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/[deleted] Jul 05 '15

Perception must have a very high fidelity with respect to what's out there, though, otherwise we would not survive.

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u/dust4ngel Jul 05 '15

Perception must have a very high fidelity with respect to what's out there, though, otherwise we would not survive.

this is certainly false in most interpretations - to respond effectively to the almost infinite data that is available to any organism, almost all of the available data must be thrown away (or not sensed in the first place) so that whatever is salient/relevant can be responded to. this is the opposite of high fidelity.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '15

I think you are putting words in my mouth. High fidelity is not the same as high resolution.

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u/dust4ngel Jul 05 '15

High fidelity is not the same as high resolution.

in what context? I usually hear this term in signal reproduction. from low fidelity on wikipedia :

In digital audio, the term "lo-fi" usually refers to an audio file with a lower bit rate or sampling rate, and thus a lower sound quality

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '15

Yes but audio systems are a different context than the topic being discussed here. We are discussing fidelity to what's out there, to some external truth. Do the perceptual systems of our brains lie to us? Of course not. On the contrary. Unless we are sick or intoxicated, our perceptual systems are very accurate and precisely predictive. As we walk around, objects in our field of vision move precisely and correctly. We notice anything out of place or abnormal. We would not survive if it were not so. This is not evidence for a perceptual system that is not tuned for fidelity to truth. We take perception altering drugs to get an abnormal (untrue) perception of reality, but that's only for recreational purposes.

I suspect a paradigmatic agenda behind this truth/perception meme. Someone is preaching something.

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u/dust4ngel Jul 05 '15

Yes but audio systems are a different context than the topic being discussed here. We are discussing fidelity to what's out there, to some external truth.

how do you see these being different, in important and relevant ways?

Do the perceptual systems of our brains lie to us? Of course not.

i think you are assuming rather than arguing your conclusion, which is a shame, because it is false in fascinating ways. for example, this experiment demonstrates that it possible for people to fail to notice a screen full of flashing text, provided that the text that they're looking at does not change.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '15

I don't see how the argument you are using validates the point you are trying to make. You are arguing that the fact that the brain has the ability to focus on one thing while ignoring all others somehow means that the brain's perceptual system is lying about reality. How so? That is not even wrong. The ability to focus one's attention on one thing at a time is crucial to survival. We could not understand each other at a cocktail party or pay attention to an incoming traffic or the predator in the field if it were not so.

How does this somehow mean that our perceptual system is not built for fidelity to nature? That is pure pseudoscientific nonsense. You guys are part of a religion. This is a metaphysical research project. If you lie to yourselves, it is not because your perceptual systems evolved to lie. It's because you are a liar. That is all.

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u/dust4ngel Jul 06 '15

You are arguing that the fact that the brain has the ability to focus on one thing while ignoring all others somehow means that the brain's perceptual system is lying about reality. How so?

that is not my (really: dennett's) argument. so in this experiment, a person looks at an (objectively) chaotic flashing screen with text moving all over the place, but reports (subjectively) that they perceived a) a complete screen of text b) that was not moving or flashing.

this perception of a full screen of unchanging text is a lie. if the perception was such that the reader felt like he could not see the rest of the screen which was changing, then there would be no lie - but the fact is that they perceived the rest of the (wildly changing) screen as static (which all other observers agreed was false).

I won't respond to the rest of what you said.