What are the contents of representations in predictive processing?

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (4):715-736 (2017)
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Abstract

Paweł Gładziejewski has recently argued that the framework of predictive processing postulates genuine representations. His focus is on establishing that certain structures posited by PP actually play a representational role. The goal of this paper is to promote this discussion by exploring the contents of representations posited by PP. Gładziejewski already points out that structural theories of representational content can successfully be applied to PP. Here, I propose to make the treatment slightly more rigorous by invoking Francis Egan’s distinction between mathematical and cognitive contents. Applying this distinction to representational contents in PP, I first show that cognitive contents in PP are determined by mathematical contents, at least in the sense that computational descriptions in PP put constraints on ascriptions of cognitive contents. After that, I explore to what extent these constraints are specific. I argue that the general mathematical contents posited by PP do not constrain ascriptions of cognitive content in a specific way. However, there are at least three aspects of PP that constrain ascriptions of cognitive contents in more specific ways: formal PP models posit specific mathematical contents that define more specific constraints; PP entails claims about how computational mechanisms underpin cognitive phenomena ; the processing hierarchy posited by PP goes along with more specific constraints.

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Wanja Wiese
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Citations of this work

A Deflationary Account of Mental Representation.Frances Egan - 2020 - In Joulia Smortchkova, Krzysztof Dołęga & Tobias Schlicht (eds.), What Are Mental Representations? New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press.
Predictive Processing and the Representation Wars.Daniel Williams - 2018 - Minds and Machines 28 (1):141-172.
Beyond Desire? Agency, Choice, and the Predictive Mind.Andy Clark - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (1):1-15.
Imagining the Actual.Daniel Munro - 2021 - Philosophers' Imprint 21 (17).

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References found in this work

The Predictive Mind.Jakob Hohwy - 2013 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Representation Reconsidered.William M. Ramsey - 2007 - Cambridge University Press.

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