Bipartism and the Phenomenology of Content

Bipartism is the common view that the nature of an intentional state can be wholly explained in terms of (a) its horizontal relations with other such states (as well as peripheral inputs and outputs); and (b) its vertical relations with the world. Extrapolating from Nagel, I try to show that bipartism is fundamentally mistaken. Some intentional states are conscious states, and thus there is something it is like to be in them. This phenomenology is of a piece with such states' interpretability: to know what it is like to be X at least involves being able to interpret X's conscious intentional states. But a bi-partist account of an intentional state is not, by itself, interpretational. So bipartist accounts, at least of conscious intentional states, are incomplete: they fail to capture their phenomenology.     

Inquiry into intentional systems I: Issues in ecological physics

Summary The role of intention in guiding the behavior of goal-directed systems is a problem that continues to challenge behavioral science. While it is generally agreed that intentional systems must be consistent with the laws of physics, there are many obvious differences between inanimate, physical systems and sentient, intentional systems. This suggests that there must be constraints over and above those of physics that govern goal-directed behavior. In this paper it is suggested that generic properties of self-organizing mechanisms may play a central role in the origin and evolution of intentional constraints. The properties of self-organizing systems are first introduced in the context of simple physical systems and then extended to a complex (biological) system. Whereas behavior of an inanimate physical system is lawfully determined by force fields, behavior of an animate biological system is lawfully specified by information fields. Biological systems are distinguished from simple physical systems in terms of their ubiquitous use of information fields as special (biological and psychological, social, etc.) boundary conditions on classical laws. Unlike classical constraints (boundary conditions), informational constraints can vary with time and state of the system. Because of the nonstationarity of the boundary conditions, the dynamic of the system can follow a complex trajectory that is organized by a set of spatially and temporally distributed equilibrium points or regions. It is suggested that this equilibrium set and the laws that govern its transformation define a minimal requirement for an intentional system. One of the benefits of such an approach is that it suggests a realist account for the origin of semantic predicates, thereby providing a basis for the development of a theory of symbolic dynamics. Therefore, the principles of self-organization provide a comprehensive basis for investigating intentional systems by suggesting how it is that intentions arise, and by providing a lawful basis for intentional behavior that reveals how organisms become and remain lawfully informed in the pursuit of their goals.     

现象学如何理解符号与含义?(一)

现象学把近代思想的主客体的对立关系及其思维模式化解为意向活动与其构造的意向相关项之间的意向性联系,从而将自己定位在以心理体验活动为研究对象的心理学和以思维内容为研究对象的逻辑学之间。这个基本思维态度和思维方式也体现在现象学对语言、符号和意义的理解与分析上。本文试图通过对胡塞尔第一逻辑研究的意向分析的重构来展示现象学分析的这一基本特征,同时也指明语言问题在胡塞尔现象学中的重要位置。     

Externalism and first-person authority

Externalism in the philosophy of mind is threatened by the view that subjects are authoritative with regard to the contents of their own intentional states. If externalism is to be reconciled with first-person authority, two issues need to be addressed: (a) how the non-evidence-based character of knowledge of one's own intentional states is compatible with ignorance of the empirical factors that individuate the contents of those states, and (b) how, given externalism, the non-evidence-based character of such knowledge could place its subject in an authoritative position. This paper endorses a standard strategy for dealing with (a). The bulk of the paper is devoted to (b). The aim is to develop an account of first-person authority for a certain class of intentional states that is capable of explaining (1) why knowledge of one's own intentional states is peculiarly authoritative, and (2) why such authority is compatible with externalism.     

More questions for mirror neurons

The mirror neuron system is widely held to provide direct access to the motor goals of others. This paper critically investigates this idea, focusing on the so-called ‘intentional worry’. I explore two answers to the intentional worry: first that the worry is premised on too limited an understanding of mirror neuron behaviour (Sections 2 Mirror neurons and the intentional worry, 3 What is the mechanism behind motor chain embeddings?), second that the appeal made to mirror neurons can be refined in such a way as to avoid the worry (Section 4). I argue that the first response requires an account of the mechanism by which small-scale gestures are supposedly mapped to larger chains of actions but that none of the extant accounts of this mechanism are plausible. Section 4 then briefly examines refinements of the mirror neuron-mindreading hypothesis which avoid the intentional worry. I conclude that these refinements may well be plausible but that they undermine many of the claims standardly made for mirror neurons.     

Automatic verification of multi-agent systems by model checking via ordered binary decision diagrams

We present a methodology for the verification of multi-agent systems, whose properties are specified by means of a modal logic that includes a temporal, an epistemic, and a modal operator to reason about correct behaviour of agents. The verification technique relies on model checking via ordered binary decision diagrams. We present an implementation and report on experimental results for two scenarios: the bit transmission problem with faults and the protocol of the dining cryptographers.     

社会互动视角下的有意识情绪感染

随着超扫描技术的兴起,研究者们开始关注社会互动情境中有意识情绪感染的脑间神经同步问题。研究发现,脑间神经同步可能是有意识情绪感染在神经层面的指标。“发送者-接收者”模式的应用使得研究者们思考自我-他人重叠理论是否可作为有意识情绪感染脑间神经同步的心理解释机制。未来研究可采用基于自然情境的“发送者-接收者”模式以及“自然讨论”模式来探究不同社会因素对有意识情绪感染及其脑间同步机制的影响;未来还应构建有意识情绪感染的多模态超扫描平台,以此拓展相关研究。     

Folk psychology’ is not folk psychology

This paper disputes the claim that our understanding of others is enabled by a commonsense or ‘folk’ psychology, whose ‘core’ involves the attribution of intentional states in order to predict and explain behaviour. I argue that interpersonal understanding is seldom, if ever, a matter of two people assigning intentional states to each other but emerges out of a context of interaction between them. Self and other form a coupled system rather than two wholly separate entities equipped with an internalised capacity to assign mental states to the other. This applies even in those instances where one might seem to adopt a ‘detached’ perspective towards others. Thus ‘folk psychology’, as commonly construed, is not folk psychology.     

Factor structure and longitudinal invariance of the Medical Adherence Report Scale-Asthma

Adequate assessment of adherence to medical treatment is critical for both research purposes and clinical practice. This study examined the factor structure and longitudinal invariance of the Medication Adherence Report Scale (MARS-A10) in a sample of asthmatic patients. We examined longitudinal data from 294 inner-city, adult participants with moderate to severe asthma. Because of ambiguous evidence regarding the dimensionality of the MARS-A10, the data was analysed with exploratory structural equation modelling. We first proceeded by determining the dimensionality of the scale at baseline and examined whether the structure, loadings, intercepts and errors were invariant over the four assessments points. Results indicated that a two-factor structure (factor 1: non-adherence based on experiential changes; factor 2: non-adherence based on intentional medication avoidance) had the best fit to the data (χ(2)(25)=37.69, p=0.05). Longitudinal analyses revealed that the nine items assessing intentional non-adherence were invariant over time. The evidence from the factor analysis suggests that intentional non-adherence is a multidimensional construct. Additionally, longitudinal data provided strong evidence that the items examining intentional non-adherence are invariant over time, indicating that changes in non-adherence scores can be validly attributed to changes in behaviour.     

The Layered Model: Metaphysical Considerations

Abstract

Action explanations that cite dynamic beliefs and desires cannot be modelled as causal explanations. The contents of dynamic psychological states cannot be treated as the causal antecendents to behaviour. Behavioural patterns cannot be explained in virtue of the patterns of operations performed upon the intentional antecedents to behaviour. Dynamic intentional states are persisting regulatory devices for behaviour that provide couplings with the environment. Behavioural patterns emerge from choice couplings rather than being produced by patterns for operating upon intentional antecendents to behaviour in cognition.     

POLITICS: Automated ideological reasoning

POLITICS is a system of computer programs which simulates humans in comprehending and responding to world events from a given political or ideological perspective. The primary theoretical motivations were: (1) the implemention of a functional system which applies the knowledge structures of Schank and Abelson (1977) to the domain of simulating political belief systems; (2) the development of a tentative theory of intentional goal conflicts and counterplanning. Secondary goals of the POLITICS project include developing a representation for belief systems, investigating cognitive processes such as goal-directed inferencing, and the integration of several types of knowledge representations into a functional system.     

Unintentional influences and opposition: A reply to graf

Abstract

People's behaviour is often influenced by processes of which they are not aware or that they do not intend. However, behaviour is also, at least partially, under intentional control. Most task performance is co-determined by these two classes of processes. Placing intentional control in opposition to unintentional influences is useful for understanding the nature of the two forms of processing. However, opposition alone cannot provide a pure measure of automatic influences because, as in most tasks, intentional processes also affect the overall level of performance. The goal of the process dissociation procedure is to disentangle the effects of these two forms of processing on behaviour. It approaches this goal by taking advantage of a unique property of intentionally controlled processes their ability to either oppose or act in concert with automatic processes. The goal of separating the two forms of processing is imperative for both theoretical and applied purposes.     

Chronic pain as a posture towards the world

This article discusses what chronic pain is “about”, what the intentional object is of pain, and what is the intentional relation like? My approach is based on Maurice Merleau‐Ponty’s phenomenology, with an aim is to understand a two‐way relationship: how the sufferers bestow meaning on chronic pain, and how pain, on the other hand, signifies peoples’ life. In contrast to biomedical and cognitive‐behavioral theories, chronic pain is not only meaningful, but as an intentional emotion as well; it does not simply “happen” in the nervous system. I analyzed meanings assigned to pain through the narratives of three patients with chronic pain. Pain is described as creating a discontinuity in the patient’s Lebenswelt at the narrative level. When attempting to find meaning to their pain, patients point both to everyday life and biomedical referents. The structure of bestowing meaning is, metaphorically, like a necklace with everyday world and biomedical interpretations strung like beads, one after the other. The intentional object of pain, on the contrary, is constituted of the patients’ world in its wholeness. My results don’t confirm Drew Leder’s idea of disrupted intentionality, but underline directness as the basic relation of human experience also in case of pain and disease. Pain in itself is an e‐movere, an intense passionate movement, an intentional relation with and a bodily posture taken towards the world.     

The rejection of origin: Derrida's interpretation of Husserl

Conclusion Derrida's Husserl thinks of meaning as self-presence and of self-presence as transparent and complete presence of meaning to the mind. Expression and thought are but particular modes or media of the more englobing relation of a self-acquainted life. Reflection is the highest form and telos of the other forms of presence.In contrast, the — by no means complete — Husserl who has begun to appear in my interpretation does not unconditionally subscribe to the value of presence. Not only is an important part of intentional life directed towards objects which it does not possess in their plenitude — hence its emptiness —, this part of intentional life is also blind towards itself. Reflection tries to fill this gap by grasping what is not present to a life immersed in its world. But a retreat from life is the price of presence, a presence, in addition, whose power is essentially limited by the fluidity of its material and by the limits of its bearers.And yet Husserl maintains, passionately maintains, the claim and value of reflection and of a scientific attitude which Derrida rejects with equal passion. May they not have a positive function in a frame which is no longer that of presence metaphysics? As deconstruction has evolved its philosophy of anti-presence, it has brushed away the reflexive potential of Phenomenology and chosen to reject its own origin.     

Functionally referential and intentional communication in the domestic dog: effects of spatial and social contexts

In apes, four criteria are set to explore referential and intentional communication: (1) successive visual orienting between a partner and distant targets, (2) the presence of apparent attention-getting behaviours, (3) the requirement of an audience to exhibit the behaviours, and (4) the influence of the direction of attention of an observer on the behaviours. The present study aimed at identifying these criteria in behaviours used by dogs in communicative episodes with their owner when their toy is out of reach, i.e. gaze at a hidden target or at the owner, gaze alternation between a hidden target and the owner, vocalisations and contacts. In this study, an additional variable was analysed: the position of the dog in relation to the location of the target. Dogs witnessed the hiding of a favourite toy, in a place where they could not get access to. We analysed how dogs engaged in communicative deictic behaviours in the presence of their owner; four heights of the target were tested. To control for the motivational effects of the toy on the dogs’ behaviour and for the referential nature of the behaviours, observations were staged where only the toy or only the owner was present, for one of the four heights. The results show that gazing at the container and gaze alternation were used as functionally referential and intentional communicative behaviours. Behavioural patterns of dog position, the new variable, fulfilled the operational criteria for functionally referential behaviour and a subset of operational criteria for intentional communication: the dogs used their own position as a local enhancement signal. Finally, our results suggest that the dogs gazed at their owner at optimal locations in the experimental area, with respect to the target height and their owner’s (or their own) line of gaze.     

On strong anticipation

We examine Dubois’s [Dubois, D., 2003. Mathematical foundations of discrete and functional systems with strong and weak anticipations. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2684, 110–132.] distinction between weak anticipation and strong anticipation. Anticipation is weak if it arises from a model of the system via internal simulations. Anticipation is strong if it arises from the system itself via lawful regularities embedded in the system’s ordinary mode of functioning. The assumption of weak anticipation dominates cognitive science and neuroscience and in particular the study of perception and action. The assumption of strong anticipation, however, seems to be required by anticipation’s ubiquity. It is, for example, characteristic of homeostatic processes at the level of the organism, organs, and cells. We develop the formal distinction between strong and weak anticipation by elaboration of anticipating synchronization, a phenomenon arising from time delays in appropriately coupled dynamical systems. The elaboration is conducted in respect to (a) strictly physical systems, (b) the defining features of circadian rhythms, often viewed as paradigmatic of biological behavior based in internal models, (c) Pavlovian learning, and (d) forward models in motor control. We identify the common thread of strongly anticipatory systems and argue for its significance in furthering understanding of notions such as “internal”, “model” and “prediction”.     

Proposal for a heuristic quasi-social analysis of social behaviour: The case of Harlow's ‘Nature of Love’

Social psychology traditionally studies conspecific (homosocial) determinants of human behaviour. This suggests that an adequate understanding of (human) conspecific influence and interaction presupposes research on uniquely social psychological processes, effects and theories that lay beyond the reach of standard psychological concepts, procedures and theories. A fundamental and cumulative science of behaviour (homosocial or not) might profit from a heuristic quasi-social analysis, as a research tool for a more parsimonious conceptual screening of homosocial phenomena. Whenever the phenomenon under study is experienced, at the pre-scientific level, as genuinely social, one of three quasi-social contrast filters can be superposed upon it: (1) a heteroquasisocial contrast in which the homosocial determinant is substituted by a member of another species (e.g. man-dog); (2) an object-quasisocial contrast in which the other becomes an inanimate object (e.g. woman-P. C.); (3) an auto-quasisocial contrast in which the organism interacts with or influences itself (dog chasing her own tail). Theories and processes whose essential features are masked by any of the three quasi-social filters, should be considered as only quasi-social. They do not justify a separate homosocial science of behaviour. The proposal is illustrated by a quasi-social screening of Harlow S classic analysis of the Nature of Love.     

依恋类型对主动遗忘的影响

成人依恋可以在依恋回避和依恋焦虑两个维度进行分析。不安全依恋的个体在依恋关系中持续感受到一种不安全感,因此个体往往采用心理防御策略来摆脱这种不安全感。对于许多不愉快的事件,个体常常也会采用类似的防御策略进行抑制,以减少自身的消极体验。主动遗忘是指个体有意识地避免回想某一目标对象而导致的遗忘现象,其可能与高回避个体的停用策略十分相似。为探讨对于依恋相关的记忆内容,高回避个体是否能够成功进行主动遗忘以规避负面情绪,或是防御失败引起依恋系统激活,反而更多回忆起相关记忆内容,本实验采用Think/No-Think(TNT)范式进行研究,以依恋相关故事作为对被试的依恋启动操作,设计了2(启动:依恋启动vs.依恋未启动)×3(主动遗忘:Think vs.No-Think vs.Baseline)×2(依恋维度得分:高vs低)混合设计研究不同依恋类型主动遗忘能力的影响。实验结果显示,TNT操作与回避类型与启动操作的交互作用显著,高依恋回避个体在受到依恋相关启动时表现出优秀的主动遗忘能力,而在未受到启动时则不能有效地遗忘依恋相关负性词对; 而低依恋回避个体则表现相反,在受到启动材料威胁时无法成功主动遗忘,而在未受启动条件下可以成功遗忘要求内容。对于不同焦虑类型的被试来说,其主动遗忘能力与启动操作无关,高焦虑类型被试表现出更强的主动遗忘能力,并从依恋内部工作模型角度进行了分析。