[lit-ideas] Re: The Causal Theory of Perception
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2014 09:44:52 -0500 (EST)
I see that the black cat is on the red mat.
---- Therefore, the black cat is on the red mat
----- and the black cat's being on the red mat accounts for my seeing the
black cat is on the red mat.
Grice holds this is 'analytic' (after all, it IS an 'analysis' of "I see
that"); McEvoy seems to hold it's synthetic.
McEvoy adds to the 'problem' of perception (as Witters would call it: "I
call things problems," Witters says, "so people can see me as solving them")
the idea of problem-solving, or as I and Lloyd Morgan prefer, trial and
error.
"Trial" is a compound of 'try', as in:
I try to see that the black cat is on the mat.
and
I error when I see that the black cat is on the red mat: the red cat is on
the black mat, as it happens.
Adding O. K.'s examples, we have:
I hallucinate that the black cat is on the red mat.
I have an illusion to the effect that the black cat is on the red mat
(Argument from Illusion).
I have a disillusion to the effect that the red cat is on the black mat
(Geary's Argument from Disillusion).
As O. K. writes:
"Austin in Sense and Sensibilia makes the point about Ayer's loose usage of
'illusion' and 'delusion', frequently making it sound as if they were
interchangeable."
So we should add:
I'm deluded that the black cat is on the red mat.
In this case, a first-person vs. third-seems helpful:
He's deluded that the black cat is on the red mat
ENTAILS
The black cat is NOT on the red mat (It's his dilusion).
However, as G. E. Moore pointed out,
"The black cat is on the red mat but I am deluded"
seems harder to accept.
(vide Geary, "Delusion and Disillusion in the philosophy of Heidegger and
Husserl: a deep influence", Memphis Metaphysical Ministry, Circular No. 63,
September).
Grice refers to cases like these as specimens (or attacks, as he prefers)
of the well-known Smith's disease.
"I know that I suffer from it, and I'm now having one attack". One
characteristic of the disease is that black things look red to the perceiving
subject, and red things look black.
"My addressee," however, "knows that I'm having this attack, and knows that
I know that he knows I'm having this attack". Therefore, under this
'try-and-error' circumstance, my addressee is able to understand what I mean
(or
not).
To add to the confusion, in the Ashby-and-Cybernetics tradition, the word
"trial" seems to ENTAIL random-or-arbitrary, without any deliberate choice.
However amongst non-cyberneticians, "trial" ENTAILS a deliberate subjective
act by some adult human agent; (e.g. in a court-room, or laboratory).
So that has sometimes led to confusion. Unless are armed with a theory of
disimplicature alla Grice and know when to see an utterer is meaning less
than she says (or vice versa).
Incidentally it seems that consciousness is not an essential ingredient for
trial and error as often discussed, but it should be for Grice and Popper,
for after all the analysis is:
I see that the black cat is on the red mat.
where "I" ENTAILS consciousness (vide Grice, "Personal Identity"). The
sentence should be distinguished from:
I fell from the stairs.
-- also used by Grice. In this case, 'I' = "My body'. In the case of
'seeing', it seems to be _more_ than my body (even if the eyes and the brain
are
ENTAILED). Popper makes the distinction when speaks of the 'self' as in
Popper's (or Grice's, or Eccles's) self and the brain, as in Popper's (or
Grice's or Eccles's) brain.
There is (or isn't) the further problem of the homunculus.
In scientific fields, a homunculus may refer to any scale model of the
human body that, in some way, illustrates physiological, psychological, or
other abstract human characteristics or functions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_(philosophy_of_mind)#Homuncular_f
unctionalism
Since mind-mind supervenience seemed to have become acceptable in
functionalist circles, it seemed to some that the only way to resolve the
puzzle
was to postulate the existence of an entire hierarchical series of mind levels
(analogous to homunculi) which became less and less sophisticated in terms
of functional organization and physical composition all the way down to
the level of the physico-mechanical neuron or group of neurons. The homunculi
at each level, on this view, have authentic mental properties but become
simpler and less intelligent as one works one's way down the hierarchy.
In "Causal Theory of Perception" Grice analyses Price's claim
("Perception") as involving two clauses. The first corresponds to the strict
analysans
in terms of the causal role of material object M possessing property P; the
second to the intepretation of 'cause' -- what Grice calls the fire-smoke
model, which he finds inadequate for a number of reasons.
We are discussing that, and more.
McEvoy refers to 'trial-and-error' and that led me to a little research on
the expression, or term, as coined by Lloyd Morgan and used by
psychologists drawing from Popper in places like
"The Roots of Perception: Individual Differences in Information Processing
Within and Beyond Awareness" (a Google eBook)
by U. Hentschel, G. Smith, J.G. Draguns
Elsevier ("The subject matter of this book is subliminal perception and
microgenetic perceptual processing, two important topics on the interface
between perception and personality. It presents a different way of handling
these topics, biological in its emphasis on process, humanistic in its
focussing on the dynamics of individual experience").
McEvoy
In a message dated 2/5/2014 6:07:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:Austin in Sense and Sensibilia makes the point
about
Ayer's loose usage of 'illusion' and 'delusion', frequently making it sound as
if they were interchangeable.
Good points and reference.
Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
we could detour into examining the so-called 'Argument from Illusion'.
Indeed.
He goes on:
"This point is one of the major underlying themes of [Popper's] "The Self
and Its Brain": ... Popper wishes to show not only how the mind looks in
the light of his epistemology but indicate how this epistemology dovetails
with everything we know about the workings of the brain and other sense
organs."
On the other hand, perhaps, there is the early Popper of "Logic of
Scientific Discovery" and his campaign against the empiricist's (or logical
empiricist's, or logical positivist's) view that it's sense-data reports (or
'basic statements') all there is. Grice seems to touch on that when he goes to
the defense of the sense-datum theory (as it were) with qualifications as to
where to draw the lines in terms of alleged implications which are not
part of the meaning of sense-datum reports.
The early Popper also helped elucidate the analysis of 'observe' and at
one point Grice does make the distinction between, say, "I saw that the cat
is on the mat" versus "I observed that the cat is on the mat". He touches on
the phenomenalist's point of reducing, as it were, the relevant 'material
object' to an 'ens rationis' (alla 'electron' in physical theory, he
mentions) or as something that we only arrive by 'inference' (which may but
then
may not compare to Popper's later views on 'trial-and-error').
McEvoy:
"we do NOT [emphasis mine -- Speranza] experience the vast
'TRIAR-AND-ERROR' [emphasis mine -- Speranza] processes that are involved when
we open our
eyes and experience 'seeing an object': we neither experience the vast
evolutionary 'TRIAL-AND-ERROR' [emphasis mine -- Speranza] history that
underpins the eye we inherit from our ancestors nor do we experience the
complex,
rapid 'TRIAL-AND-ERROR' [emphasis mine -- Speranza] processes involved
when that inherited eye (and its brain) springs into action when we raise our
eyelid. But our models, including scientific models, can throw much
surprising light on all these processes - much more light than we get by
thinking
about what it feels like when we experience 'seeing an object', as our
experience is far from 'transparent' as to how it is formed."
One problem here may, but then again may not, be what I think some
philosophers call the "HOMUNCULUS theory". I came across this in readings of
neo-Griceian approaches to representationalism (Cummings, Mind and Meaning, or
Meaning and Representation). So it may do to explore the 'trial' and the
'error'. Wiki may have something to say about that.
Grice of course deals with 'implicatures' of 'try' in "Prolegomena to
Logic and Conversation" (ambitious and slightly pretentious title, but
post-delivery of what is just the first William James lecture at Harvard in
1967).
Notably, H. L. A. Hart's misconceptions about 'try' ("He tried to post a
letter; and he succeeded"). I'm not sure he dealt with 'error'.
This point by Grice on 'try' ("He tried and he succeeded") relates,
interestingly (in my view) to the 'causal' in 'causal theory' as in 'causal
theory of perception', because, echoing Hart, Grice feels that 'cause' is
perhaps too strong of a noun, and the proper ('too proper' for Grice) use of
'cause' would best seem to restrict it to 'abnormal' cases (this is one of the
six, I think, theses, that Grice holds as having a family resemblance with
the thesis under discussion to the effect that sense-datum reports ("It
looks to me as if the pillar box is red") carry a doubt-or-denial implicature
of sorts ("Someone doubts it is red; It isn't red, after all").
I read from wiki that "trial and error" is a fundamental method of solving
problems.
In this case, the problem of perception, as it were.
"Trial and error is characterised by repeated, varied attempts which are
continued until success, or until the agent stops trying."
In the case under discussion, perception, since the agent is not
'conscious', this may lead to a 'homuncular' posit. Or not.
Trial and error, the Wikipedia entry goes on, "is an unsystematic method
which does not employ insight, theory or organised methodology."
According to W.H. Thorpe, the phrase, "trial and error" was coined by C.
Lloyd Morgan after trying out similar phrases
"trial and failure" and
"trial and practice".
Oddly, he didn't come with my favourite: the triad: trial and error and
success. "Trial and failure" sounds awfully pesimistic. "Trial and practice"
sounds fine, but also does "tribulation and trial".
Under Morgan's canon, animal behaviour [including the perceptual phenomena
which are prior to conduct] should be explained in the simplest possible
way.
"Where behaviour seems to imply higher mental processes, it might be
explained by trial and error learning."
Here we add 'learn', which carries its own implicatures.
"He finally, via trial and error, learned THAT the cat was on the mat".
-- Suppose that as the conclusion on a dog's piece of reasoning (the cat
chases the mouse, and the dog chases the cat).
An example is the skillful way in which Lloyd Morgan's Yorkshire terrier
Tony opens the garden gate, easily misunderstood as an insightful act by
someone seeing the final behaviour.
Which should have, as a prior element, the more or less correct account of
the perceptual 'belief':
Tony sees that the garden gate is closed.
Lloyd Morgan watched and recorded the series of approximations by which
Tony gradually learns the response.
Lloyd Morgan goes on to argue that no insight is required to explain
Tony's behaviour (Tony's opening of the garden gate -- _when it is previously
closed_).
The Wikipedia entry goes on to note that Edward Thorndike showed how to
manage a trial and error experiment in the laboratory.
In a famous experiment, a cat, called Whiskers, was placed in a series of
puzzle boxes in order to study the law of EFFECT in learning.
Thorndike (not Whiskers) went on to plot learning curves which recorded
the timing for each of the Whiskers's trial
Thorndike's key observation is that Whiskers's learning was promoted by
positive results, which was later refined and extended by B.F. Skinner's
operant conditioning.
It is surprising that, even though positivism was key, the term 'error'
and 'failure', with their negative implicatures, was kept.
Wikipedia goes on:
"Trial and error is also a heuristic method of problem solving, repair,
tuning, or obtaining knowledge."
As in
I saw that the cat is on the mat.
I knew that the cat is on the mat.
----
"In the field of computer science, the method is called generate and test.
In elementary algebra, when solving equations, it is "guess and check"".
But in the philosophy of perception, it's best to stick to 'trial and
error'.
"This approach", the wikipedia goes on, "can be seen as one of the two
basic approaches to problem solving, contrasted with an approach using insight
and theory."
I think 'insight' is the one preferred by Hacker, as per his "Illusion
[sic] and insight".
On the other hand, 'theory' seems to be favoured by Hanson, as when he
speaks of all observation (or perception) being theory-laden. Hanson seems to
be arguing that if we use Grice's verbs ('perceive', 'observe') in the
imperative, the result is otiose:
"Perceive!"
"Observe!"
-- the implicatures being, 'perceive WHAT?', 'observe WHAT?'. And this may
connect with Grice's point that material objects, rather than
uncontroversial items, become what he refers to as 'entia rationis' alla the
quantum
theorist's particle.
Wikipedia goes on: "However, there are intermediate methods which for
example, use theory to guide the method, an approach known as guided
empiricism."
McEvoy ends his post:
"[O]ur models, including scientific models, can throw much surprising
light on all these processes - much more light than we get by thinking about
what it feels like when we experience 'seeing an object', as our experience
is far from 'transparent' as to how it is formed. Our 'experience is not
transparent as to 'causal roles' either, as these must be allocated in terms
of detailed understanding of the relevant processes."
Point granted. I guess Grice is just trying to save Price who besides
"Perception" has, I think, another book called "Incorrigibility", and Grice
makes a point or two about sense-datum reports being 'immune'. In "Method in
philosophical psychology" he will go on to explore items like 'privileged
access' and 'incorrigibility' itself. This may lead us back to that glorious
(I find) quote by Price:
"When I see a tomato there is much that I can doubt. I can doubt whether
it is a tomato that I am seeing, and not a cleverly painted piece of wax. I
can doubt whether there is any material thing there at all. Perhaps what I
took for a tomato was really a reflection; perhaps I am even the victim of
some hallucination. One thing however I cannot doubt: that there exists a
red patch of a round and somewhat bulgy shape, standing out from a
background of other colour-patches, and having a certain visual depth, and that
this
whole field of colour is directly present to my consciousness."
Of course, that's Price. Descartes would GO ON and doubt that what Price
finds as being 'beyond reasonable doubt' is, er, doubtful.
Cfr.
I saw that the cat is on the mat.
I DREAMED that the cat is on the mat.
Descartes, knowing that the context of our dreams, while possibly
unbelievable, are often lifelike, hypothesized that humans can only believe
that
they are awake.
There are no sufficient grounds by which to distinguish a dream experience
from a waking experience.
I saw that the cat was on the mat
I dreamed that the cat was on the mat.
For instance, Subject A sits at her computer, reading the Wikipedia entry
on "Cartesian doubt". Just as much evidence exists to indicate that her
reading that entry is reality as there is to demonstrate the opposite.
Descartes conceded that we live in a world that can create such ideas as
dreams. However, by the end of The Meditations, he concludes that we can
distinguish dream from reality at least in retrospect.[2]
On top of that, Descartes reasons that our very own experience (of seeing
that the cat is on the mat) may very well be controlled by an evil demon.
As he writes, "there could be some malicious, powerful, cunning demon that
is deceiving us into thinking that we see that the cat is on the mat.
Descartes famously concludes that ALL his senses were lying and since his
senses could easily 'fool' him -- which may lead us back to the argument
from illusion, or not, and in what way Grice's exercises in the causal theory
of perception connects with Austin's brilliant observations against Ayer
(and Warnock, for that matter) in "Sense and Sensibilia".
Cheers,
Speranza
Ashby, W. R. (1960: Second Edition). Design for a Brain. Chapman & Hall:
London.
Austin, Sense and Sensibilia
Grice, Causal theory of perception
Traill, R.R. (1978/2006). Molecular explanation for intelligence…, Brunel
University Thesis, HDL.handle.net
Traill, R.R. (2008). Thinking by Molecule, Synapse, or both? — From Piaget’
s Schema, to the Selecting/Editing of ncRNA. Ondwelle: Melbourne.
Ondwelle.com — or French version Ondwelle.com.
Warnock, Berkeley
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