Online research in philosophy

The general structure of Steels & Belpaeme's (S&B's) central premise is appealing. Theoretical stances that focus on one type of mechanism miss the fact that multiple mechanisms acting in concert can provide convergent constraints for a more robust capacity than any individual mechanism might achieve acting in isolation. However, highlighting the significance of complex constraint interactions raises the possibility that some of the relevant constraints may have been left out of S&B's own models. Although abstract modeling can help clarify issues, (...) it also runs the risk of oversimplification and misframing. A more subtle implication of the significance of interacting constraints is that it calls for a close relationship between theoretical and empirical research. (shrink)

I suggest that a communicative context that has the potential to establish and maintain a shared advantage of behavioral lateralization should be identified in the domain of sexual selection, specifically in the interactions that individuals exploit to assess the fitness of potential mates.

The stratification in depth of chromatically homogeneous overlapping figures depends on a minimization rule which assigns the status of being “in front” to the figure that requires the formation of shorter modal contours. This rule has been proven valid also in birds, whose visual neuroanatomy is radically different from that of other mammals, thus suggesting an example of evolutionary convergence toward a perceptual universal. [Shepard].