I discuss Clark’s predictive processing/extended mind hybrid, diagnosing a problem: Clark’s hybrid suggests that, when we use them, we pay attention to mind-extending external resources. This clashes with a commonly accepted necessary condition of cognitive extension; namely, that mind-extending resources must be phenomenally transparent when used. I then propose a solution to this problem claiming that the phenomenal transparency condition should be rejected. To do so, I put forth a parity argument to the effect that phenomenal transparency cannot be a (...) necessary condition on cognitive extension: roughly, since internal cognitive resources can fail to be transparent when used, by parity, external resources can fail to be phenomenally transparent too. Further, I argue that phenomenal transparency is not even a reliable indicator of cognitive extension; hence its absence should not be considered a problem for Clark’s extended mind-predictive processing hybrid. Lastly, I consider and allay a number of worries my proposal might raise, and conclude the paper. (shrink)

As neither a classical naturalist nor a non-naturalist, Merleau-Ponty appears to be a moderate or liberal naturalist. But can a phenomenologist really be a naturalist, even a liberal one? A lot hinges on how we tease this out, both as to whether it is plausible to claim Merleau-Ponty as a liberal naturalist (I argue it is), and as to whether it is an attractive and coherent position. Indeed, despite its important challenges to orthodox naturalism, there are arguably two traps to (...) avoid. If it becomes too liberal, we get: dualism or an ontological pluralism that is difficult to distinguish from a constructivism; or, in seeking to sidestep that metaphysical dilemma, there is sometimes an insistence on an overly neat methodological separation between description/understanding and explanation that is belied in practice (both scientific and philosophical). It is doubtful that such positions can legitimately claim to be naturalist in orientation, liberal or not. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy avoids these traps, however, and it is thus a useful resource for contemporary work trying to navigate between scientific naturalism and non-naturalism. (shrink)

Clark has recently suggested that predictive processing advances a theory of neural function with the resources to put an ecumenical end to the “representation wars” of recent cognitive science. In this paper I defend and develop this suggestion. First, I broaden the representation wars to include three foundational challenges to representational cognitive science. Second, I articulate three features of predictive processing’s account of internal representation that distinguish it from more orthodox representationalist frameworks. Specifically, I argue that it posits a resemblance-based (...) representational architecture with organism-relative contents that functions in the service of pragmatic success, not veridical representation. Finally, I argue that internal representation so understood is either impervious to the three anti-representationalist challenges I outline or can actively embrace them. (shrink)

Stereotypes are often described as being generally inaccurate and irrational. However, for years, a minority of social psychologists has been proclaiming that stereotype accuracy is among the most robust findings in the field. This same minority also opposes the majority by questioning the power of self-fulfilling prophecies and thereby the construction of social reality. The present paper examines this long-standing debate from the perspective of predictive processing, an increasingly influential cognitive science theory. In this theory, stereotype accuracy and self-fulfilling prophecies (...) are two sides of the same coin, namely prediction error minimisation, pointing to a new middle course between the two existing views. On the one hand, predictive processing indicates that depicting stereotypes as generally inaccurate runs counter to their actual purpose of making the social world predictable, which supports the minority view. On the other hand, predictive processing supposes that expectations, including stereotypes, permanently affect perception and behaviour and thereby co-construct social reality, which supports the majority view. Therefore, from a predictive processing perspective, stereotypes are largely rational and not per se inaccurate, and self-fulfilling prophecies are omnipresent and greatly affect social reality. This new middle course appears to fit the empirical data better than the two existing views. (shrink)

Predictive processing is an increasingly popular approach to cognition, perception and action. It says that the brain is essentially a hierarchical prediction machine. It is typically construed in a representationalist and inferentialist fashion so that the brain makes contentful inferences on the basis of representational models. In this paper, I argue that the predictive processing framework is inconsistent with this epistemic position. In particular, I argue that the combination of hierarchical modeling, contentful inferentialism and representationalism entail an internal inconsistency. Specifically, (...) for a particular set of states, there will be both a representation requirement and not. Yet a system cannot both be required to represent a certain set of states and not be required to represent those states. Due to this contradiction, I propose to reject the standard view. I suggest that predictive processing is best interpreted in terms of reliable covariation instead, entailing an instrumentalist approach to the statistical machinery. (shrink)

Predictive processing theories are increasingly popular in philosophy of mind; such process theories often gain support from the Free Energy Principle —a normative principle for adaptive self-organized systems. Yet there is a current and much discussed debate about conflicting philosophical interpretations of FEP, e.g., representational versus non-representational. Here we argue that these different interpretations depend on implicit assumptions about what qualifies as representational. We deploy the Free Energy Principle instrumentally to distinguish four main notions of representation, which focus on organizational, (...) structural, content-related and functional aspects, respectively. The various ways that these different aspects matter in arriving at representational or non-representational interpretations of the Free Energy Principle are discussed. We also discuss how the Free Energy Principle may be seen as a unified view where terms that traditionally belong to different ontologies—e.g., notions of model and expectation versus notions of autopoiesis and synchronization—can be harmonized. However, rather than attempting to settle the representationalist versus non-representationalist debate and reveal something about what representations are simpliciter, this paper demonstrates how the Free Energy Principle may be used to reveal something about those partaking in the debate; namely, what our hidden assumptions about what representations are—assumptions that act as sometimes antithetical starting points in this persistent philosophical debate. (shrink)

We present a multiscale integrationist interpretation of the boundaries of cognitive systems, using the Markov blanket formalism of the variational free energy principle. This interpretation is intended as a corrective for the philosophical debate over internalist and externalist interpretations of cognitive boundaries; we stake out a compromise position. We first survey key principles of new radical views of cognition. We then describe an internalist interpretation premised on the Markov blanket formalism. Having reviewed these accounts, we develop our positive multiscale account. (...) We argue that the statistical seclusion of internal from external states of the system—entailed by the existence of a Markov boundary—can coexist happily with the multiscale integration of the system through its dynamics. Our approach does not privilege any given boundary, nor does it argue that all boundaries are equally prescient. We argue that the relevant boundaries of cognition depend on the level being characterised and the explanatory interests that guide investigation. We approach the issue of how and where to draw the boundaries of cognitive systems through a multiscale ontology of cognitive systems, which offers a multidisciplinary research heuristic for cognitive science. (shrink)

The dispute over the continuity of life and mind. Arguments for cognitivism: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the position of non-cognitivism on the issue of the so-called dispute over the continuity / discontinuity of life and mind. In discussing the views of Michael Kirchhoff and Tom Froese, I will point out some difficulties related to their position. Next, I will formulate three arguments in favor of the cognitive alternative, emphasizing the need to resort to semantic information in (...) explaining these phenomena. According to noncognitivist position, there is a continuity in the life-mind line, which can be justified by referring to the concept of Shannon’s syntactic information. Opponents of this thesis, i.e. supporters of cognitivism, claim that the explanation of cognition requires the use of other tools than those used to explanation of life, because, first, the notion of syntactic information does not exhaust the complexity of these phenomena, and, second, the non-cognitive position raises many problems and ambiguities. According to cognitivists, when explaining life and mind, one should refer to the concept of semantic information that is rejected by noncognitivists. In the Conclusion I will analyze the ambiguities and assumptions related to the thesis about the continuity or discontinuity between life and cognitive processes. (shrink)

On an ‘internalist’ picture, knowledge isn’t necessary for understanding the nature of perception and perceptual experience. This contrasts with the ‘knowledge first’ picture, according to which it’s essential to the nature of successful perceiving as a mental state that it’s a way of knowing. It’s often thought that naturalistic theorizing about the mind should adopt the internalist picture. However, I argue that a powerful, recently prominent framework for scientific study of the mind, ‘predictive processing,’ instead supports the knowledge first picture. (...) Under predictive processing, it’s intrinsic to successful perceiving that it’s a state with the kind of modal robustness that’s distinctive of knowledge, which gives us reason to think of successful perceiving along knowledge first lines. Furthermore, I argue that the predictive processing framework encourages us to conceptualize experiences which don’t amount to knowledge along knowledge first lines, as states which by their nature fall short of knowledge. (shrink)

According to the free energy principle all living systems aim to minimise free energy in their sensory exchanges with the environment. Processes of free energy minimisation are thus ubiquitous in the biological world. Indeed it has been argued that even plants engage in free energy minimisation. Not all living things however feel alive. How then did the feeling of being alive get started? In line with the arguments of the phenomenologists, I will claim that every feeling must be felt by (...) someone. It must have mineness built into it if it is to feel a particular way. The question I take up in this paper asks how mineness might have arisen out of processes of free energy minimisation, given that many systems that keep themselves alive lack mineness. The hypothesis I develop in this paper is that the life of an organism can be seen as an inferential process. Every living system embodies a probability distribution conditioned on a model of the sensory, physiological, and morphological states that are highly probably given the life it leads and the niche it inhabits. I argue for an ecological and enactive interpretation of free energy. I show how once the life of an organism reaches a certain level of complexity mineness emerges as an intrinsic part of the process of life itself. (shrink)

We develop a truism of commonsense psychology that perception and action constitute the boundaries of the mind. We do so however not on the basis of commonsense psychology, but by using the notion of a Markov blanket originally employed to describe the topological properties of causal networks. We employ the Markov blanket formalism to propose precise criteria for demarcating the boundaries of the mind that unlike other rival candidates for “marks of the cognitive” avoids begging the question in the extended (...) mind debate. Our criteria imply that the boundary of the mind is nested and multiscale sometimes extending beyond the individual agent to incorporate items located in the environment. Chalmers has used commonsense psychology to develop what he sees as the most serious challenge to the view that minds sometimes extend into the world. He has argued that perception and action should be thought of as interfaces that separate minds from their surrounding environment. In a series of recent papers Hohwy has defended a similar claim using the Markov blanket formalism. We use the Markov blanket formalism to show how both of their objections to the extended mind fail. (shrink)

Shaun Gallagher calls for a radical rethinking of the concept of nature and he resists reduction of phenomenology to computational-neural science. However, classic, reductionist science, at least in contemporary computational guise, has the resources to accommodate insights from transcendental phenomenology. Reductionism should be embraced, not feared.

A number of perceptual (exteroceptive and proprioceptive) illusions present problems for predictive processing accounts. In this chapter we’ll review explanations of the Müller-Lyer Illusion (MLI), the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) and the Alien Hand Illusion (AHI) based on the idea of Prediction Error Minimization (PEM), and show why they fail. In spite of the relatively open communicative processes which, on many accounts, are posited between hierarchical levels of the cognitive system in order to facilitate the minimization of prediction errors, perceptual (...) illusions seemingly allow prediction errors to rule. Even if, at the top, we have reliable and secure knowledge that the lines in the MLI are equal, or that the rubber hand in the RHI is not our hand, the system seems unable to correct for sensory errors that form the illusion. We argue that the standard PEM explanation based on a short-circuiting principle doesn’t work. This is the idea that where there are general statistical regularities in the environment there is a kind of short circuiting such that relevant priors are relegated to lower-level processing so that information from higher levels is not exchanged (Ogilvie and Carruthers, Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7:721–742, 2016), or is not as precise as it should be (Hohwy, The Predictive Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013). Such solutions (without convincing explanation) violate the idea of open communication and/or they over-discount the reliable and secure knowledge that is in the system. We propose an alternative, 4E (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive) solution. We argue that PEM fails to take into account the ‘structural resistance’ introduced by material and cultural factors in the broader cognitive system. (shrink)

I argue that there is no viable development of the instrumentalist inference within a model research program. I further argue that both Friston and Pearl blankets are not the right sort of tool to settle debates on philosophical internalism and externalism. For these reasons, the inference within a model program is far less promising than the target article suggests.

The extended mind thesis claims that a subject’s mind sometimes encompasses the environmental props the subject interacts with while solving cognitive tasks. Recently, the debate over the extended mind has been focused on Markov Blankets: the statistical boundaries separating biological systems from the environment. Here, I argue such a focus is mistaken, because Markov Blankets neither adjudicate, nor help us adjudicate, whether the extended mind thesis is true. To do so, I briefly introduce Markov Blankets and the free energy principle (...) in Section 2. I then turn from exposition to criticism. In Section 3, I argue that using Markov Blankets to determine whether the mind extends will provide us with an answer based on circular reasoning. In Section 4, I consider whether Markov Blankets help us track the boundaries of the mind, answering in the negative. This is because resorting to Markov Blankets to track the boundaries of the mind yields extensionally inadequate conclusions which violate the parity principle. In Section 5, I further argue that Markov Blankets led us to sidestep the debate over the extended mind, as they make internalism about the mind vacuously true. A brief concluding paragraph follows. (shrink)

The extended mind thesis claims that a subject’s mind sometimes encompasses the environmental props the subject interacts with while solving cognitive tasks. Recently, the debate over the extended mind has been focused on Markov Blankets: the statistical boundaries separating biological systems from the environment. Here, I argue such a focus is mistaken, because Markov Blankets neither adjudicate, nor help us adjudicate, whether the extended mind thesis is true. To do so, I briefly introduce Markov Blankets and the free energy principle (...) in Section 2. I then turn from exposition to criticism. In Section 3, I argue that using Markov Blankets to determine whether the mind extends will provide us with an answer based on circular reasoning. In Section 4, I consider whether Markov Blankets help us track the boundaries of the mind, answering in the negative. This is because resorting to Markov Blankets to track the boundaries of the mind yields extensionally inadequate conclusions which violate the parity principle. In Section 5, I further argue that Markov Blankets led us to sidestep the debate over the extended mind, as they make internalism about the mind vacuously true. A brief concluding paragraph follows. (shrink)

Philosophers interested in the theoretical consequences of predictive processing often assume that predictive processing is an inferentialist and representationalist theory of cognition. More specifically, they assume that predictive processing revolves around approximated Bayesian inferences drawn by inverting a generative model. Generative models, in turn, are said to be structural representations: representational vehicles that represent their targets by being structurally similar to them. Here, I challenge this assumption, claiming that, at present, it lacks an adequate justification. I examine the only argument (...) offered to establish that generative models are structural representations, and argue that it does not substantiate the desired conclusion. Having so done, I consider a number of alternative arguments aimed at showing that the relevant structural similarity obtains, and argue that all these arguments are unconvincing for a variety of reasons. I then conclude the paper by briefly highlighting three themes that might be relevant for further investigation on the matter. (shrink)

What is the function of cognition? On one influential account, cognition evolved to co-ordinate behaviour with environmental change or complexity. Liberal interpretations of this view ascribe cognition to an extraordinarily broad set of biological systems—even bacteria, which modulate their activity in response to salient external cues, would seem to qualify as cognitive agents. However, equating cognition with adaptive flexibility per se glosses over important distinctions in the way biological organisms deal with environmental complexity. Drawing on contemporary advances in theoretical biology (...) and computational neuroscience, we cash these distinctions out in terms of different kinds of generative models, and the representational and uncertainty-resolving capacities they afford. This analysis leads us to propose a formal criterion for delineating cognition from other, more pervasive forms of adaptive plasticity. On this view, biological cognition is rooted in a particular kind of functional organisation; namely, that which enables the agent to detach from the present and engage in counterfactual inference. (shrink)

Luciano Floridi’s informational structural realism takes a constructionist attitude towards the problems of epistemology and metaphysics, but the question of the nature of the semantical component of his view remains vexing. In this paper, I propose to dispense with the semantical component of ISR completely. I outline a Syntactical version of ISR. The unified entropy-based framework of information has been adopted as the groundwork of SISR. To establish its realist component, SISR should be able to dissolve the latching problem. We (...) have to be able to account for the informational structures–reality relationship in the absence of the standard semantical resources. The paper offers a pragmatic solution to the latching problem. I also take pains to account for the naturalistic plausibility of this solution by grounding it in the recent computational neuroscience of the predictive coding and the free energy principle. (shrink)

The paper draws on an algorithmic criterion to demonstrate that the self is a composite, scattered, and patterned object. It also addresses the question of extendedness of the self-pattern. Based on the criteria drawn from algorithmic complexity, I argue that although the self-pattern possesses a genuinely extended aspect the self-pattern and its environment do not constitute a genuine composite object.

Recent works in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences draw an “unconventional” picture of cognitive processes and of the mind. Instead of conceiving of cognition as a process that takes place within the boundaries of the skull and the skin, some contemporary theories claim that cognition is a situated process that encompasses the human agent’s boundaries. In particular, the Extended Mind Hypothesis (EMH) and the Enactive approach to cognition claim that embodied action is constitutive of cognitive processes, and thus (...) of the mind. Although both theories give an “extended” or “extensive” picture of cognition and of the mind, they disagree on the epistemic value of internal representations. The EMH claims that we need to posit internal action- oriented representations (AORs). AORs would account for action-selection, action-control, and for the prediction of incoming perceptual information. The enactive approach to cognition argues against AORs. The concept of AOR does not fulfill the representational conditions necessary to talk about representations properly. Furthermore, AORs are expressive of an internalistic prejudice, which makes the EMH weak. Moreover, a semiotic analysis of AORs shows that these items called “representations” are not active at all. Therefore, the epistemic posit of AOR plays no interesting job in the project of extending the mind in virtue of a reassessment of the concept of representation aimed at making it embodied and active. Therefore I claim that the concept of AOR has to be rejected. Action- control, action-selection, and the anticipation of aspects of action-perception loops can be explained in a more enactive way. Embodied action in a field of affordances explains how agents respond selectively to environmental features and how action-perception loops are anticipated by the “affective agent”. Furthermore, the enactive approach to cognition - especially if coupled with a semiotic description of cognitive niches and with some insights from the affective sciences (e.g. appraisal of core relational themes) - gives an explanation of action that, in contrast to the EMH, is actually able to “extend the mind”. (shrink)

This work addresses the autonomous organization of biological systems. It does so by considering the boundaries of biological systems, from individual cells to Home sapiens, in terms of the presence of Markov blankets under the active inference scheme—a corollary of the free energy principle. A Markov blanket defines the boundaries of a system in a statistical sense. Here we consider how a collective of Markov blankets can self-assemble into a global system that itself has a Markov blanket; thereby providing an (...) illustration of how autonomous systems can be understood as having layers of nested and self-sustaining boundaries. This allows us to show that: (i) any living system is a Markov blanketed system and (ii) the boundaries of such systems need not be co-extensive with the biophysical boundaries of a living organism. In other words, autonomous systems are hierarchically composed of Markov blankets of Markov blankets—all the way down to individual cells, all the way up to you and me, and all the way out to include elements of the local environment. (shrink)

At least two distinct modeling frameworks contribute to the view that mind and brain are Bayesian: Bayesian Rational Analysis (BRA) and Hierarchical Predictive Coding (HPC). What is the relative contribution of each, and how exactly do they relate? In order to answer this question, we compare the way in which these two modeling frameworks address different levels of analysis within Marr’s tripartite conception of explanation in cognitive science. Whereas BRA answers questions at the computational level only, many HPC-theorists answer questions (...) at the computational, algorithmic, and implementational levels simultaneously. Given that all three levels of analysis need to be addressed in order to explain a behavioral or cognitive phenomenon, HPC seems to deliver more complete explanations. Nevertheless, BRA is well-suited for providing a solution to the dark room problem, a major theoretical obstacle for HPC. A combination of the two approaches also combines the benefits of an embodied-externalistic approach to resolving the dark room problem with the idea of a persisting evidentiary border beyond which matters are out of cognitive reach. For this reason, the development of explanations spanning all three Marrian levels within the general Bayesian approach may require combining the BRA and HPC modeling frameworks. (shrink)

Predictive Processing (PP) framework construes perception and action (and perhaps other cognitive phenomena) as a matter of minimizing prediction error, i.e. the mismatch between the sensory input and sensory predictions generated by a hierarchically organized statistical model. There is a question of how PP fits into the debate between traditional, neurocentric and representation-heavy approaches in cognitive science and those approaches that see cognition as embodied, environmentally embedded, extended and (largely) representation-free. In the present paper, I aim to investigate and clarify (...) the cognitivist or ‘conservative’ reading of PP. I argue that the conservative commitments of PP can be divided into three distinct categories: (1) representationalism, (2) inferentialism, and (3) internalism. I show how these commitments and their relations should be understood and argue for an interpretation of each that is both non-trivial and largely ecumenical towards the 4E literature. Conservative PP is as progressive as conservatism gets. (shrink)