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Shimon Edelman’s Riddle of Representation

Shimon Edelman’s Riddle of Representation. two humans, a monkey, and a robot are looking at a piece of cheese ; what is common to the representational processes in their visual systems? . Answer: . The cheese, of course. mainstream (Gwen/ CogPO ) view.

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Shimon Edelman’s Riddle of Representation

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  1. Shimon Edelman’sRiddle of Representation • two humans, a monkey, and a robot are looking at a piece of cheese; • what is common to the representational processes in their visual systems?

  2. Answer: The cheese, of course

  3. mainstream (Gwen/CogPO) view [methodological solipsism (the brain we study could equally well be a brain in a vat)] forgets the cheese

  4. When neuroscientists see an elephant they see only the calcium phosphate chemistry of the tusk • “The mind is a black box” • “Mental processes cannot be observed (except via advanced neuroimaging instruments)”

  5. Where we agree Knowledge of brain structure can and should inform our understanding of mental function We should not waste time on the mind-body problem

  6. Where we disagree Gwen:for science: “every mental process has to be a brain process”Therefore the only way to study the mind is to study the brain BS: we should ensure that we use all the data we can to do good science

  7. Communicating about emotions Affect, feeling, emotion, mood, passion, sentiment Anger, astonishment, awe, bliss, despair, disgust, embarrassment, fear, happiness, hate, joy, love, pride, regret, resentment, satisfaction, scorn, shame, sympathy, terror Image credit: notarivs (flickr)

  8. Gwen (CogPO) view • cripples our empirical work on mental functioning • nearly all our data in social interaction, emotional experience, mental health, … literature …, DSM, will be dismissed as unscientific • enforcing reduction to mappings between sensory inputs and motor outputs would cripple science

  9. Pro Gwen view • ‘mental = neural’ gives a framework for comparative studies – animal models • because animal brains are very like human brains

  10. the mainstream view • would also make cross-organism comparisons difficult, since the kinds of mappings from sensory inputs to external environments differ vastly between, say, spiders and humans

  11. Cognitive Paradigm Ontology Jessica “The mental function experimenters claim to be studying is not as important as the methods for studying it” Compare: doing biology is not as important as building the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations

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