Two threats to representation

Synthese 129 (2):211-231 (2001)
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Abstract

I consider two threats to the idea that on-line intelligent behaviour (the production of fluid and adaptable responses to ongoing sensory input) must or should be explained by appeal to neurally located representations. The first of these threats occurs when extra-neural factors account for the kind of behavioural richness and flexibility normally associated with representation-based control. I show how this anti-representational challenge can be met, if we apply the thought that, to be a representational system, an action-oriented neural system must not only be the source of at least some of the observed behavioural richness and flexibility, it must also feature two architectural traits, namely arbitrariness and homuncularity. Unfortunately, however, this solution opens the door to our second threat to representation. The homuncularity condition will not be met by any system in which the causal contribution of each component is massively context-sensitive and variable over time. I end by discussing the empirical bet that biological nervous systems will not exhibit this style of causation

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Citations of this work

In the Beginning was Game Semantics?Giorgi Japaridze - 2009 - In Ondrej Majer, Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen & Tero Tulenheimo (eds.), Games: Unifying Logic, Language, and Philosophy. Springer Verlag. pp. 249--350.
Semantic inferentialism as (a Form of) active externalism.Adam Carter, James H. Collin & Orestis Palermos - 2017 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (3):387-402.
Elusive vehicles of genetic representation.Riin Kõiv - 2020 - Biology and Philosophy 35 (1):1-24.

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References found in this work

Intelligence without representation.Rodney A. Brooks - 1991 - Artificial Intelligence 47 (1--3):139-159.
Brainstorms.Daniel Dennett - 1978 - Philosophy of Science 47 (2):326-327.
A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action.David Morris, E. Thelen & L. B. Smith - 1997 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 11 (2).
What Might Cognition Be, If Not Computation?Tim Van Gelder - 1995 - Journal of Philosophy 92 (7):345 - 381.

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