Brian McLaughlin and E.J. Green: "We contend that, contrary to what Hoffman et al. claim, the perceptual icons posited by interface theory seem best taken to be sense data."
"The brain, of course, is a complex middle-sized physical object. As such, HSP must hold that it does not exist. But if the brain does not exist, then where are visual computations carried out? HSP offer no answer to this question.”
"… We can’t justifiably appeal to evidence obtained from particle accelerators, for instance, without presupposing that there are particle accelerators."
"... We part company with HSP, however, when they tell us: “the language of space-time and physical objects is the wrong language for describing the true structure of the objective world.”
I’m grateful to Brian P. McLaughlin and E.J. Green for taking a closer look at Hoffman’s “Icons” in a way no one else has. They’ve done an excellent job of detailing the logical and scientific fallacies within Hoffman's "icons" notion.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, September 18, 2015
volume 22, pages 1541–1545 (2015)
(Original article 4000 words)
Abstract
We argue that Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash (Psychon Bull Rev, this issue) have not made the case that "the language of space-time and physical objects is the wrong language for describing the true structure of the objective world."
Further, we contend that, contrary to what Hoffman et al. claim, the perceptual icons posited by interface theory seem best taken to be sense data.
As Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash (2014) (hereafter, HSP) point out, Palmer expresses the orthodox view in vision theory when he states:
Evolutionarily speaking, visual perception is useful only if it is reasonably accurate…Indeed, vision is useful precisely because it is so accurate. By and large, what you see is what you get. When this is true, we have what is called veridical perception. (1999, 6)
Like HSP, we are quite skeptical of that claim.
First, if nonveridical perception confers greater reproductive success on members of a population P than veridical perception does, then the former will proliferate in P.
Second, we think that the evolutionary game simulations HSP discuss provide reason to believe that nonveridical perception is better tuned to fitness than veridical perception, at least under certain circumstances.
Third, we think there is positive reason to believe that normal perception is typically nonveridical in certain respects.
Palmer (1999, 95) himself comments at one point that objects don’t actually have the colors that we see them as having. If that is so, then visual experience is systematically inaccurate. So, we are with HSP in challenging the orthodoxy in question.
{Cc: I find it curious that in the various articles I’ve looked at, that no distinction seems to be enunciated between colors and spatial physical objects.
Color deals with incoming wavelengths of photons that are easily interfered with and shifted. Physical objects are an altogether different beast. The distinction is nontrivial, as they say.
Applying the same “verticality” expectation to both seems unjustified - and I can’t understand why the two get off-handedly conflated so often.
It’s distracting, not informative or constructive.}
We part company with HSP, however, when they tell us: “the language of space-time and physical objects is the wrong language for describing the true structure of the objective world.”.
…
HSP take themselves to be led to this view about the language of space-time and physical objects by their interface theory of perception (henceforth, ITP). …
HSP say things at various places that presuppose that they accept the existence of visual computations (of the sorts involved in, say, depth perception, perceptual organization, and shape perception). We believe in visual computations as well, but we believe that they are implemented by processes in the brain.
The brain, of course, is a complex middle-sized physical object. As such, HSP must hold that it does not exist. But if the brain does not exist, then where are visual computations carried out? HSP offer no answer to this question.
… Quantum mechanics is the most highly confirmed physical theory we’ve ever had. But it is not possible to describe the evidence we have for it without saying things that entail the existence of various kinds of physical objects. We can’t justifiably appeal to evidence obtained from particle accelerators, for instance, without presupposing that there are particle accelerators.
…
We have a strong sense that in a number of places, HSP are not expressing their own view correctly. In any case, be that as it may, we’ll now just focus on ITP. …
We think that HSP are missing a familiar basic distinction here. There is a distinction between an experience (or perception) and what it is an experience (or perception) of.
As G.E. Moore pointed out in his famous 1903 paper, “The Refutation of Idealism,” failure to draw that distinction will lead one down the garden path to idealism—the view that the whole of reality is fundamentally mental. (Moore rejected idealism and embraced sense datum theory.) …
HSP’s icons look to us to be sense data. So, let’s look at the four reasons that HSP give for denying that ITP is a sense datum theory.
- (1)
They claim that, pace sense datum theory, ITP is compatible with the view that our awareness of perceptual icons depends upon computational operations performed on proximal input. - (2)
They claim that, pace sense datum theory, “the interface theory does not entail that perception is an act whose objects are sense data, or that sense data are an incorrigible foundation for an edifice of verified knowledge.” - (3)
They claim that the formal mathematical structure of ITP is in fact metaphysically neutral. - (4)
They claim that ITP rejects the view, constitutive of sense datum theory, that undergoing a given phenomenal state involves participating in a two-place, act-object relation.
…
… The moral that a philosopher sympathetic with HSP’s discussion might well draw is that we should all take a look again at sense datum theory.
But to leap instead to idealism, which it seems to us HSP come perilously close to doing, would be to make the error that Moore pointed out over a hundred years ago. (link to compete paper)
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Index
Cc’s Students’ Study Guide for The Case Against Reality.
A critical review of, The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid The Truth From Our Eyes, by Donald Hoffman, ©2019, W.W.Norton Company
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(Titles are linked)
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Hoffman/Prakash’s Objects of Consciousness, Objections and Replies
Frontiers in Psychology - June 17, 2014
(2.01) 4/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, (conclusion)
(2.02) 1/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (1-12)
(2.03) 2/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (13-17)
(2.04) 3/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (18-21)
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(3.01) Diary - But, wait! There's more. Ten Learned Responses:
“Probing the interface theory of perception: Reply to commentaries, by Donald D. Hoffman, Manish Singh & Chetan Prakash"
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. volume 22, pages1551–1576(2015)
Abstract
We propose that selection favors nonveridical perceptions that are tuned to fitness. Current textbooks assert, to the contrary, that perception is useful because, in the normal case, it is veridical. Intuition, both lay and expert, clearly sides with the textbooks. We thus expected that some commentators would reject our proposal and provide counterarguments that could stimulate a productive debate. … (HSP)
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(3.02) Barton Anderson - Where does fitness fit in theories of perception?
(3.03) Jonathan Cohen - Perceptual representation, veridicality, and the interface theory of perception.
(3.04) Shimon Edelman - Varieties of perceptual truth and their possible evolutionary roots.
(3.05) Jacob Feldman - Bayesian inference and “truth”: a comment on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash.
(3.06) Chris Fields -Reverse engineering the world: a commentary on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash, “The interface theory of perception”.
(3.07) Jan Koenderink - Esse est Percipi & Verum est Factum.
(3.08) Rainer Mausfeld - Notions such as “truth” or “correspondence to the objective world” play no role in explanatory accounts of perception.
(3.09) Brian P. McLaughlin and E. J. Green - Are icons sense data?
(3.10) Zygmunt Pizlo - Philosophizing cannot substitute for experimentation: comment on Hoffman, Singh & Prakash.
(3.11) Matthew Schlesinger - Interface theory of perception leaves me hungry for more.
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Student Resources - Background info:
(4.01) Rainer Mausfeld: ‘Truth’ has no role in explanatory accounts of perception.
(4.02) Paul Mealing: considers Hoffman's "Objects of Consciousness.”
(4.03) The Case For Reality: Because Apparently Someone Needs to Make One
(4.04) Sabine Hossenfelder: in Defense of Scientific Realism and Physical Reality
(4.05) "Emergence" - A Handy Summary and Resources
(4.06) Physical Origins of Mind: Dr. Siegel, Allen Institute Brain Science, Tononi, Koch.
(4.07) Can you trust Frontiers in Psychology research papers? Student Resource
(4.08) Critical Thinking Skills - In Defense of Reality - A Student Resource
(4.09) Philo+Sophia - Love of Wisdom - A Student Resource
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(5.01) Summary,
explaining why I've pursued this project.
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Dr. Mark Solms deftly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness, while incidentally highlighting why Hoffman’s “Conscious Agents” are luftgeschäft.
(6.01) Dr. Mark Solms demystifies Chalmers' "Hard Problem" of Consciousness.
(6.02) The Other Side of Mark Solms PhD, farmer, vintner, humanitarian.
(6.03) Students’ Resource: A representative cross-section of Dr. Mark Solms' scientific publications.
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My homemade philosophical underpinnings.
Feel free to copy and share
confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com
Email: citizenschallenge gmail com
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