Monday, January 31, 2011

Is this edible? 2


Does the surface of this statue really structure light in such a way as to specify whether it is edible for humans?

12 comments:

  1. No idea: run the experiment and see if people try to eat it or not. That's step 1, anyway.

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  2. I'm not sure what the point is. If someone looked at the statue for the first time, it probably wouldn't be perceived as affording food. But if the person ate from it, they would soon learn that it does in fact afford edibility. Your posts implicitly assume that Gibson thought affordances are perceived without any learning, or that affordances are what's perceived "before learning". While this might be true in some instances, most affordances must be learned through experience. Showing that some visual stimuli are ambiguous proves nothing since anyone who encountered the statue could very quickly learn whether or not it affords eating.

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  3. No, I am asking whether the surface of this statue really structure light in such a way as to specify whether it is edible for humans. The question is put this way in order to forestall the reply regarding learning.

    Note as well that the Gibsonian account cited provides a mechanism whereby affordances are perceived. The composition and layout of sufaces are supposed to constituted affordances, hence the structuring of light by surfaces just is the structuring of light by affordances, hence that is how you see affordances.

    TSRM offer a comparable sort of account in which it is the anchoring properties of dispositions that is supposed to structure light.

    Once you know or have a belief that the thing is edible, then it is easy to be confused into thinking that you visually perceive that it is edible. (And maybe there is a use of "perceive" according to which you do perceive that it is edible, as in "I perceive you to be a kind and generous human being".)

    Moreover, once you begin down this learning line, you move toward cognitivism. A cognitivist line might be that you perceive objects and once you perceive an object you can bring to bear what you believe about what it affords.

    Maybe go back and look at that posts that these edible examples devolve from.

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  4. See Gibson, 1979, p. 127. I would give you the TSRM ref, but I'm not at home.

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  5. Learning doesn't entail cognitivism.

    (I understand your point is that the issue is effectively 'is there anything about the affordance in the light to be learned?'. I just didn't want to let that slide.)

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  6. Learning doesn't entail cognitivism
    which is why I said
    once you begin down this learning line, you move toward cognitivism.

    There is more argumentation in order.

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  7. Learning doesn't move you towards cognitivism.

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  8. You haven't even heard the argument yet ...

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  9. Just some clarification ...

    "Learning doesn't entail cognitivism."

    I distinguish "learning how" (ie, skills, simple reflexive behaviors) from "learning that" (ie, propositions, complex adaptive behaviors). I assume that quote applies only to the former, not the latter. Yes?

    If no, what's the marker for identifying "cognitive"?

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  10. I get the learning how versus learning that distinction, but I don't have a take on that or how it bears on cognitivism.

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  11. I just know I study learning and I'm not even a little bit cognitivist. So I look forward to the argument, I guess.

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