Noë on Sur's Ferrets: Here's the picture(s)

Noë claims that "The character of conscious experience can vary even though the neural activity underpinning it does not change.  This is the basic lesson of Sur’s studies. "   (Noë, 2009, p. 54).  So, this is what Noë thinks the experiments show:

But, this is what they really show:

In other words, Noë thinks that Sur's intervention does not change the intrinsic structure of rewired ferret A1, but the intervention does change the intrinsic structure.

A. Noë (2009). Out of our heads: Why you are not your brain, and other lessions from the biology of consciousness. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.

J. Sharma, A. Angelucci, and M. Sur, ‘Induction of Visual Orientation Modules in Auditory Cortex’, Nature 404 (2000), 841-847.

A. Roe, S. Pallas, J. Hahm, and M. Sur, ‘A Map of Visual Space Induced in Primary Auditory Cortex’, Science 250 (1990), 818.


For elaboration of this reply to Noë, see my forthcoming paper, "Consciousness: Don't Give up on the Brain" forthcoming in the Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement.  The manuscript is available here.