EP and Levels

This is just a question post.

So, cognitivists typically (actually, without exception to my knowledge) hold that there are something like "levels".  So, for example, there is a psychological level that is realized by neuronal processes, which are realized by chemical processes, which are realized by quantum mechanical processes.  Sometimes the levels are, following Marr, input-output, algorithmic, and implementational.  Now, there are differences of opinion about what levels are, how many there are, and what relations there are between them, but do EPists have some version of this kind of picture of reality?

Runeson has something like this with his anti-reductionism and Gibson seems to insist on something like the psychological being a molar kind of enterprise distinct from physics, but I have never seen them talk about things like levels and their relations.  (Nor is it something I've seen in introductions to Phenomenology.)

Those Successful Skinnerians and Gibsonians

C&S write,

Both Skinnerians and Gibsonians have been very successful as psychologists, and both groups have achieved results that are undeniable psychological milestones. So these views are neither nonstarters, nor obviously crazy.  (Chemero & Silberstein, 2008, pp. 4-5).

This seems to me a bit simplistic.

For one thing, recall that the Ptolemaic astronomers were very successful as astronomers and had results that are undeniable astronomical milestones, but much of their theory was wrong.  So, one can still achieve results with a flawed theory.

For another, I think that one has to recognize that theories have different parts (to speak generically).  Some parts might be true and others false.  So, maybe it is true that the world contains affordances, but false that these are directly perceived.  Indeed, one philosophical sort of project might be to draw distinctions among the components of theories to see how evidence supports one or another of them. 

For a third, I wouldn't want to undertake the burden of proof to show that Skinnerian or Gibsonian psychology is a nonstarter or obviously crazy.  (Maybe just crazy?)  Maybe just wrong on certain important points.

Psychology without the brain?

Chemero and Silberstein report that:

Note that neither Gibson nor Skinnerians claim that the brain is not importantly involved in cognition; rather they claim that psychologists can do all their explanatory work without referring to the brain.  (Chemero & Silberstein, 2008, p.4).

Ok. So, what is the story about why John Dalton was color blind?  He lacked a type of retinal cone, right?  So, do Gibson and Skinner dodge this objection by saying that the retina is not part of the brain?  Or by saying that color blindness is not a concern of psychology?

It seems to me not enough to say the retina is involved in color vision.  It looks like facts about the retina do some explanatory work.

This sort of line looks to have it both ways, that the brain is, of course, important, but not important.

Järvilehto on Reaction Time Experiments 2

Immediately after the text cited in my last post, Järvilehto writes

From these considerations follows a principle which is of utmost importance for all psychophysiological and neurophysiological research. The events appearing after the stimulus in the brain (or in behavior) are the result of organization preceding the behavior; they do not reflect any processing of the stimulus, nor do they indicate any processes started by the stimulus per se. Every stimulus in a way closes a system, the whole activity of which leads to the result of behavior. In addition, the perception of the stimulus is a result of the preceding organization. Thus, the perceptual process is not produced by the stimulus, but is going on before its presentation. A stimulus means the possibility of acting; there is no causal relationship between the stimulus and perception because the stimulus is only one element in the system realizing perceptual results. Every perceived change in the environment means a change of behavior, and new possibilities of realizing the results of behavior. (Järvilehto, 1998, p. 331, italics added).

I get the idea the stimulus is not supposed to start anything, since the stimulus is just one element in the life of the organism-system that preceded the stimulus.  But, why say that there is no processing of the stimulus?  And, it looks like the argument for the view that there is no causal relationship between the stimulus and perception reflects more on some background views concerning causation than on the nature of reaction time experiments.

Järvilehto on Reaction Time Experiments 1

What, therefore, is the explanatory role of the "stimulus" in the reaction time situation?  As a matter of fact, the situation is quite the opposite of what it is thought to be in a superficial stimulus-response way of thinking. The reaction of the subject does not appear because a stimulus is presented, but the stimulus itself is a result of the action of the subject, and it is possible only therefore that the subject is organized to act in a certain way. The stimulus exists as a stimulus because a preorganized system defining some environmental change as a stimulus is present before this change appears. When the stimulus is finally presented it does not cause any "processing" because this "processing" has been carried out before its appearance, in the sense that the organism must have a system into which this environmental change defined by the experimenter fits. The subject is not "reacting" to the stimulus, but the behavior of the subject defines the changes in the environment which may act as "stimuli" and are needed as a part of the organization necessary for the achievement of the desired results. (Järvilehto,1998, p. 331).

Let us say that the stimulus occurs at time t0.  Then, we can agree with Järvilehto that the stimulus in a reaction time experiment is a result of the action of the subject prior to t0.  And we can agree with much else in this.  Only, why would the fact that the stimulus at t0 is the product of prior actions and features of the preorganized system show that the system is not reacting to the stimulus after t0?  Why can't it be that actions of the system prior t0 lead to the stimulus at t0, but then the stimulus at t0 leads to a later response at, say, t1?

Järvilehto on One or Two Systems

So, Järvilehto objects to postulating two systems, an organismal system and an environmental system, because it is so hard (impossible?) to define a clear boundary between the two.  Instead he claims,

Thus, behavior is realized in the organism-environment system. Behavior does not mean movement or interaction of two systems, but action of only one system, reorganization of this system, or change of the relations between its elements.  (Järvilehto, 1998, p. 330).

But, I don't see how moving to one system rather than two really helps with Järvilehto's problem.  If it's a problem that you can't (easily) define a clear boundary between organism and environment taken as systems, then it still seems to be a problem if you can't (easily) define a clear boundary between organism and environment taken as elements.  The talk of "reorganization" of the system or "change of the relation between its elements" only seems to mask the problem a little.

WWCD? 2

Ok.  Maybe there is more to this Hegelian arguments idea than I had first expected.

Chomsky's argument can be outlined as follows.
1. Children uniformly and rapidly learn language, without specific reinforcement.
2. Children are presented with evidence insufficient to infer the characteristics of the grammar they attain in learning language.
3. Learning language is the attainment of a grammar, an internal deductive mechanism that allows the recognition and production of appropriate sentences.
4. Therefore, the grammar must be largely innate.
5. Therefore, any theory that does not posit such an innate grammar cannot account for language learning.
Before criticizing this argument, I should point out its reasonableness. Humans acquire a mechanism that is apparently unlearn able given the opportunities for learning, so it must be innate. This is rather plausible, and many people-nearly all linguists-are convinced by it. There is, however, a problem with this argument, and it is with the evidence for the premises. The problem with the evidence for the premises is that none is provided, and no empirical studies of language learning are cited. Chomsky relies entirely on casual observations in the case of the semiempirical premises (1 and 2). The theoretical premise (3) is derived by inference to the best explanation of the semi empirical premises. This, then, is the particular character of Chomsky's argument that I would like to focus on: it is an argument that a class of scientific approaches is doomed to fail, based on theoretical posits and little or no empirical evidence.  (Chemero, 2009, p. 7, italics added).

So, here is Timo Järvilehto making a case for the inseparability of the organism and environment, a fundamental principle of ecological psychology.

 Is it possible to establish the border between the systems? Is it possible, however, to define separately the elements of the organism and environment systems and the border between the two systems? Let us try to define the border between the two systems when looking at such behavior as drinking coffee from a cup, for example. This is certainly behavior which has physical, physiological, and mental aspects. Is it possible to separate these aspects in the description of the behavior and to determine to which system each of them belongs?  

The events in this piece of behavior may be described according to the modem psychological conception. Let us start with the cup on the table. The cup of coffee is a physical part of the environment and clearly outside the organism system. It may be thus defined as an element of the environment or as a stimulus. The human being is sitting at the table and has the need to drink coffee. This could be described as a physiological process within the organism, but there is also its mental aspect, which could correspond to some state of the brain, for example. The environmental stimulus (reflection of light from the cup) sets off a process in the organism eventually leading to the movement of the hand, one element of the organism, towards the cup. This is clearly overt behavior because there is a change in the relation of the two elements, one belonging to the environment and the other to the organism. So far, so good.
Now our subject grasps the cup; the hand holds it. Thus the hand is immobile in relation to the cup, but both the hand and cup (which contains coffee) move in relation to the environment (and mouth). Is the cup now part of the organism system or environment?   Probably we should include it in the organism system because the critical functional relation exists between the cup and coffee; it is just the environmental coffee that the subject is bringing to the mouth when "drinking coffee."  

However, the cup was earlier on the table and it was then clearly part of the environment. Now it has changed into a part of the organism. This would mean that elements of the environment could change to become elements of the organism system and vice versa. Thus, we could not unequivocally decide whether an element belongs to one of these systems simply by looking at the properties of these elements.  

But can we somehow define at any instant a clear border between the two systems? The coffee in the cup is clearly part of the environment, and when the subject is drinking it it becomes a part of the organism system---or does it? Is it possible to say when the coffee is in the organism? When it is in the mouth? Or in the intestines? Or when the chemical parts of the coffee are in the blood? In fact, it is impossible to define any exact border which should be exceeded so that we could on this basis unequivocally determine whether the coffee has moved from the environment into the organism. The same is true in general of metabolism and, especially, of breathing. When is the breathed air outside and when inside?  

Or what about spectacles? On the table they are certainly part of the environment; on I my nose they are part of the organism just in the same sense as is the lens of the eye. At . what point in the air is the "border" between the two systems exceeded when I move them '. from the table to my nose?
It is just as difficult to define the movement of one part of the environment to a part of the organism as it is to carry out the task in the reverse direction. For example, from the point of view of the visual system, certain parts of the body are "outside" just in the same sense as the coffee cup on the table. My hand is, of course, part of me, but it is not within me or inside me; from the point of view of the eye it is certainly outside. If from the point of view of perceptual activity it is outside, where is the border between the inside and the outside?
But even if we cannot define any exact border between the organism and the environment, we should be able to define unequivocally the organism itself, shouldn't we? The body consists of cells and tissues; aren't these clearly separable from the environment?  

Unfortunately not. Take, for example, tissue. It is a structure consisting of cells and interstitial spaces, the environment of the cells. But where is the end of this inner environment, and where does the outer environment start? Does sweating, for example, occur inside or outside? If we consider it to be outside, then we simultaneously extend the inner environment to outside the body. In this connection we may also ask what it actually means to have an "inner" environment. Whom or what is this environment environing? Or what about the sense organs? Are the receptors inside or outside? For a visual receptor, for example, part of its environment consists of electromagnetic radiation from outside and part of the connective tissues and fluids of the body. Is there any possibility of defining the border between these two?  

In conclusion, these considerations show that any attempt to develop an explanation of human behavior on the basis of an assumption of two systems meets considerable difficulties right at the beginning. In contrast to our common-sense impression, critical scrutiny shows that we cannot define unequivocally any of our basic concepts on this basis. We cannot simply define whether any object which we study is part of the organism or part of the environment. This follows from the fact that we are not able to show any absolute border between the organism and the environment. Consequently, we cannot define behavior as a change of the relation between the organism and environment systems and, therefore, we do not know what we are looking at when we want to explain behavior.  

How can we then maintain that, for example, information is moving from one system to the other or that it is processed within the organism? Or, how can we say that some of the events which we have described before, like mental activity, representations, maps, or models are in the organism and not in the environment? Or maybe somewhere between these two? (Järvilehto, 1998, pp. 327-9)

WWCD?

I'm not much of a fan of Chemero's objecting to giving Hegelian arguments, since I don't think it happens that often, but then again I could be wrong.  This looks like an a priori argument to me:

This example is illustrated in Figure 9.3 and can be described as follows. Imagine an organism A, whose behavior R is the function of I, A and E. For instance, A shows behavior R when A detects that E = z and 1= y. Note, however, that because of the mutual and reciprocal union of A and E (denoted by the solid lined arrows), E is also influenced by I, such that E = z is only subsequent to I = w. Now imagine that there are two observers (scientists) of A, both attempting to understand the cause of behavior R. For the first observer, E is not observed or assumed to be of little consequence. Thus, to the confusion of Observer 1, A and I do not predict R directly. I is sometimes y and sometimes some other state (z, w, v, etc.). As a result, Observer 1 discerns (after a while) that R results when I passes successively through states wand y and hypothesizes that R = I + A + (A's memory of I). In other words, Observer 1 endows A with other causal structure. In contrast, Observer 2 does observe E in addition to A and I. Thus, Observer 2 discovers (after only a short period of time) that R occurs when E = z and I = y. As a result, Observer 2 concludes that R is a direct result of the total system, R = I + A + E. That is, Observer 2 makes no hypothesis about "other" cause, internal to A, as such cause is not required. This example, though somewhat obvious in its simplicity, is by no means trivial, nor is its facetious criticism of traditional theory unjustified. To be blunt, when organism is considered separate from environment, and the partial system (organism) deputizes for the whole system (organism and environment), there is a tendency to fashion explanation through variables that are beyond immediate observation. Gratuitous appeals to internal states as explanations of everyday behaviors exemplify this tendency.  (Richardson, Shockley, Fajen, Riley, & Turvey, 2008, pp. 165-6).

Now, I guess I don't care so much about the fact that the argument is a priori or that it is a thought experiment.  I do think this is a caricature of, say,  the cognitivist view, so it would be nice to have some references to cognitivists who have actually made this mistake.  They could be out there.  I haven't read everything.

Moreover, what is wrong with explanations through variables that are beyond immediate observation?  Doesn't science regularly appeal to  the unobservable to explain the observable?

And, won't everyone agree that gratuitous appeals to internal states as explanations of everyday behaviors are bad?  They are, after all, gratuitous appeals.  In fact, isn't the issue about internal states really about whether the appeals to them are gratuitous in the first place?

Organism-Environment Systems are the Proper Units of Analysis

This is Principle I of the Ecological Psychology of Richardson, et al. 2008.  I guess the main thing one might take exception to here is the idea that O-C systems are the proper units of analysis.  It's one them to propose them as proper units of analysis, but the (only?) proper units?