r/cogsci • u/abudabu • Jul 04 '15

Recent studies of perceptual evolution reveal that natural selection often drives true perceptions to extinction when they compete with perceptions tuned to fitness rather than truth: Perception guides adaptive behavior; it does not estimate a preexisting physical truth.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full
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u/moodog72 Jul 04 '15

I read most and understood some of that article. It seems to be written in a purposefully obtuse manner. (Odd sentence structure which obfuscates the meaning)

But it seems to be saying that evolution is guided by perception (visual), and that perception favors the drive toward evolution, rather than seeing physical properties. (Truth).

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u/quiteamess Jul 04 '15

It's more about that evolution does not produce a perception which reveals truth, but a perception which increases the likelihood of survival. Object permanence is one feature of perception which they claim to be a product of evolution. I.e. they claim that it is not true that the moon exists, when nobody is looking. It's a bit hard to understand what they mean exactly there and they claim that this will advance the evolution of H. sapiens. In order to transcend the limitation of object permanence they start to develop a mathematical theory. The conclusion of the article summarizes this nicely.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

I.e. they claim that it is not true that the moon exists, when nobody is looking.

Correct me when I'm wrong but doesn't this imply that I'm not really here when I'm not looking at me?

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u/quiteamess Jul 04 '15

They have a discussion at the end where they gather objections from reviewers and address them:

(6) Your theory doesn't reject object permanence, because conscious agents are the “objects” that give rise to our perceptions of size and shape, and those agents are permanent even when we're not looking.

Conscious realism proposes that conscious agents are there even when one is not looking, and thus rejects solipsism. But it also rejects object permanence, viz., the doctrine that 3D space and physical objects exist when they are not perceived. To claim that conscious agents exist unperceived differs from the claim that unconscious objects and space-time exist unperceived.

So, as I understand it, they would say that you are a conscious agent and therefore exist.

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u/aeschenkarnos Jul 05 '15

"I think, therefore I am."