```dataview LIST WITHOUT ID file.link WHERE file.cday = date(this.file.name) SORT file.cday ASC ``` ### 3.1 Attending to [[Design Scene Properties]] Drawing on Wollheim and Budd, Nanay develops [[the concept]] of design-scene properties to explain a central aspect of pictorial art appreciation. These properties emerge from [[the relationship between]] two elements: the physical marks on a surface ([[the design]]) and what those marks depict (the scene). When we look at a painting, we notice both the paint itself and what it represents. As Nanay explains: > When we are admiring a Miró drawing and the way two simple curved lines somehow manage to depict an expressive human face, what we are attending to is exactly a design-scene property: the relational property partly determined by the shape property of the two-dimensional curved line on the canvas and partly determined by the three-dimensional depicted face. These properties differ from purely [[material properties]] (the chemical composition of paint) and purely representational properties (what the painting depicts). They require both elements to be understood. In Budd’s words, design-scene properties capture "the crucial characteristic of pictorial art, namely, the interrelationship between the marks on the surface and what is depicted in them." Examples clarify this. In Cézanne’s landscapes, we notice how individual brushstrokes create the impression of pine needles; in Turner's seascapes, we admire how translucent layers of paint capture mist over water. In both cases, we attend to [[the relationship between]] physical marks and depicted content. This presents a particular challenge for [[psychedelic aesthetics]]. If [[psychedelic aesthetics]] is to be modelled on pictorial aesthetics, we would naturally expect to find something analogous to attending to design-scene properties in psychedelic experiences. Yet, whether any such analogue exists is far from obvious. [[The challenge]] lies in identifying this analogue clearly and convincingly without resorting to problematic perceptual metaphors or implying a form of internal observation—an inner observer—that would introduce theoretical complications. What is required, therefore, is an account demonstrating how something analogous to design-scene properties could emerge in psychedelic experiences without relying on implausibly direct perceptual or introspective metaphors. ### 3.2 Design-Scene Properties in [[Predictive Processing]] Attending to design-scene properties can be understood within the [[predictive processing]] framework. Consider two ways one might look at Cézanne’s _The Great Pine_. A brief glance might register only the broad scene—a large tree on a hillside—without any attention paid to how brushstrokes _realise_ what is predicted. In a sense, the paint marks are _transparent_, in that they enable perception of the scene without being consciously experienced as enabling it. Alternatively, one could take a longer look, and see how Cézanne's choppy, angled strokes create the pine tree's foliage. This more sophisticated perception involves appreciating the relational property between the physical medium and what it represents simultaneously. [[Predictive processing]] can clarify this [[aesthetic experience]] through the notion of precision-weighting across hierarchical levels of perceptual processing. As explained earlier (Section 1), perception involves generating hierarchical predictions that minimise prediction errors. In ordinary perception, higher-level predictions (such as identifying 'a pine tree') are assigned greater precision, effectively explaining away lower-level sensory details. Brushstrokes are thus rarely noticed, as the prediction errors they generate have lower precision and minimal influence on overall perception. However, during [[aesthetic appreciation]], we actively adjust precision-weighting. We deliberately increase precision at lower sensory levels, enabling lower-level details (the paint strokes' texture, angle, and colour) to become perceptually salient. Crucially, this does not mean abandoning higher-level predictions about the depicted content; rather, we maintain these higher-level predictions while giving enhanced precision to lower-level prediction errors. This dual precision-weighting creates a distinctive perceptual state where we're simultaneously aware of both the depicted scene and the physical medium that constructs it. This account captures precisely what Nanay describes as '[[distributed aesthetic attention]]': attention that spans multiple perceptual features within a single perceptual act. In predictive processing terms, aesthetic appreciation involves selectively balancing precision across different hierarchical levels of predictions and prediction errors, thereby making design-scene properties experientially salient. This explanation avoids problematic perceptual metaphors and makes explicit how aesthetic appreciation can be understood as a cognitive pattern—precision-weighting—rather than a purely sensory phenomenon. This precision-weighting mechanism, crucially, provides the conceptual foundation required for extending design-scene aesthetics to psychedelic experiences. ### 3.3 Design-Scene Properties in Psychedelic Experience The previous section showed how predictive processing can explain design-scene properties in pictorial aesthetics by treating aesthetic attention as a special form of precision-weighting across hierarchical levels of perception. However, psychedelic experiences pose an additional challenge, since there are no physical "design" elements analogous to brushstrokes in painting. The question is therefore how psychedelics can allow for aesthetic appreciation of perceptual "design" if perceptual processes themselves are typically transparent. We suggest that this problem can be resolved by conceiving introspection within the predictive processing framework. Introspection can be understood as prediction-error minimisation directed at experiential states themselves. Ordinarily, experiential states remain transparent because experiential predictions are stable and prediction errors minimal. However, psychedelics disrupt precision-weighting significantly enough to generate experiential surprise, bringing the structure of perceptual inference into partial awareness. When psychedelics relax high-level priors, they induce experiences that diverge markedly from standard perceptual expectations, thus creating experiential prediction errors. These errors prompt the brain to introspectively attend not just to perceptual content (scenes) but also to the perceptual processes themselves—the dynamics of inference, the shifts in precision-weighting, and the generation of unexpected sensory patterns. For example, Huxley describes mescaline experiences beginning with geometric patterns evolving unpredictably into elaborate, dynamic scenes. Aesthetic appreciation here involves not just attending to these vivid scenes but also to the way experiences unfold and shift unpredictably, thus making perceptual inference processes themselves partly accessible. Users aesthetically appreciate precisely how psychedelic states unveil the ordinarily hidden structure of their own perceptual mechanisms. In this manner, predictive processing accounts for how psychedelics offer an analogue to pictorial design-scene appreciation: the "design" is constituted by the revealed processes of experiential inference, and the "scene" by the content emerging through these processes. This approach requires no problematic inner observer. Instead, it neatly ties the aesthetics of psychedelics back into the broader predictive-processing explanation of aesthetic attention already established. # more scrap ### 3.1 Attending to Design Scene Properties Drawing on Wollheim and Budd, Nanay develops the concept of design-scene properties to explain a central aspect of pictorial art appreciation. These properties emerge from the relationship between two elements: the physical marks on a surface (the design) and what those marks depict (the scene). When we look at a painting, we notice both the paint itself and what it represents. As Nanay explains: When we are admiring a Miró drawing and the way two simple curved lines somehow manage to depict an expressive human face, what we are attending to is exactly a design-scene property: the relational property partly determined by the shape property of the two-dimensional curved line on the canvas and partly determined by the three-dimensional depicted face. These properties differ from purely material properties (the chemical composition of paint) and purely representational properties (what the painting depicts). They require both elements to be understood. In Budd’s words, design-scene properties capture "the crucial characteristic of pictorial art, namely, the interrelationship between the marks on the surface and what is depicted in them." Examples clarify this. In Cézanne’s landscapes, we notice how individual brushstrokes create the impression of pine needles; in Turner's seascapes, we admire how translucent layers of paint capture mist over water. In both cases, we attend to the relationship between physical marks and depicted content. This presents a particular challenge for psychedelic aesthetics. If psychedelic aesthetics is to be modelled on pictorial aesthetics, we would naturally expect to find something analogous to attending to design-scene properties in psychedelic experiences. Yet, whether any such analogue exists is far from obvious. The challenge lies in identifying this analogue clearly and convincingly without resorting to problematic perceptual metaphors or implying a form of internal observation—an inner observer—that would introduce theoretical complications. What is required, therefore, is an account demonstrating how something analogous to design-scene properties could emerge in psychedelic experiences without relying on implausibly direct perceptual or introspective metaphors. ### 3.2 Design-Scene Properties in Predictive Processing Attending to design-scene properties can be understood within the predictive processing framework. Consider two ways that one might look at Cézanne’s The Great Pine. A brief glance might register only the broad scene—trees on a hillside—without attention to how brushstrokes create this impression. Here, the paint marks function transparently, enabling perception of the scene without being consciously experienced as paint. When adopting an aesthetic stance, however, you might notice how Cézanne's choppy, angled strokes somehow capture the texture of pine needles. This more sophisticated perception involves experiencing both the physical medium and what it represents simultaneously. Predictive processing provides one way of understanding this experience as precision-weighting across hierarchical levels. On this proposal, in ordinary seeing, the brain allocates most precision to higher-level content—the quick recognition of ‘a pine tree’ effectively explaining away lower-level details of brushstrokes. Lower-level prediction errors about brushstroke properties are assigned low precision and thus have minimal impact on perceptual inference. When adopting an aesthetic stance toward a painting, you engage in a distinctive form of volitional attention. As explained in Section 1, the brain normally minimises prediction error by either updating its predictions to match sensory input or by adjusting the precision weighting given to different signals. During ordinary perception of a painting, once your brain successfully predicts ‘a pine tree’ the lower-level details about brushstrokes would typically be explained away as mere vehicles for that higher-level content. But in aesthetic viewing, you deliberately alter this process. What makes aesthetic perception special, according to this approach, is that you're simultaneously attending to two different aspects of the painting: First, you're attending to the physical medium itself—the individual brushstrokes, their texture, direction, and colour. In predictive processing terms, you're deliberately increasing the precision of lower-level prediction errors concerning these physical features. Rather than allowing these prediction errors to be fully explained away by higher-level predictions, you maintain their influence on your overall perception. Second, you're still maintaining your higher-level prediction that "this depicts pine trees." Without this representational content, the brushstrokes would be merely abstract marks. It's precisely because you simultaneously hold on to this higher-level prediction that you can appreciate how the physical medium manages to create that representational content. This dual attention creates a distinctive perceptual state where you're aware of both the depicted scene and the means by which it's depicted. Within the predictive processing framework outlined in Section 1, this could be understood as a deliberate balancing of prediction errors across different levels of the hierarchy. You're neither allowing your perceptual system to settle entirely on the most efficient explanation (perceiving only the pine trees), nor focusing exclusively on raw sensory data (seeing only paint marks). This proposed explanation highlights the brain's ability to selectively adjust precision weighting. As Letheby notes regarding psychedelics, prediction errors with high precision have greater influence on perception. When appreciating a painting aesthetically, you might deliberately increase the precision of certain prediction errors that would normally be explained away—specifically, those concerning the physical medium. This prevents these prediction errors from being completely minimised while still maintaining the higher-level predictions about what the painting represents. This balancing act could thereby enable the perception of design-scene properties—the relationship between the physical medium and what it represents. Through selective attention and precision weighting, predictive processing potentially explains how we perceive not just objects or scenes, but also how they are constructed in perception. Crucially, on this view, design-scene properties don't necessarily depend on the physical visibility of brushstrokes but rather on a certain configuration of precision-weighting—a way of allocating attention that preserves awareness of perceptual construction. This directly addresses the challenge raised at the end of Section 3.1, where the concern was whether something analogous to design-scene properties could exist without relying on problematic perceptual or introspective metaphors. Importantly, there's nothing uniquely perceptual about this form of attention: precision-weighting is a general cognitive mechanism. What distinguishes aesthetic appreciation might not be perception per se, but rather the manner in which attention and prediction errors are managed. This shift from focusing on physical media to the underlying cognitive processes of attention and prediction may thus prove crucial for understanding design-scene aesthetics in psychedelic experiences. ### 3.3 Psychedelics... # scrap ** ## old version of section 3 ### 3.1 The Challenge for Psychedelic Aesthetics Drawing on Wollheim and Budd, Nanay develops the concept of design-scene properties to explain a central aspect of pictorial art appreciation. These properties depend on emerge from the relationship between two elements: the physical marks on a surface (the design) and what those marks depict (the scene). When we look at a painting, we notice both the paint itself and what it represents. As Nanay explains: "When we are admiring a Miró drawing and the way two simple curved lines somehow manage to depict an expressive human face, what we are attending to is exactly a design-scene property: the relational property partly determined by the shape property of the two-dimensional curved line on the canvas and partly determined by the three-dimensional depicted face." These properties differ from purely material physical properties (the chemical composition of paint) and purely representational properties (what the painting depicts). They require both elements to be understood. In Budd's words, design-scene properties capture "the crucial characteristic of pictorial art, namely, the interrelationship between the marks on the surface and what is depicted in them." Examples make this concept clearer. In Cézanne's landscapes, we notice how individual brushstrokes create the impression of pine needles. In Turner's seascapes, we appreciate how layers of translucent paint capture the effect of mist over water. In both cases, we're attending to the relationship between physical marks and depicted content. The challenge that design-scene properties present to our proposal can be put as follows: Design-scene properties emerge from the relationship between visible material physical media (paint, ink, graphite) and what these media depict. We can see both the brushstrokes and the landscape they create. But what would be the analogous "design" elements in psychedelics experiences? The psychedelic substance surely lacks design features that can be perceptually scrutinized in the way the art appreciator scrutinizes brushstrokes. Thus the psychedelic experience itself, rather than the psychedelic substance, seems to be the right place where to look for design features.  Still, vVarious philosophers have argued that perception is phenomenally transparent (e.g., Tye double check that Gow paper). According to this thesis, in perceptual experience we seem to be aware only of the objects and properties in the world, not of our experiences of them or the processes that generate them. When we see a tree, we don't seem to experience our perception as a model constructed by our brain; phenomenologically, we simply experience the tree itself. Our awareness appears to reach through the representational vehicle to grasp only its content. This transparency thesis presents a challenge to our comparison between pictorial and psychedelic aesthetics. While paintings have physical marks we can attend to alongside their representational content, mental processes would remain hidden from view if the transparency thesis is correct. The physical basis of experience—neural activity—isn't directly perceivable in the way that paint on canvas is. If experiential processes remain entirely transparent, then nothing like design-scene properties would be possible in psychedelic states because one half of the necessary relation—the "design" element—would remain inaccessible. Any attempt to suggest that we might somehow perceive our own perceptual processes also risks introducing a problematic homunculus conception of experience. If the transparency thesis is correct, then the analogy between pictorial and psychedelic aesthetics appears to break down. Design-scene properties require that we can attend to both medium and content, perceiving the relationship between them. But if experiential processes remain entirely transparent, then nothing like design-scene properties would be possible in psychedelic states. One half of the necessary relation—the "design" element—would remain inaccessible to experience. Any attempt to suggest that we might somehow perceive our own perceptual processes also risks introducing a problematic homunculus conception of experience. ## 3.3 Design-Scene Properties in Predictive Coding To address this challenge, we need to reinterpret design-scene properties within the predictive processing framework we've established. This framework offers a way to understand how mental processes might become partially accessible to experience without falling into the homunculus trap. Nanay doesn't discuss predictive coding in his account of design-scene properties. However, we can reinterpret his insights within this framework. In predictive coding terms, perceiving a painting involves making predictions about both its physical surface and what it depicts. When we look at Miró's curved lines, our visual system generates predictions about both the lines themselves (as physical marks) and a face (as depicted content). Design-scene properties emerge from the relationship between these two sets of predictions. Nanay argues that design-scene properties become accessible through what he calls "distributed aesthetic attention." We can extend this idea using the predictive processing framework. Recall that in predictive coding, attention is understood as precision-weighting of prediction errors. When we attend to something, we're increasing the precision-weighting on prediction errors related to that feature. In ordinary perception, we typically weight prediction errors about content (what something is) more heavily than prediction errors about perceptual processes themselves (how we see it). When reading, we focus on the meaning of words, not the shapes of letters or the process of recognising them. But in aesthetic appreciation of pictures, we distribute precision-weighting more evenly, attending to both medium and content. This precision-weighting explanation offers a predictive coding account of what Nanay calls "distributed aesthetic attention"—attention focused on a single object but distributed across various properties. According to our interpretation, this attentional pattern allows us to notice design-scene properties that might otherwise remain invisible. ** ## chat Yes, the author, Thomas Metzinger, extensively discusses the idea of subjects becoming experientially aware of their own cognitive processes, particularly through the concepts of **phenomenal transparency** and **phenomenal opacity**. He argues that the degree to which we are aware of our cognitive processes is directly related to the **phenomenal opacity** of those processes. Conversely, when cognitive processes are **phenomenally transparent**, we are *not* aware of them as processes but rather experience their content directly, in a naive-realistic manner. Metzinger introduces the concept of **phenomenal transparency** to describe how, in typical conscious experience, we are only aware of the *content* of our mental representations (what they represent) and not the *vehicles* of representation (the representational processes themselves). He then introduces **phenomenal opacity** to describe situations where we *do* become aware of the representational nature of our mental states, effectively becoming aware of the underlying cognitive processes. Here's a detailed breakdown of Metzinger's ideas, with illustrative quotes: **1. Phenomenal Transparency and the Naive Realism of Experience:** Metzinger starts by discussing the standard definition of phenomenal transparency, drawing from G.E. Moore's idea that when we introspect a sensation like "blue," we seem to only perceive the "blue" itself and not the "consciousness" that carries it. > \[...] the fact that when we refer to introspection and try to discover what the sensation of blue is, it is very easy to suppose that we have before us only a single term. The term “blue” is easy enough to distinguish, but the other element which I have called “consciousness” – that which a sensation of blue has in common with a sensation of green – is extremely difficult to fix. \[...] And in general, that which makes the sensation of blue a mental fact seems to escape us; it seems, if I may use a metaphor, to be transparent – we look through it and see nothing but the blue; we may be convinced that there is something, but what it is no philosopher, I think, has yet clearly recognized. (Moore 1903, p. 446) Metzinger adopts and refines this idea, defining phenomenal transparency in terms of **attentional unavailability of earlier processing stages**: > DEF 2: For every phenomenal state, the degree of phenomenal transparency is inversely proportional to the introspective degree of attentional availability of earlier processing stages. He argues that phenomenal transparency leads to a form of **naive realism**. We experience the world (and ourselves) as directly given, without being aware of the complex representational processes that construct this experience. > Phenomenal transparency in general, however, means that something particular is not accessible for subjective experience, namely the representational character of the contents of conscious experience.\footnote{7} This analysis refers to all sensory modalities and to our integrated phenomenal model of the world as a whole in particular – but also to large parts of our self-model (Metzinger 2003). The instruments of representation themselves cannot be represented as such, and hence the system making the experience, on this level and by conceptual necessity, is entangled in a naive realism. This happens, because, necessarily, it now has to experience itself as being in direct contact with the current contents of its own consciousness. **2. Phenomenal Opacity and Awareness of Representational Processes:** Metzinger contrasts phenomenal transparency with **phenomenal opacity**. Opacity arises when we *do* become aware of the representational nature of our mental states. This happens when earlier processing stages become attentionally available for introspection. In these cases, we experience our mental states as *constructs* or *representations* rather than as direct reflections of reality. > Of course, opaque phenomenal representations do exist as well. Here are some preliminary examples of opaque state-classes: Most notably consciously experienced thoughts, but also some types of emotions, pseudo-hallucinations or lucid dreams are subjectively experienced as representational processes. Such processes sometimes appear to us as deliberately initiated cognitive or representational processes, and sometimes as spontaneously occurring, limited or even global phenomenal simulations, frequently not under the experiential subject’s control. He provides several examples to illustrate phenomenal opacity: * **Consciously experienced thoughts:** Metzinger argues that deliberate thinking is a prime example of phenomenal opacity. We are aware of actively constructing and manipulating representations when we think. > More importantly, however, the paradigmatic examples for fully opaque state-classes are deliberately initiated processes of conscious thought. In these cases we really experience ourselves as deliberately constructing and operating with abstract representations, ones that we have generated ourselves and which can, at any time, turn out to be false. We are cognitive and epistemic agents at the same time, as thinking subjects actively trying to achieve an expansion of knowledge. In particular, we are introspectively aware of earlier processing stages, namely the formation of thoughts. Cognitive reference is phenomenally opaque. * **Lucid dreams:** In lucid dreams, we become aware that our entire experience is a mental construct, a simulation. This global awareness of the representational nature of experience is a strong form of phenomenal opacity. > Lucidity, becoming aware that one is dreaming in a dream, is the standard example of a situation in which all of the conscious model of reality is suddenly experienced as a model (see Metzinger 2003, section 7.2.5). In such cases we know that they do not present realities to us, but only possibilities: the fact that they are representational processes, the content of which may or may not properly depict an external reality, is globally available for attention, cognition and behavioral control * **Pseudo-hallucinations:** In pseudo-hallucinations, such as those induced by hallucinogenic substances, individuals may become aware that their sensory experiences are not veridical perceptions but internally generated representations. > If a subject in a laboratory experiment and under the influence of a hallucinogenic psychoactive substance (say, LSD or 2-CB) observes abstract geometrical patterns on the wall, breathing, and slowly evolving into deeper and ever deeper forms of ineffable beauty, then she will frequently be aware of the representational character of her visual experience in that sub-region of her phenomenal space. Typically, the subject will immediately have doubts about the veridicality of her experiential state, cognitively “bracket” it and take back the “existence assumption,” something which effortlessly goes along with visual experience in standard situations. My claim is that what this subject becomes aware of are earlier processing stages in her visual system. Visual pseudo-hallucinations – the breathing patterns on the wall – are such earlier processing stages. **3. Degrees of Transparency and Opacity:** Metzinger emphasizes that transparency and opacity are not all-or-nothing phenomena but exist in degrees. Different types of mental states can exhibit varying degrees of transparency. > To do phenomenological justice to conscious experience, however, demands a more differentiated description. As I will show towards the end of this paper, perhaps unexpected and far-reaching consequences for the logic and epistemological status of self-consciousness follow from such a description. > > Therefore, let us take a second and closer look at some phenomenological examples in which the transparency-constraint is satisfied to different degrees. Sensory experience is the paradigmatic example of fully transparent phenomenal content. There are, however, examples of sensory opacity, for instance, during extremely short transition phases in bistable phenomena, e.g., if a consciously experienced Necker cube switches from one interpretation to the next and back, or during the phenomenon of binocular rivalry (see, e.g., Leopold and Logothetis 1999). Emotions, for example, can oscillate between transparency and opacity. We often experience emotions as direct and immediate feelings, but sometimes we can become aware of their representational nature, realizing they might be misrepresentations of our current situation. > In emotions we frequently oscillate between certainty and uncertainty, between the immediacy of an obvious perception and doubts. This simple phenomenological observation points to another important characteristic of opaque phenomenal representations. They make the possibility that they actually might be misrepresentations globally available for cognition, attention and behavioral control. They allow a representational system to experience itself as a representational system. **4. Introspection and Self-Reference:** Metzinger further elaborates on the concept of introspection, differentiating between various types based on whether attention is directed outwards or inwards and whether it is conceptual or sub-symbolic. He links **introspection4** ("consciously experienced cognitive self-reference") to the awareness of one's own cognitive processes and the formation of a cognitive first-person perspective. > DEF 6: Introspection4 (“consciously experienced cognitive self-reference”). This type of introspection is a conceptual (or quasi-conceptual) kind of metarepresentation, again operating on a pre-existing, coherent self- model. Phenomenal representational processes of this type generate con- ceptual forms of self-knowledge, by directing cognitive processes towards certain aspects of internal system states, the intentional content of which is being constituted by a part of the world depicted as internal. > > The general phenomenology associated with this type of representational activity includes all situations in which we consciously think about ourselves as ourselves (i.e., when we think what some philosophers call I*-thoughts; for an example see Baker 1998, and the next section). On a theoretical level, this last type of introspective experience clearly constitutes the case in which philosophers of mind have traditionally been most interested: the phenomenon of cognitive self-reference as exhibited in reflexive self-consciousness. He argues that the ability to engage in introspection4 and experience cognitive self-reference is crucial for developing a cognitive first-person perspective, which is a more sophisticated form of self-consciousness than simply having a phenomenal first-person perspective. This involves becoming aware of oneself *as* a thinker, as the subject of one's own cognitive processes. > My claim is that, all other constraints for perspectival phenomenality satisfied, a conscious cognitive subject is generated as soon as a globally available representation of the system as currently generating and operating with the help of quasi-linguistic, opaque mental representations is integrated into the already existing transparent self-model. “Opaque” and “transparent” are now used in accordance with DEF 2. It is vital to arrive at a convincing analysis of this specific form of phenomenal content, because this will provide us with an understanding of what it means to possess a cognitive first-person perspective, as opposed to a merely phenomenal first-person perspective. In summary, Metzinger's work directly addresses the question of whether subjects become experientially aware of their own cognitive processes. He argues that through the lens of phenomenal transparency and opacity, we can understand how consciousness can range from naive-realistic experiences where cognitive processes are hidden to introspective awareness where the representational nature of our mental states and the underlying cognitive processes become apparent. He positions phenomenal opacity, especially in the form of introspection4 and cognitive self-reference, as the key to understanding how we become aware of ourselves as cognitive agents. Okay, correct me if I'm wrong. This author believes that Cam Ware's current experiential state is a model. You've provided a lot of language to describe this, but I can't quite understand: is the awareness that we gain of our perceptual states intended to be experiential awareness or cognitive awareness? What I mean by cognitive awareness is as follows: imagine I'm reading a psychology book, and I read about cognitive biases. I learn that everyone has cognitive biases. Then I discover something about my own mind—that I have cognitive biases. This is an inferential cognitive route to this piece of knowledge about myself. Does Metzinger think something similarly cognitive is happening in this case? Or is the idea that we are experientially aware of our own experiences as mental experiences? Is that what is going on in this case? Whatever the answer, please back it up with real quotations from the text, including page numbers, so I can double-check them. You're right to ask for this clarification. Metzinger's view is nuanced, and it's crucial to distinguish between purely cognitive, inferential awareness and the kind of **experiential awareness** he's talking about. **Metzinger argues primarily for _experiential awareness_ of our perceptual states as mental experiences in cases of phenomenal opacity.**  It's not simply a cognitive inference like learning about cognitive biases from a psychology book. It's a shift in the _felt character_ of experience itself. However, this experiential shift can then _enable_ or be accompanied by cognitive understanding and conceptualization. Let's break this down with quotes: **1. Experiential Shift in Opacity:** Metzinger repeatedly emphasizes that phenomenal opacity is about a _change in subjective experience_.  It's not just about acquiring new beliefs or knowledge, but about a fundamental shift in _how things feel_ or _appear_ to us. • He describes **lucid dreaming** as a situation where "all of the conscious model of reality is suddenly _experienced_ as a model" (p. 359, emphasis added). This is not a cognitive conclusion; it's a change in the _experiential_ quality of the dream world. Lucidity, becoming aware that one is dreaming in a dream, is the standard example of a situation in which all of the conscious model of reality is suddenly **experienced** as a model (see Metzinger 2003, section 7.2.5). In such cases we know that they do not present realities to us, but only possibilities: the fact that they are representational processes, the content of which may or may not properly depict an external reality, is globally available for attention, cognition and behavioral control • Similarly, with **pseudo-hallucinations**, he says the subject "will frequently be _aware of the representational character of her visual experience_ in that sub-region of her phenomenal space" (p. 360, emphasis added).  Again, this is framed as a shift in _awareness_ of the _character_ of the experience, not just a cognitive judgment about it. If a subject in a laboratory experiment and under the influence of a hallucinogenic psychoactive substance (say, LSD or 2-CB) observes abstract geometrical patterns on the wall, breathing, and slowly evolving into deeper and ever deeper forms of ineffable beauty, then she will frequently be **aware of the representational character of her visual experience** in that sub-region of her phenomenal space. Typically, the subject will immediately have doubts about the veridicality of her experiential state, cognitively “bracket” it and take back the “existence assumption,” something which effortlessly goes along with visual experience in standard situations. My claim is that what this subject becomes aware of are earlier processing stages in her visual system. Visual pseudo-hallucinations – the breathing patterns on the wall – are such earlier processing stages. • When discussing **emotions becoming opaque**, he points out that "what previously was _experienced_ as an objective, external property of another person suddenly becomes a problem one may potentially have oneself, as the content of one’s own mental state" (p. 361, emphasis added). The shift here is in how the emotion is _experienced_ – no longer as directly about the external world, but as a feature of one's own mental state. Then – just as in the case of the hallucination recognized as a hallucination – what previously was **experienced** as an objective, external property of another person suddenly becomes a problem one may potentially have oneself, as the content of one’s own mental state. **2. Contrasting Transparency and Opacity Experientially:** Metzinger explicitly contrasts the _phenomenology_ of transparent and opaque states, highlighting the _experiential_ difference: • He states that with **sensory experience** (transparent), "we are _not able to see_ something, because it is transparent. We don’t see the window, but only the bird flying by." (p. 358, emphasis added).  This is about what is _phenomenally present_ in experience. Transparency is a special form of darkness. With regard to the phenomenology of visual experience transparency means that we are **not able to see** something, because it is transparent. We don’t see the window, but only the bird flying by. The negative fact that we don’t see the medium, the window, is itself not explicitly represented in the seeing process itself. • In contrast, with **opaque states like thoughts**, "we really _experience ourselves as deliberately constructing_ and operating with abstract representations" (p. 361, emphasis added). This is a different kind of subjective _feeling_ – a sense of agency and construction, which is absent in transparent sensory experience. More importantly, however, the paradigmatic examples for fully opaque state-classes are deliberately initiated processes of conscious thought. In these cases we really **experience ourselves as deliberately constructing** and operating with abstract representations, ones that we have generated ourselves and which can, at any time, turn out to be false. **3. Introspection as a Phenomenal Process:** Metzinger defines introspection itself as a "phenomenal process" (DEF 3, DEF 5, pp. 365-367).  This reinforces the idea that the awareness gained through introspection is not purely cognitive but has a distinct _experiential_ character.  It's a way of _phenomenally representing_ internal states. • He describes **introspection1 ("external attention")** as "a _phenomenal process_ of attentionally representing certain aspects of an internal system state" (p. 366, emphasis added). DEF 3: Introspection1 (“external attention”). Introspection1 is sub-sym- bolic metarepresentation operating on a pre-existing, coherent world-model. This type of introspection is a **phenomenal process** of attentionally repre- senting certain aspects of an internal system state (this is why it can be con- ceptually described as a form of introspection), the intentional content of which is constituted by a part of the world depicted as external. • Similarly, **introspection3 ("inward attention")** is described as generating "introspective _experience_" (p. 366, emphasis added). DEF 5: Introspection3 (“inward attention” and “inner perception”). This is a subsymbolic metarepresentation operating on a pre-existing, coherent self-model, i.e., a dynamic, multimodal representation of the system as a whole (for the notion of a “self-model” see Metzinger 1999, 2000, 2003). This type of introspective **experience** is generated by processes of phenom- enal representation, which direct attention towards certain aspects of an internal system state, the intentional content of which is being constituted by a part of the world depicted as internal. **4. Cognitive Consequences (but not the primary nature):** While the primary shift is experiential, Metzinger acknowledges that this _experiential opacity_ can have cognitive consequences. Experiencing our states as representations allows us to: • "cognitively ‘bracket’ it and take back the ‘existence assumption’" (p. 360) in the case of pseudo-hallucinations, leading to cognitive doubt about veridicality. • "make the possibility that they actually might be misrepresentations globally available for cognition, attention and behavioral control" (p. 362) in the case of opaque emotions, enabling cognitive evaluation and regulation. • Form "conceptual forms of self-knowledge" through introspection4 (p. 367). However, these cognitive developments are _built upon_ the foundational shift in _experiential awareness_. The initial awareness of our perceptual states as mental is not itself an inferential cognitive process, but a change in the _phenomenal character_ of our experience. **In summary:** Metzinger is arguing that the awareness we gain of our perceptual states as mental experiences in cases of opacity is primarily **experiential**. It's a change in how we _subjectively experience_ our perceptions, moving from naive realism to an awareness of them as representations. This experiential shift can then pave the way for cognitive understanding and conceptualization, but the core phenomenon is a change in the _felt quality_ of conscious experience itself, not just a cognitive inference. # 3. Design-Scene Aesthetics Having established that psychedelics can support scene-oriented aesthetic appreciation similar to pictorial aesthetics, we now turn to a more complex question: can psychedelics support something analogous to what Nanay calls "design-scene" properties in pictorial art? While scene aesthetics concerns what is depicted, design-scene aesthetics involves the relationship between the physical medium and what it depicts—a relationship that appears to have no obvious parallel in psychedelic experiences. ## 3.1 Attending to Design-Scene Properties Drawing on Wollheim and Budd, Nanay develops the concept of design-scene properties to explain a central aspect of pictorial art appreciation. These properties depend on the relationship between two elements: the physical marks on a surface (the design) and what those marks depict (the scene). When we look at a painting, we notice both the paint itself and what it represents. As Nanay explains: > When we are admiring a Miró drawing and the way two simple curved lines somehow manage to depict an expressive human face, what we are attending to is exactly a design-scene property: the relational property partly determined by the shape property of the two-dimensional curved line on the canvas and partly determined by the three-dimensional depicted face. These properties differ from purely material properties (the chemical composition of paint) and purely representational properties (what the painting depicts). In Budd's words, design-scene properties capture "the crucial characteristic of pictorial art, namely, the interrelationship between the marks on the surface and what is depicted in them."(REF) Consider two ways that one might look at Cézanne's _The Great Pine_. A brief glance might register only the depicted scene—trees on a hillside—without consciously noticing the brushstrokes that create this impression. Here, the paint marks function transparently, enabling perception of the scene without being consciously experienced as paint. Alternatively, one could take a longer look and attend to how Cézanne's choppy, angled strokes create the pine tree's foliage. On Nanay's account, this involves appreciating the relational property between the physical medium and what it represents simultaneously. This presents a particular challenge for psychedelic aesthetics. If psychedelic aesthetics is to be modelled on pictorial aesthetics, we would naturally expect to find something analogous to design-scene properties in psychedelic experiences. Yet, unlike paintings where both medium and content are perceptually available, we cannot perceive the neural or chemical processes generating psychedelic experiences. Claiming we could somehow observe these processes would introduce problematic homuncular notions of consciousness observing itself. What is required, therefore, is an account of how something analogous to design-scene properties could emerge in psychedelic experiences without implying either direct perception of neural processes or positing an inner observer. The psychedelic substance surely lacks design features that can be perceptually scrutinized in the way the art appreciator scrutinizes brushstrokes. Thus the psychedelic experience itself, rather than the psychedelic substance, seems to be the right place where to look for design features. ## 3.2 Design-Scene Properties in Predictive Processing Nanay's concept of attending to design-scene properties can be understood within the predictive processing framework introduced in Section 1. Recall that perception involves the brain making predictions about sensory input and minimising prediction errors across hierarchical levels, with attention functioning as precision-weighting of these prediction errors. This framework allows us to reconceptualise design-scene properties without resorting to problematic perceptual metaphors. Under ordinary perceptual circumstances, higher-level predictions (such as recognizing 'pine trees') are typically allocated higher precision, effectively minimizing lower-level sensory details. Thus, we typically perceive the depicted scene transparently, without conscious awareness of brushstrokes themselves. Within this framework, aesthetic appreciation that involves attending to design-scene properties might be described as involving a deliberate shift in precision-weighting. One could increase precision at lower levels of perceptual hierarchy—those responsible for the physical properties of brushstrokes. Rather than allowing lower-level prediction errors to be explained away fully by higher-level predictions, aesthetic attention might preserve their influence, simultaneously attending to both depicted content and physical medium. This could allow attention to the perceptual interplay between physical marks and depicted content that constitutes Nanay's design-scene properties. If plausible, this predictive processing interpretation of Nanay's notion of distributed aesthetic attention would address the challenge raised in Section 3.1. It suggests that attention need not literally see neural processes or chemical substrates to access design-scene properties, as these properties might emerge through shifts in how the brain manages precision-weighting and prediction errors. This provides a conceptual foundation for considering psychedelic experiences in a similar manner. ## 3.3 Design-Scene Properties in Psychedelic Experience Having established how design-scene properties can be understood within the predictive processing framework, we can now address the question of whether psychedelics can support this form of aesthetic appreciation. As we've seen, in standard perception higher-level predictions receive greater precision-weighting, making lower-level processing stages less accessible to awareness. This creates the transparency that characterizes ordinary perception. The key insights from Hohwy's work on introspection and Metzinger's concept of phenomenal opacity allow us to extend this analysis specifically to psychedelic states. Hohwy proposes that introspection operates via the same predictive mechanisms as external perception, but directed inward: "The deliverances of perceptual inference itself are themselves causes in the world in any case, and in introspection, these experiences are also treated as causes but this time of input to the experiential model." When prediction error occurs in experience itself, the system begins to treat experiences as causes to be inferred, not just as reports of external causes. This connects directly with Metzinger's distinction between phenomenal transparency and opacity. As Metzinger argues, phenomenal transparency means "we are not able to see something, because it is transparent." In ordinary perception, "the representational character of the contents of conscious experience" remains hidden. Psychedelics disrupt this normal functioning by altering these precision-weighting mechanisms. By reducing the precision of high-level predictions and increasing the influence of lower-level prediction errors, they make aspects of the perceptual process itself partially available to awareness. As Hohwy suggests, introspection operates via the same predictive mechanisms as external perception, but directed inward. When psychedelics perturb normal prediction hierarchies, the brain struggles to reconcile its predictions with altered sensory processing, effectively turning attention inward to examine its own workings. This creates what Metzinger calls "phenomenal opacity"—a partial visibility of the representational character of experience. While we don't literally perceive neural processes, the normally transparent mechanisms of perception become partially opaque, revealing something about how our experiences are constructed. This is analogous to seeing both the scene and the brushstrokes in a painting. For example, when experiencing geometric patterns under psychedelics, one might simultaneously perceive the patterns and become aware that these are manifestations of one's own visual system—glimpses of the brain's pattern-recognition processes normally hidden from awareness. The user doesn't just see novel content; they gain insight into how perception itself is constructed. This shift from transparency to partial opacity creates a unique type of aesthetic appreciation: not just of what is perceived, but of the perceptual process itself. Just as we might appreciate how Cézanne's brushstrokes create the impression of pine needles, the psychedelic experiencer can appreciate how their own perceptual apparatus constructs their experience of reality. This design-scene aesthetic isn't about appreciating neural mechanisms directly (impossible from the first-person perspective), but about appreciating the constructed nature of experience when the normally invisible "design" elements of perception become partially available to awareness. Psychedelics uniquely enable this by relaxing the predictive constraints that normally make perceptual processes transparent, creating a design-scene aesthetic within the mind itself.