Mandik's philosophical contributions and theoretical work

Mandik

Both Rolls and Mandik provide information on consciousness. Rolls presents a model of visual consciousness, while Mandik presents his view on the neurophilosophy of consciousness. By looking at information from both sides, it can be seen that Rolls model provides a substantive view of consciousness. Rolls' argument is that locating errors in multi-step inferences means that the steps are conscious, because they require a higher-order level of mental monitoring (Campana & Tallon-Baudry, 2013). However, not everyone agrees with Rolls' beliefs. The counterargument to his opinion is that there are causal ties within intentional states that also allow for the location of errors, even without higher-state mental monitoring (Campana & Tallon-Baudry, 2013). If this is indeed correct, then Rolls would not be accurate in saying that the steps to locate errors in inference are conscious. This would seem to discredit Rolls completely, but that is really not the case. Rolls may be right in some instances, and has certainly provided a solid theory on which more study can be based.

Because of that, Rolls' view of visual consciousness is not trivial. Accurate or not, it represents a clear depth of thinking about the issue, and addresses one way in which visual consciousness may be processed and handled by the brain (Sheperd, 2013). There is much that people do not know about how the brain actually works, and how visual and other cues are processed within the brain. With that being the case, it is not easy to prove Rolls as being wrong or right. His is but another model or theory among many different options that have been provided and hypothesized throughout history. However, his model was proposed in 2004, and is still believed by many people to be an accurate representation of what takes place when the brain takes in visual cues and processes them through steps that lead to a conclusion or inference regarding the viewed object (Campana & Tallon-Baudry, 2013).

Mandik has also presented views on consciousness, most often dealing with the neurophilosophy of the issue. He considers some of the same issues as Rolls, most commonly surrounding the idea of how people view consciousness, and whether what they are seeing is accurate. This is not based on someone's eyes "playing tricks" on them, but on the mental state of the person viewing an object (Sheperd, 2013). If the mental state of that person is not correct, it is possible that he or she will see something completely different from what is actually presented (Sheperd, 2013). There are complex reasons as to why this is the case, but it does shed some light on the model provided by Rolls and the beliefs that go along with that model. Rolls argues that the steps to finding errors in inference -- determining what one is seeing and whether that is accurate -- are consciously performed (Campana & Tallon-Baudry, 2013). If that is the case, the way in which a person's conscious is altered could potentially cause false positives (or false negatives) when looking for errors in inference.