Prospection does not imply predictive processing

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Litwin ◽  
Marcin Miłkowski
Keyword(s):  
Latent Variables ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Present Account ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Informational Uncertainty ◽  
Mental Objects

Abstract Predictive processing models of psychopathologies are not explanatorily consistent with the present account of abstract thought. These models are based on latent variables probabilistically mapping the structure of the world. As such, they cannot be informed by representational ontology based on mental objects and states. What actually is the case is merely some terminological affinity between subjective and informational uncertainty.

scholarly journals Extending the extended consciousness debate: perception, imagination, and the common kind assumption

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Deery
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Mental Event ◽  
The World ◽  
Predictive Approach ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

AbstractFor some, the states and processes involved in the realisation of phenomenal consciousness are not confined to within the organismic boundaries of the experiencing subject. Instead, the sub-personal basis of perceptual experience can, and does, extend beyond the brain and body to implicate environmental elements through one’s interaction with the world. These claims are met by proponents of predictive processing, who propose that perception and imagination should be understood as a product of the same internal mechanisms. On this view, as visually imagining is not considered to be world-involving, it is assumed that world-involvement must not be essential for perception, and thus internalism about the sub-personal basis is true. However, the argument for internalism from the unity of perception and imagination relies for its strength on a questionable conception of the relationship between the two experiential states. I argue that proponents of the predictive approach are guilty of harbouring an implicit commitment to the common kind assumption which does not follow trivially from their framework. That is, the assumption that perception and imagination are of the same fundamental kind of mental event. I will argue that there are plausible alternative ways of conceiving of this relationship without drawing internalist metaphysical conclusions from their psychological theory. Thus, the internalist owes the debate clarification of this relationship and further argumentation to secure their position.

scholarly journals Enacting Media. An Embodied Account of Enculturation Between Neuromediality and New Cognitive Media Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joerg Fingerhut
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Generative Models ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Moving Images ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Work ◽  
The Mind

This paper argues that the still-emerging paradigm of situated cognition requires a more systematic perspective on media to capture the enculturation of the human mind. By virtue of being media, cultural artifacts present central experiential models of the world for our embodied minds to latch onto. The paper identifies references to external media within embodied, extended, enactive, and predictive approaches to cognition, which remain underdeveloped in terms of the profound impact that media have on our mind. To grasp this impact, I propose an enactive account of media that is based on expansive habits as media-structured, embodied ways of bringing forth meaning and new domains of values. We apply such habits, for instance, when seeing a picture or perceiving a movie. They become established through a process of reciprocal adaptation between media artifacts and organisms and define the range of viable actions within such a media ecology. Within an artifactual habit, we then become attuned to a specific media work (e.g., a TV series, a picture, a text, or even a city) that engages us. Both the plurality of habits and the dynamical adjustments within a habit require a more flexible neural architecture than is addressed by classical cognitive neuroscience. To detail how neural and media processes interlock, I will introduce the concept of neuromediality and discuss radical predictive processing accounts that could contribute to the externalization of the mind by treating media themselves as generative models of the world. After a short primer on general media theory, I discuss media examples in three domains: pictures and moving images; digital media; architecture and the built environment. This discussion demonstrates the need for a new cognitive media theory based on enactive artifactual habits—one that will help us gain perspective on the continuous re-mediation of our mind.

Quick’n’Lean or Slow and Rich?

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Hohwy
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Internal Representations ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
The World

Andy Clark’s exciting work on predictive processing provides the umbrella under which his hugely influential previous work on embodied and extended cognition seeks a unified home. This chapter argues that in fact predictive processing harbours internalist, inferentialist and epistemic tenets that cannot leave embodied and extended cognition unchanged. Predictive processing cannot do the work Clark requires of it without relying on rich, preconstructive internal representations of the world, nor without engaging in paradigmatically rational integration of prior knowledge and new sensory input. Hence, next to Clark’s image of fluid “uncertainty surfing” is an equally valid image of more emaciated and plodding world-modelling. Rather than underpinning orthodox embodied and extended approches, predictive processing therefore presents an opportunity for a potentially fruitful new synthesis of cognitivist and embodied approaches to cognition.

5 Models of the world: from perception to hallucination

2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (8) ◽  
pp. e2.3-e2
Author(s):  
Paul Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Model Building ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
External Reality ◽  
Consultant Psychiatrist ◽  
University Of Cambridge ◽  
The World ◽  
The University ◽  
The Brain

Paul Fletcher is Wellcome Investigator and Bernard Wolfe Professor of Health Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. He is also Director of Studies for Preclinical Medicine at Clare College and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. He studied Medicine, before carrying out specialist training in Psychiatry and taking a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. He researches human perception, learning and decision-making in health and mental illness.We do not have direct contact with external reality. We must rely on messages from the sense organs, conveying information about the state of the world and our bodies. These messages are not easy to decipher, being noisy and ambiguous, but from them we have to construct models of the world. I will discuss this challenge and how we are very adept at creating a model of reality based on achieving a balance between what our senses are telling us and our expectations of what should be the case. This is often referred to as the predictive processing framework.Relying on this balance comes at a cost, rendering us vulnerable to illusions and biases and, in more extreme cases, to creating a reality that diverges from that experienced by others. This can arise for a variety of reasons but, at the root, I suggest, lies the nature of the brain as a model-building organ. Though this divergence from reality – psychosis – often seems inexplicable and incomprehensible, I suggest that a few core principles can help us to understand it and offers ways of thinking about how phenomena like hallucinations can be understood. Interestingly, the framework suggests ways in which apparently similar phenomena like hallucinations can arise from distinct alterations to the function of a predictive processing system.

Letting the World Grow Old: An Ethos of Countermodernity1

1999 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freya Mathews
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
The Given ◽  
Do So ◽  
Human Provenance

Abstract'Nature' may be understood, for environmental purposes, as whatever happens when we, or other agents under the direction of abstract thought, let things be. From this point of view it is accordingly never too late to 'return to nature'. To do so is not to restore a lost set of things or attributes, but rather to allow a certain process to begin anew. This process recommences whenever that which already exists - whether it be of nonhuman or human provenance - is permitted to endure. 'Environmentalism' is thus conceived in broadly Taoist rather than ecological terms, as involving the affirmation of the given.

Beyond rarity: the paths of luxury desire. How luxury brands grow yet remain desirable

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Noël Kapferer ◽  
Pierre Valette-Florence
Keyword(s):  
Latent Variables ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Luxury Brands ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Selective Distribution ◽  
The World ◽  
Luxury Industry ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Very High ◽  
Selection Of

Purpose Luxury is a growing sector worldwide. This creates a major managerial challenge: How can luxury brands prevent becoming a victim of their own success? Once objective rarity is lost, what other levers still sustain desire for these luxury brands, nurture their dream and, thus, prevent the dilution of desirability created by their growing penetration and sales? Design/methodology/approach Based on 1,286 actual luxury consumers interviewed about 12 highly known and successful luxury brands on 42 experiential and perceptual items, a PLS hierarchical fourth-order latent variables model unveils the paths of luxury dream building. Findings The authors have identified how, beyond mere physical rarity and very high quality, eight experiential and perceptual levers fuel luxury desirability through two structural paths: selection and seduction. Research limitations/implications The concept of luxury is associated to rarity. But to grow, luxury brands need to abandon mere scarcity and selectivity (value created by limitation of production, highly selective distribution and selection of customers) and switch instead to an “abundant rarity”, where feelings of privilege are attached to the brand itself, seducing through its experiential facets, pricing, prestige and the world it symbolizes. Practical implications Luxury executives can use this paper as a compass to manage, sustain and monitor their brand desirability, all along the brand’s growth, as it moves away from being niche and rare. Social implications Considering the growing social diffusion of the need for luxury in different strata of the population, this paper reveals the levers of the attractiveness of the mega-brands of luxury. Originality/value This paper addresses the main problem of the luxury industry: How to grow yet remain desirable. It is based on 1,286 actual luxury buyers and 12 actual brands. Thanks to PLS modelization, the structure of the levers of brand desirability is revealed.

scholarly journals Enactivism, Radical Enactivism and Predictive Processing: What is Radical in Cognitive Science?

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Gärtner ◽  
Robert W. Clowes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Radical Enactivism ◽  
Problem Section ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Basic Cognition

AbstractAccording to Enactivism, cognition should be understood in terms of a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. Further, this view holds that organisms do not passively receive information from this environment, they rather selectively create this environment by engaging in interaction with the world. Radical Enactivism adds that basic cognition does so without entertaining representations and hence that representations are not an essential constituent of cognition. Some proponents think that getting rid of representations amounts to a revolutionary alternative to standard views about cognition. To emphasize the impact, they claim that this ‘radicalization’ should be applied to all enactivist friendly views, including, another current and potentially revolutionary approach to cognition: predictive processing. In this paper, we will show that this is not the case. After introducing the problem (section 2), we will argue (section 3) that ‘radicalizing’ predictive processing does not add any value to this approach. After this (section 4), we will analyze whether or not radical Enactivism can count as a revolution within cognitive science at all and conclude that it cannot. Finally, in section 5 we will claim that cognitive science is better off when embracing heterogeneity.

scholarly journals I overthink—therefore I am not: Altered Sense of Self in Depersonalisation Disorder

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ciaunica ◽  
Casper Hesp ◽  
Anil Seth ◽  
Jakub Limanowski ◽  
Karl Friston
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Mental Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Physiological Abnormalities ◽  
Sensory Attenuation

This paper considers the phenomenology of depersonalisation disorder, in relation to predictive processing and its associated pathophysiology. To do this, we first establish a few mechanistic tenets of predictive processing that are necessary to talk about phenomenal transparency, mental action, and self as subject. We briefly review the important role of ‘predicting precision’ and how this affords mental action and the loss of phenomenal transparency. We then turn to sensory attenuation and the phenomenal consequences of (pathophysiological) failures to attenuate or modulate sensory precision. We then consider this failure in the context of depersonalisation disorder. The key idea here is that depersonalisation disorder reflects the remarkable capacity to explain perceptual engagement with the world via the hypothesis that “I am an embodied perceiver, but I am not in control of my perception”. We suggest that individuals with depersonalisation may believe that ‘another agent’ is controlling their thoughts, perceptions or actions, while maintaining full insight that the ‘another agent’ is ‘me’ (the self). Finally, we rehearse the predictions of this formal analysis, with a special focus on the psychophysical and physiological abnormalities that may underwrite the phenomenology of depersonalisation.

The Minds of Insects

2019 ◽  
pp. 254-265
Author(s):  
Barbara Webb
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Memory ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Mammalian Brain ◽  
Cue Integration ◽  
Evolutionary Pathway ◽  
Embodied Mind ◽  
The World ◽  
Behavioural Repertoire

Insect systems can provide useful “edge cases” against which to test the generality of Clark’s views on the nature of perception, cognition, and action. Insect brains emerged from an independent evolutionary pathway to the mammalian brain but show a comparable capacity in some key areas, such as prediction (internal emulation?), cue integration for spatial memory (Bayesian?), and exploiting structures in the world to extend their behavioural repertoire (extended minds?). Have they converged on the same solutions? Or are there different principles for cognition that they exploit? Reviewing some of the relevant current evidence about behavioural and brain function in insects suggests there is some remaining tension between Clark’s endorsement of the predictive processing principle and his account of the embodied mind.

scholarly journals Dialectics and the Measure of the World

2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (11) ◽  
pp. 2641-2651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Elden
Keyword(s):  
Human Geography ◽  
Alain Badiou ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Quentin Meillassoux

This ‘afterword’ to the papers on dialectics situates the debate in the ground between Marxism and poststructuralism. Rather than a wholesale rejection of the dialectic, these authors attempt to think how poststructuralism might force an encounter with it, retaining yet transforming it. Drawing on Deleuze's characterization of abstract thought as dealing with concepts that “like baggy clothes, are much too big”, and Bergson's complaint that dialectics are “too large … not tailored to the measurements of the reality in which we live”, the paper moves to thinking about the relation of dialectics, measure, and world. It does so through an interrogation of a nondialectical materialism, that of Alain Badiou and his ex-student Quentin Meillassoux, particularly Meillassoux's critique of correlationism. One of the key issues raised is the return of mathematics, and its embrace within some aspects of human geography. Raising the question of how this may reverse some of the gains of poststructuralism and Marxism in combating the reduction of the quantitative revolution, the paper concludes by asking if geography is really willing to accept mathematical ordering, not merely in terms of a way of understanding the world, but as a suggestion that this is how the world actually is.

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