Interlevel Relations in Cognitive Science

Functional robustness refers to a system’s ability to maintain a function in the face of perturbations to the causal structures that support performance of that function. Modularity, a crucial element of standard methods of causal inference and difference-making accounts of causation, refers to the independent manipulability of causal relationships within a system. Functional robustness appears to be at odds with modularity. If a function is maintained despite manipulation of some causal structure that supports that function, then the relationship between that (...) structure and function fails to be manipulable independent of other causal relationships within the system. Contrary to this line of reasoning, I argue that functional robustness often attends feedback control, rather than failures of modularity. Feedback control poses its own challenges to causal explanation and inference, but those challenges do not undermine modularity—and indeed, modularity is crucial to grappling with them. (shrink)

The universal system architecture of Nature can be summarized as: one zero, one one. This is because zero is, technically (and literally), circumference, and one is, technically (and literally), diameter. This means the algorithm that produces Nature (what humans label 'reality') is: if zero, then one (meaning, if one, then zero). Explaining the tokenzation of space (any matrix) (any lattice) (all vortices and edges) (if circumference, then diameter). Meaning, technically, you cannot use 'words' in any language (including the language of (...) mathematics) to describe 'reality.' You have to use the CIrcular Theory diagram (in this article). (shrink)

Mechanism realists assert the existence of mechanisms as objective structures in the world, but their exact metaphysical commitments are unclear. We introduce Local Hierarchy Realism (LHR) as a substantive and plausible form of mechanism realism. The limits of LHR reveal a deep tension between two aspects of mechanists’ explanatory strategy. Functional decomposition identifies locally relevant entities and activities, while these same entities and activities are also embedded in a nested hierarchy of levels. In principle, a functional decomposition may identify entities (...) engaging in causal interactions that crosscut the hierarchical structure of composition relations, violating the mechanist’s injunction against interlevel causation. We argue that this possibility is realized in the example of ephaptic coupling, a subsidiary process of neural computation that crosscuts the hierarchy derived from synaptic transmission. These considerations undermine the plausibility of LHR as a general view, yet LHR has the advantages that (i) its metaphysical implications are precisely stateable; (ii) the structure it identifies is not reducible to mere aggregate causation; and (iii) it clearly satisfies intuitive and informal definitions of mechanism. We conclude by assessing the prospects for a form of mechanism realism weaker than LHR that nevertheless satisfies all three of these requirements. (shrink)

Recent developments in the literature suggest cognitive representation can be conceived of as a kind of mechanism that meets the functional profile set out by the S-representation account. However, this approach is threatened by worries that the S-representation account cannot tell a satisfactory story about content determination at the subpersonal level. One solution is to complement the S-representation account with a traditional etiological theory of content determination. This paper argues such a move is unwarranted and threatens the broader project of (...) understanding representation in mechanism-friendly terms. Once properly situated within a mechanistic framework, the S-representation account can address the issue of content determination without supplementing it with an etiological theory. In turn, this strengthens the notion that combing a mechanistic framework with the S-representation account provides a robust and comprehensive defense of representation’s positive role in cognitive science. (shrink)

What is the relationship between the concepts of the predictive processing theory of brain functioning and the everyday concepts with which people conduct and explain their mental lives? To answer this question, we focus on predictive processing explanations of mental disorder that appeal to false inference. After distinguishing two concepts of false inference, we survey four ways of understanding the relationship between explanations of mental phenomena at the personal and sub-personal level. We then argue that if predictive processing accurately accounts (...) for psychological and socio-cultural dynamics, then personal and sub-personal concepts must display a looping relationship that can impact the nature of at least some mental phenomena. In particular, explaining the phenomenon of delusion in terms of the sub-personal concept of false inference should change the nature of delusional experiences themselves. (shrink)

Clark (2018) worries that predictive processing accounts of perception introduce a puzzling disconnect between the content of personal-level perceptual states and their underlying subpersonal representations. According to PP, in perception, the brain encodes information about the environment in conditional probability density distributions over causes of sensory input. But it seems perceptual experience only presents us with one way the world is at a time. If perception is at bottom probabilistic, shouldn’t this aspect of subpersonally represented content show up in consciousness? (...) To address this worry, Clark argues that representations underlying personal-level content are constrained by the need to provide a single action-guiding take on the environment. However, this proposal rests a conception of the nature of agency, famously articulated by Davidson (1980a,b), that is inconsistent with a view of the mind as embodied-extended. Since Clark and other enactivist PP theorists present the extended mind as an important consequence of the predictive framework, the proposal is in tension with his complete view. I claim that this inconsistency could be resolved either by retaining the Davidsonian view of action and abandoning the extended-embodied approach, or by adopting a more processual, world-involving account of agency and perceptual experience than Clark currently endorses. To solve the puzzle he raises, Clark must become a radical enactivist or a consistent internalist. (shrink)

This chapter will be a brief survey of the concepts from general philosophy of science for those interested in cognitive science. It covers several major topics in the philosophy of science: scientific explanation and underdetermination, reductionism and levels of nature, and scientific realism. We will discuss the goals of science, the methods of science, and the most plausible interpretations of science. To demonstrate the importance of these topics, the chapter includes cases in which confusion over these issues has led scientists (...) astray. These cases include instances in which cognitive neuroscience has failed to discover adequate explanations for phenomena, when previously established research did not withstand further scrutiny, and the increasingly complex and bewildering interrelationship between the study of the mind and the study of the brain and its parts. These issues are common to many areas of science, but they can be particularly fraught in a field like cognitive neuroscience, as researchers from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds and research foci come together to develop a systematic understanding of the mind. (shrink)

How superposition explains the human mind. And, also, the Universe.

Conservation of a circle is the basis for unification (and, also, then, 'unitization'). Explaining and unifying physics, philosophy, and psychology. All disciplines.

We sketch four applications of Marr's levels‐of‐analysis methodology to the relations between logic and experimental data in the cognitive neuroscience of language and reasoning. The first part of the paper illustrates the explanatory power of computational level theories based on logic. We show that a Bayesian treatment of the suppression task in reasoning with conditionals is ruled out by EEG data, supporting instead an analysis based on defeasible logic. Further, we describe how results from an EEG study on temporal prepositions (...) can be reanalyzed using formal semantics, addressing a potential confound. The second part of the article demonstrates the predictive power of logical theories drawing on EEG data on processing progressive constructions and on behavioral data on conditional reasoning in people with autism. Logical theories can constrain processing hypotheses all the way down to neurophysiology, and conversely neuroscience data can guide the selection of alternative computational level models of cognition. (shrink)

We advance an account that grounds cognition, specifically decision-making, in an activity all organisms as autonomous systems must perform to keep themselves viable—controlling their production mechanisms. Production mechanisms, as we characterize them, perform activities such as procuring resources from their environment, putting these resources to use to construct and repair the organism's body and moving through the environment. Given the variable nature of the environment and the continual degradation of the organism, these production mechanisms must be regulated by control mechanisms (...) that select when a production is required and how it should be carried out. To operate on production mechanisms, control mechanisms need to procure information through measurement processes and evaluate possible actions. They are making decisions. In all organisms, these decisions are made by multiple different control mechanisms that are organized not hierarchically but heterarchically. In many cases, they employ internal models of features of the environment with which the organism must deal. Cognition, in the form of decision-making, is thus fundamental to living systems which must control their production mechanisms. (shrink)

Cognitive science began as a multidisciplinary endeavor to understand how the mind works. Since the beginning, cognitive scientists have been asking questions about the right methodologies and levels of explanation to pursue this goal, and make cognitive science a coherent science of the mind. Key questions include: Is there a privileged level of explanation in cognitive science? How do different levels of explanation fit together, or relate to one another? How should explanations at one level inform or constrain explanations at (...) some other level? Can the different approaches to the mind, brain, and culture be unified? The aim of this issue of topiCS is to provide a platform for discussing different answers to such questions and to facilitate a better understanding between the different strands of thinking about the right levels of explanation in cognitive science. (shrink)

One reason for the popularity of Craver’s mutual manipulability account of constitutive relevance is that it seems to make good sense of the experimental practices and constitutive reasoning in the life sciences. Two recent papers propose a theoretical alternative to in light of several important conceptual objections. Their alternative approach, the no de-coupling account, conceives of constitution as a dependence relation that once postulated provides the best explanation of the impossibility of breaking the common cause coupling of a macro-level mechanism (...) and its micro-level components. This entails an abductive view of constitutive inference. Proponents of the NDC or abductive account recognize that their discussion leaves open a big question concerning the practical dimension of the notion of constitutive relevanssssce: Is it possible to faithfully reconstruct constitutional reasoning in science in terms of a failure to de-couple, via interlevel experiments, phenomena from their mechanistic constituents? Focusing on the field of memory and long-term potential research, this article argues that the abductive account provides a more adequate description of interlevel experiments in neuroscience. We also suggest that the account highlights some significant practical recommendations of how to interpret the findings of interlevel experiments. 1Introduction 2Mutual Manipulability and Constitutive Relevance 2.1Constitutive relevance through an interventionist lens 2.2Mutual manipulability: A methodological application 3Trouble for the Mutual Manipulability Account 4The Abductive Account of Constitution 5The Abductive Account: A Methodological Application 5.1Long-term potential and memory experiments 5.2A comparative summary 6Conclusions. (shrink)

Mechanistic approaches are very common in the causal interpretation of biological and neuroscientific experimental work in today’s philosophy of science. In the mechanistic literature a strict distinction is often made between causal relations and constitutive relations, where the latter cannot be causal. One of the typical reasons for this strict distinction is that constitutive relations are supposedly synchronic whereas most if not all causal relations are diachronic. This strict distinction gives rise to a number of problems, however. Our end goal (...) in this paper is to argue that it should be given up, at least in the context of the biological and the psychological sciences. To that effect, we argue that constitutive relations in this context are diachronic, thus undermining the aforementioned reason. We offer two cases from scientific practice in which constitutive relations are regarded as both diachronic and causally efficacious, review three existing ways of dealing with the apparent diachronic nature of interlevel relations in mechanisms and propose a new account of diachronic, causal constitutive relevance. (shrink)

Many debates in philosophy focus on whether folk or scientific psychological notions pick out cognitive natural kinds. Examples include memory, emotions and concepts. A potentially interesting type of kind is: kinds of mental representations (as opposed, for example, to kinds of psychological faculties). In this chapter we outline a proposal for a theory of representational kinds in cognitive science. We argue that the explanatory role of representational kinds in scientific theories, in conjunction with a mainstream approach to explanation in cognitive (...) science, suggest that representational kinds are multi-level. This is to say that representational kinds’ properties cluster at different levels of explanation and allow for intra- and inter-level projections. (shrink)

Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an ‘explanatory gap’ between physical, functional and intentional facts, on the one hand, and the facts of phenomenal consciousness, on the other, argue that there are reasons of principle why phenomenal consciousness cannot be reductively explained: Jackson, ; Levine,, ; McGinn ; Sturgeon, ; Chalmers,. Some of these writers claim that the existence of such a gap would warrant a belief in some form of ontological dualism, whereas others argue (...) that no such entailment holds. In the other main camp, there are people who argue that a reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness is possible in principle, and yet others who claim, moreover, to have provided such an explanation in practice. (shrink)

Classically, the question of recognizing another subject is posed unilaterally, in terms of the observed behaviour of the other entity. Here, we propose an alternative, based on the emergent patterns of activity resulting from the interaction of both partners. We employ a minimalist device which forces the subjects to externalize their perceptual activity as trajectories which can be observed and recorded; the results show that subjects do identify the situation of perceptual crossing with their partner. The interpretation of the results (...) is guided by comparable evolutionary robotics simulations. There are two components to subjects’ recognition capacities: distinguishing mobile and fixed entities; and behaving so as to interact with their partner rather than with a mobile lure. The “Other” is characterized by the feature that there is sufficient regularity in the interactions to encourage the formation of anticipations; but sufficient indetermination that the actual behaviour is consistently surprising. Keywords: Recognition of other; perceptual crossing; evolutionary robotics. (shrink)

Unlike the overall framework of Ernest Nagel's work on reduction, his theory of intertheoretic connection still has life in it. It handles aptly cases where reduction requires complex representation of a target domain. Abandoning his formulation as too liberal was a mistake. Arguments that it is too liberal at best touch only Nagel's deductivist theory of explanation, not his condition of connectability. Taking this condition seriously gives a powerful view of reduction, but one which requires us to index explanatory power (...) to sciences as they are formulated at particular times. While we may thereby reduce more than philosophers have supposed, we must abandon hope (as Nagel did) of saying anything useful about reductionism. (shrink)

The dominant neuroscientific theory of spatial memory is, like many theories in neuroscience, a multilevel description of a mechanism. The theory links the activities of molecules, cells, brain regions, and whole organisms into an integrated sketch of an explanation for the ability of organisms to navigate novel environments. Here I develop a taxonomy of interlevel experimental strategies for integrating the levels in such multilevel mechanisms. These experimental strategies include activation strategies, interference strategies, and additive strategies. These strategies are mutually reinforcing, (...) providing a kind of interlevel and intratheoretic robustness that has not previously been recognized. (shrink)

My thesis is a study in the ontology of psychology, and in particular the status of the entities it is willing to countenance vis-a-vis the physical sciences. The overriding theme which guides the present work is that psychology is an autonomous discipline, autonomous not only in the sense that it utilizes its own distinctive concepts and classification schemes, but in the much stronger sense that it has its own distinct and irreducible ontology which sets it apart from the physical sciences. (...) In a work, psychology is metaphysically autonomous. ;To this end I distinguish three kinds of physicalism which may be thought to constrain the ontology of psychological theory--type physicalism, token physicalism, and physicalism as supervenience--and criticize each in turn. The first is the topic for chapters 1 and 2, where I present and defend the multiple realizability argument, strengthening its case by taking into account the more important criticisms which can be found in the literature, for example, Kim's appeal to physical multiple realizations, infinite disjunctive properties, and species-specific laws. Then, in chapters 3 and 4, I critically evaluate token physicalism, first by showing the connection between token identities and the individuation of events, and then by showing that such token identities rest on an implausible theory of events. ;The most recent trend in the philosophy of mind, however, is to move away from identity theories altogether and embrace a view which I have called physicalism as supervenience. The basic idea is that psycho-physical dependencies are to be understood in terms of a supervenience relation, according to which physical events determine mental events, independent of questions about type or token identities. But this too is a mistake. While I do think there are exceptions to supervenience, my main point in chapter 5 is that psychophysical supervenience is too weak a relation to capture physicalist intuitions. ;What should become apparent, I hope, is that the autonomy of psychology is neither exceptional nor an exceptional fact. Indeed, other sciences like biology are likewise autonomous relative to more basic physical theories, and some of the arguments I give are easily extended to the case of other scientific disciplines. Hence the present study is relevant not only to traditional philosophic concerns over mind and body, but also carries implications for those disputes in the philosophy of science concerning inter-theoretic reductions and the traditional unity of science. (shrink)

Reference to mechanisms is virtually ubiquitous in science and its philosophy. Yet, the concept of a mechanism remains largely unanalyzed; So too for its possible applications in thinking about scientific explanation, experimental practice, and theory structure. This dissertation investigates these issues in the context of contemporary neurobiology. ;The theories of neurobiology are hierarchically organized descriptions of mechanisms that explain functions. Mechanisms are the coordinated activities of entities by virtue of which that function is performed. Since the activities composing mechanisms are (...) often susceptible to mechanical redescription themselves, theories in neurobiology have a characteristic hierarchical structure. The activities of entities at one level are the sub-activities of those at a higher level. ;This hierarchy reveals a fundamental symmetry of functional and mechanical descriptions. Functions are privileged activities of entities; they are privileged because they constitute a stage in some higher-level mechanism. The privileged activities of entities, in turn, are explained by detailing the stages of activity in the lower-level mechanism. Functional and mechanical descriptions are different tools for situating activities, properties, and entities into a hierarchy of activities. They are not competing kinds of description. Experimental techniques for testing such descriptions reflect this symmetry. ;Philosophical discussions of inter-level explanatory relationships have traditionally been framed by reference to inter-theoretic reduction models. The representational strictures of first order predicate calculus and the epistemological strictures logical empiricism combine in this reduction model to focus attention upon issues of identity and deriveability; these are entirely peripheral to the explanatory aims of mechanical explanation. Mechanical explanation is causal. Derivational models of explanation do not adequately reflect the importance of activities in rendering phenomena intelligible. ;Activities are kinds of change. "Bonding," "diffusing," "transcribing," "opening," and "attracting" all describe different kinds of transformation. Salmon's modified process theory is helpful in understanding the role of entities and properties in causal interactions; but it ultimately makes no room for kinds of change in the explanatory cupboard. We make change intelligible by identifying and characterizing its different kinds and relating these to activities that are taken to be fundamental for a science at a time. (shrink)

Do accounts of scientific theory formation and revision have implications for theories of everyday cognition? We maintain that failing to distinguish between importantly different types of theories of scientific inference has led to fundamental misunderstandings of the relationship between science and everyday cognition. In this article, we focus on one influential manifestation of this phenomenon which is found in Fodor's well-known critique of theories of cognitive architecture. We argue that in developing his critique, Fodor confounds a variety of distinct claims (...) about the holistic nature of scientific inference. Having done so, we outline more promising relations that hold between theories of scientific inference and ordinary cognition. (shrink)

I show that the recent account of levels in neuroscience proposed by Craver and Bechtel is unsatisfactory since it fails to provide a plausible criterion for being at the same level and is incompatible with Craver and Bechtel’s account of downward causation. Furthermore, I argue that no distinct notion of levels is needed for analyzing explanations and causal issues in neuroscience: it is better to rely on more well-defined notions such as composition and scale. One outcome of this is that (...) apparent cases of downward causation can be analyzed away. (shrink)

In this volume, Brakel raises questions about conventions in the study of mind in three disciplines—psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. She illuminates new understandings of the mind through interdisciplinary challenges to views long-accepted. Here she proposes a view of psychoanalysis as a treatment that owes its successes largely to its biological nature—biological in its capacity to best approximate the extinction of problems arising owing to aversive conditioning. She also discusses whether or not "the mental" can have any real (...) ontological standing, arguing that a form of reductive physicalism can be sufficient ontologically, but that epistemological considerations require a branch of non-reductive physicalism. She then notes the positive implications of this view for psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Finally, she investigates the role of "consistency" in method and content, toward which experimental philosophers strive. In essence, Brakel articulates the different sets of challenges pertaining to: a) ancient dilemmas such as the mind/body problem; b) longstanding debates about the nature of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis; and c) new core questions arising in the relatively young discipline of experimental philosophy. (shrink)