a manner that suggests that some epistemic norms may be applicable in these cases. By exploring the sceptical challenges in justifying occurent beliefs through memory, I will try to show that deliberate memory retrieval permits cases when, contrary to common assumptions, it is reasonable to say that a subject should have remembered and that failing to do so has rendered her occurent belief irrational. Such norms for the use of evidence could serve to establish an important difference between the normative conditions of justification through perception and the ones through memory. *How simulationist can you get? Remembering as imagining the (personal?) past* According to the simulation theory of memory, to remember is to imagine an event from the personal past. McCarroll (2020) argues that simulationism is unable to account either for forgetting or for infantile amnesia. Responding to McCarroll’s arguments, this talk will show that simulationism is in fact able to account for both phenomena. Reflection on McCarroll’s arguments suggests, however, that a modification of the simulation theory is in order. While existing simulationisms restrict remembering to the events of the personal past, this restriction now appears to be unmotivated. The talk will therefore defend a radicalized simulationism according to which to remember is simply to imagine an event from the past—regardless of whether the event imagined belongs to the personal past. *Lucidity as a* *T**est **C**ase for the **K**nowledge **A**rgument* The problem of evaluating the knowledge argument and the type of qualia it entails has attracted enormous philosophical attention. However, the debates have proceeded mainly by constructing and interpreting ideal cases, deriving arguments based on them and evaluating the results using rational intuitions. Here we adopt a different strategy. We argue that the knowledge argument has at least one interpretation that renders itself more easily to a potential empirical corroboration or falsification – the ability hypothesis. In order to develop this idea, we take the case of knowledge argument, similarly to the way some scientific models offer idealized analogues to their factual targets. Consequently we identify lucid dreaming as a strong analogue to the Mary’s case. Our focus then is to study how (or if) the imagination of lucidity changes for non-lucid dreamers as they get acquainted with lucidity induction techniques and have their first lucid episode. Based on the existing evidence we also suggest that the qualia of lucidity could be a case of non-representational qualia. This permits us to further ask if experienced lucid dreamers can trigger lucidity by recognizing the overall feel of dreams, and if they can also prolong their lucid episodes by attending to the quale of lucidity. We corroborate these ideas based on existing research of cognitive science and psychology of dreaming. Finally we also offer the results from a small scale pilot study based on semi-structured interviews with ten experienced lucid dreamers. *Memory and **Causation* Debates about causation have dominated recent metaphysics of memory (Michaelian 2016; Robins 2016; Werning 2020). Despite this, there has been no systematic investigation of the notion of causation relevant to memory. This paper aims to fill this gap. I argue that judgments of token causation in memory should be relativized to a causal model, which characterizes the “normal evolution” of memory systems (cf. Pearl 2000; Halpern & Pearl 2005; Menzies 2004). A memory is caused by a past experience iff it ‘quasi-depends’ on it, relative to such causal model (Lewis 1986; Menzies 2004). Claims of causal necessity in memory pertain to the functioning of memory systems in ideal circumstances (Cartwright 1983; Pietroski & Rey 1995). There are two major consequences of adopting this view. First, general explanatory arguments for causal necessity in memory - along the lines of Werning (2020) - are unlikely to succeed. Second, causal theories of memory can allow that some memories in the actual world are not caused by past experiences. *Memory of Music-**B**ased Emotions* What is it to remember an emotion? In what sense remembering emotions is epistemically significant? Is phenomenology of emotional experience essential to the epistemic aspect of remembering emotions? I will address these questions by looking at music-based emotions. Here is a quick background. In my article “The Epistemic Value of Music” (2021) I argue that thanks to its expressive power, listening to music conveys valuable and non-trivial knowledge. This is knowledge of how certain emotions feel like to us; knowledge which, I further claim, essentially contributes to learning emotion concepts. I define it in terms of adroitness in recognizing emotions. To illustrate how that adroitness functions, I use a multi-dimensional model (Green 2007). In short, each emotion is treated as a region in a multi space of parameters according to its sensory characteristics. One way to recognize emotions is by mapping entities with similar characteristics on that space. In my talk, I will try to account for adequacy conditions of remembering emotions by following the course of these ideas. *Anscombe on Memory* Can (first-person) memory be defined as a kind of experience? This view, which has been held by many philosophers, seems to take its roots in the possibility of false memories : if someone claims to remember a past event, while being mistaken on it, he still may be said to describe correctly his state of mind - and then it seems that there is a sense in which what he said is true. Revisiting Anscombe's grammatical arguments on this topic, I will try to show that "to remember" is not to be categorized as an experience verb. *Embodied **P**ersonal **N**arrative - **B**iological vs **P**sychological criteria for **P**ersonal **I**dentity* I will explore the Mental Time Travel account of memory in the context of psychodrama therapy. I present this therapeutic method as an example of extended and distributed cognition and extended self in one of the participants during the psychodrama session. Clark and Chalmers assume that if consciousness is extended then personality also extends beyond the brain and the boundaries of the body. Experimental data suggest that in cases of patients with Alzheimer or other forms of dementia the extension of memory and recollection or the so-called personal narrative help patients recover their sense of self. This includes examples of transactive memory (shared memory between two or more agents) and memory involving external artifacts. I claim that the extension of memories (including suppressed memories) can have effect over the sense of self in the cases of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) where the personal narrative is strongly influenced by traumatic event in the past. I will examine a case of suppressed early childhood memories which can be constructed and reconstructed on a psychodramatic scene due it the possibility of the method to recover the kinesthetic memories of the participants and its simulational character. I conclude that psychodrama therapy is a form of memory simulation involving extension and distribution of the self in specific environment. ---- Warm regards, Ivan V. Ivanov Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai) Sun Yat-sen University Guangdong, China -- https://www.vidal-rosset.net/mailing_list_educasupphilo.html
