The aim of this article is to construct an analogy between the synaptic gap and mediated experience. In the brain sciences, the synaptic gap is defined as the space between neurons, a divide across which the activity of the brain is conducted. Research findings suggest that the network of synaptic gaps in the brain best describes the locus of the mind. Mediated experience denotes a perceptual experience made possible by technology, in which a phenomenon is perceived through a representation that (...) has been transmitted as information across a network. The transmission of representational information across a divide is the crux of the analogy between mediated experience and the synaptic gap. Cybernetics, media theory, information theory and postmodern theory have all explored various inferences that follow from the structural resemblance between neural networks and communications media networks. In the arts, theorists have described a networked global brain and posited the emergence of a collective consciousness. In general, these theories are not widely accepted. This article concludes that these theories might be reframed in the light of a recent distinction provided by cognitive science between consciousness and mind. While it is unlikely that networked mediated experience gives rise to a collective consciousness, it may well constitute aspects of an externalization of a collective mind. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that widespread, serious errors in the self-assessment of affect are a genuine possibility-one worth taking very seriously. For we are subject to a variety of errors concerning the character of our present and past affective states, or "affective ignorance." For example, some affects, particularly moods, can greatly affect the quality of our experience even when we are unable to discern them. I note several implications of these arguments. First, we may be less competent pursuers of (...) happiness than is commonly believed, raising difficult questions for political thought. Second, some of the errors discussed ramify for our understanding of consciousness, including Ned Block's controversial distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Third, empirical results based on self-reports about affect may be systematically misleading in certain ways. (shrink)