different functions or organs: One of them is the Representations'
Attorney and the other one is the Belief-Judge. The Attorney pro-
duces various representations in all their details, with their connec-
tions, their claims and their justification. This is for the benefit of the
mental Judge, who considers them and hands over his verdict. Some
representations win their case. They are then allowed to carry on
doing their work in the mind. Some are dismissed as unbelievable and
therefore consigned to a mental rubbish-heap.
To some extent, we all experience this process. Suppose someone
tells me that flamingos are different from other birds because they can
only reproduce after breathing exhaust fumes from diesel engines. I [303]
consider this interesting hypothesis for a while. Inside my mind, the
Belief-Judge weighs the (probably rather slim) evidence, asks perti-
nent questions ("Then would Counsel explain to us how flamingos
reproducedbeforesuch engines were invented?") and throws out the
case. Or I am told that the Earth's magnetic field changed orientation
several times in the past, so that the Antarctic was near magnetic north
for some time. My mental judge weighs the evidence and concludes
that this may be a plausible explanation for various geological facts.
The representation is therefore allowed to stay in my mind.
However familiar all this may seem, does it really describe what
happens in a mind when information is acquired and used as a basis for
action? The judicial model seems to break down if we take a look at
the various systems that collect and report information in a brain.
Among the hundreds of special systems that compose a normal brain,
many seem to be their own Attorney and Judge at the same time. That
is, mental systems do not present their evidence in front of a mental
judge or jury. They decidethe case even before it is presented to any
other system. Indeed, many mental systems do not even bother to pre-
sent a coherent and unified brief. They just send bits of evidence to
other systems, presenting them as fact rather than in the form of an
argued brief.
Consider how the visual system works. It seems to do a very good
job at presenting its version of events. When we see things, we just
believe we see them and we believe they really are out there. (I am not
talking about exceptional circumstances, but about banal scenes. You
are at the zoo, and there is a tree out there and an elephant next to the
tree.) However, the visual system does not present the rest of the brain
with a scene. It takes apart chunks of information coming from the
optic nerves and handles them separately. One system transforms the
WHYBELIEF?