Empirical Inconsistencies Defying Simulationism
Empirical Inconsistencies Defying Simulationism

Summary/Abstract: In our common understanding, remembering and imagining are two different entities. Yet, with brain research progressing, this common understanding of remembering and imagining changes sig- nificantly. Simulationists go as far as to claim that remembering and imagining only differ in their temporal orientation but are part of the same system. In what follows, I want to defend our common understanding of how to distinguish between remembering and imagining. With the help of empirical studies, I will defend the view that remembering and imagining are significantly different and not only different in their temporal orientation. I will base my argumentation on empirical studies which are suggestive of simulationism having gotten it wrong. In this paper, I will firstly introduce the two opposing views of simulationism and the causal theory of memory. With the help of empirical studies, I will secondly show that simulationism faces significant evidence of being wrong and thirdly, will suggest that a slightly changed version of the causal theory of memory does a better job in explaining the introduced research results.

• Details
• Contents