What are mental representations?

Answer 1

Hi Michael-

It's often assumed in philosophy that the one's experience of the world around them is what's referred to as a "mental representation".

It's mental due to the phenomenon going on in one's mind. "In one's mind" is a little misleading here; it's not necessarily a statement about where the phenomenon is going on in space, but more-so the easiest way that we can express what we're trying to talk about in English. What we really mean here is "where" you're seeing things, feeling things, tasting things, smelling things, and thoughts are coming and going. However we're reasonably sure just what is prompting what's going on inside the mind; that'd be the brain!

Presumably, your brain is at some level translating the stimuli from the world around you (that chair being 3 feet away from you, the smell of pizza in the kitchen, the sound of music playing, etc.) into a representation of the world around you. This is where we get the second part of the term. This opens up an interesting question about why we're using the word "representation". A painting might be a representation of a bowl of fruit at some level, but it isn't the real thing. Why would we use the same term for how mind presents the world around us?

The reason stems from a fascinating question that's been taken up throughout the history of philosophy. The question being: "Can I really really know things about the world around me just given what my mind is showing me?". Another similar question might be: "Is there any difference between the way the world actually is, and what's going on in my mind?". If they're the same, no harm no foul. If there's any difference between the two things, then we have reason to believe that we can't make absolute claims about what the world around us is or isn't; mostly because our biological senses don't have access to it. If this is the case, then it's reasonable for us to call what's going on in our mind a "representation".

There are many philosophers over the history of thought that believe the latter of the two above; that there is a difference between the two things. If you're interested in going any further, I'd suggest looking up British Empiricism. Additionally, Bertrand Russell wrote a book called The Problems of Philosophy where this question is taken up in the first couple of chapters.