The feature-binding problem is an ill-posed problem

The binding problem arises when visual features (colour, orientation), said to be coded in independent brain modules, are to be integrated into unitary percepts. I argue that binding is an ill-posed problem, because those modules are now known to code jointly for multiple features, rendering the feature-binding issue moot. A hierarchical reentrant system explains the emergence of coherent visual objects from primitive features. An initial feed-forward sweep activates many high-level perceptual hypotheses, which descend to lower levels, where they correlate themselves with the ongoing activity. Low correlations are discarded, whereas the hypothesis that yields the highest correlation is confirmed and leads to conscious awareness. In this system, there is no separate binding process that actively assigns features to objects.     

The matching problem

Tables of the exact distributions of number of matches are given for small decks having the same number of cards in each suit. Several approximate distributions are considered for use with larger decks, and some indication of the goodness of the approximations is given.The calculations for this paper were done while the writer was working on a project sponsored by funds from the Ford Foundation. The writer wishes to express his gratitude to Dr. Frederick Mosteller for his constant help and encouragement during the writing of this paper.     

The preemption problem

Philosophical Studies - According to the standard version of the counterfactual comparative account of harm, an event is overall harmful for an individual if and only if she would have been on...     

The dedifferentiation problem

This article demonstrates that our more sophisticated theories of law lead us to a point where we are no longer able to distinguish law from culture, or society, or the market, or politics or anything of the sort. Not only are the various terms inextricably intertwined (something that other thinkers have observed) but we are no longer in a position to articulate any relations between these various terms at all. It is with this latter realization that the dedifferentiation problem kicks in. Because the various terms cannot be disentangled, we find ourselves in the odd position where there is nothing of any positive character to be said about their relations. Each is already the other and, thus, they can have no relation. This is rather bad news for the ways in which we have traditionally conceived theories of law—indeed any theory that gets off the ground by distinguishing law from a discrete something else (which, on first glance, would seem to include all legal theory).

The many-property problem is your problem,too

Philosophical Studies - The many-property problem has traditionally been taken to show that the adverbial theory of perception is untenable. This paper first shows that several widely accepted...     

The reference class problem is your problem too

The reference class problem arises when we want to assign a probability to a proposition (or sentence, or event) X, which may be classified in various ways, yet its probability can change depending on how it is classified. The problem is usually regarded as one specifically for the frequentist interpretation of probability and is often considered fatal to it. I argue that versions of the classical, logical, propensity and subjectivist interpretations also fall prey to their own variants of the reference class problem. Other versions of these interpretations apparently evade the problem. But I contend that they are all “no-theory” theories of probability - accounts that leave quite obscure why probability should function as a guide to life, a suitable basis for rational inference and action. The reference class problem besets those theories that are genuinely informative and that plausibly constrain our inductive reasonings and decisions. I distinguish a “metaphysical” and an “epistemological” reference class problem. I submit that we can dissolve the former problem by recognizing that probability is fundamentally a two-place notion: conditional probability is the proper primitive of probability theory. However, I concede that the epistemological problem remains.     

The adolescent suicide problem

ABSTRACT: The suicide rate of young people in the United States rose 237 percent between 1960 and 1980. This paper addresses three related issues. First, is this change an epidemic or an artifact? Second, what is there about adolescence as a life-stage in modern society that makes it stressful, even suicide producing? Finally, what are the distinctive traits of the lifestyles or careers of a random sample of young Chicago suicides?