Hidden Agenda: A Sceptical View of the Privacy of Perception

Intuitively *perception seems to arise from a direct interaction with the environment, but we now realise that an internal loop intervenes. Its components are: physical messages from the environment acting on our sense organs, sensory messages from these organs, and the attempted reconstruction of the external world from these messages. This article argues that this scheme is incomplete because it does not show how perceptions are used. We must first add a stage in which a describable *reconstruction of the external world is produced, then we must add the means of describing it to others. It is suggested that conscious perception corresponds to the use of this externally directed link either tentatively we try out *communication of the describable representation, but do not actually communicate it or effectively when we do actually communicate it. Furthermore it is suggested that the *survival value of perception results from the effective use of this link, so natural selection will not only ensure that it can be used effectively, but is also likely to have ensured that what we perceive is selected and moulded to provide optimum benefits to the social group to which we belong. Perception is not the *private matter we tend to assume, but has this *hidden agenda of serving our *tribe.