Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman (UC Irvine) kindly shared with me his response to the criticisms of philosopher Jonathan Cohen (UC San Diego) I noted in an earlier post about a popular article of Hoffman's at the LARB. Professor Hoffman's response:
We replied in 2015 to Jonathan Cohen's claim that (1) we misunderstand representation, (2) we argue for veridical perception of fitness payoffs, and (3) we must specify the contents of perceptions before we can evaluate them for truth or falsity. The reply was published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-015-0931-3
Here is an overview of our reply. (1) Cohen states that our definition of veridical perception requires an absurd identity theory in which x veridically represents y iff x = y. We reply that this is a misunderstanding of our text that is easily set straight; we do not require the identity x = y. We simply require a homomorphism. (2) Cohen argues that it is obvious that we must specify the contents of perceptions before we can evaluate them for truth or falsity. We reply that it is obvious that we do not need this. In formal logic, we do not need to specify the contents of p and q before we can conclude that p ∨ q ⇒ p is a fallacy or that p ∧ (−p ∨ q) is false. In information theory, we do not need to specify the contents of messages before we can correct errors in their transmission. Similarly, in the logic of evolutionary games, we do not need to specify the contents of perceptions before we can evaluate them for truth or falsity. The power of logic, information theory, and evolutionary game theory is to arrive at truths that are independent of assignments of content. (3) Cohen proposes specific content assignments for the jewel beetle and dragonfly examples so that their perceptions turn out to be veridical, and then claims that we are not entitled to make content assignments on which they turn out to be nonveridical. We reply that our evolutionary games, which were formulated with no a priori assignment of contents to perceptions, do allow us to rule out the content assignments that Cohen proposes, and moreover to rule out all theories of perceptual content currently proposed by philosophers of perception. (4) Cohen argues that our evolutionary games show that perception veridically represents fitness payoffs. We reply that fitness payoffs, unlike states of the world, are not organism-independent features of the world: They cease to exist if the organism ceases to exist. Perceptual experiences are satisficing solutions to the problem of getting more fitness points than your competitors; they are not veridical representations of fitness functions or of objective features of the world.
I've opened comments for those who wish to engage Professor Hoffman's rejoinder or Professor Cohen's original criticisms (or the original article). Comments are moderated; submit your comment only once, and signed comments will be strongly preferred (full name and valid e-mail address).
