ABSTRACT
One can sense the condition that something colored red is surrounded by something blue quite independently of whether there actually is something colored red surrounded by something blue. This chapter focuses on the basic idea and how it explains the externally directed character of experience. It deals with the question of how it might accommodate internal dependence. Representationalists have a special terminology: they say that for Buddy to have his experience is just for him to “experientially represent” that there is before him a purple and flower-shaped thing in empty space, as a result of his aberrant neural activity. This is not something he does intentionally; it is involuntary and passive. The basic Ramsey-Lewis formulation of the representational view is schematic. It leaves many questions open. It says that there is a mental relationship, experiential representation, that plays a certain theoretical role. But it doesn't say anything about the nature of this mental relationship.
