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<p>Dear all,</p>
<p>I hope you're doing well! <br>
<br>
Many thanks to the participants of yesterday's meeting, I think we
managed to dissect the paper very thoroughly. <br>
A special thank you to Moritz for the impromptu presentation on
Bayesian Predictive Coding.<br>
<br>
In this email, I'm sending you:<br>
I. The paper and the meeting details for next week <br>
II. A *whole bunch* of notes/comments/resources regarding our last
meeting (thank you so much: Bailey, Moritz, Jonas, Flavia, Felix)<br>
</p>
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<p>I. For the next session, we are reading: <br>
<br>
(Attention: This text is a new addition to the syllabus. I changed
the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://socialcognition.phl.univie.ac.at/syllabus/">website
information</a> today.)<br>
</p>
<p>Palmer, C. J., Seth, A. K., & Hohwy, J. (2015). <b>The felt
presence of other minds: Predictive processing, counterfactual
predictions, and mentalising in autism</b>. <em>Consciousness
and Cognition</em>, <em>36</em>, 376-389. <a
href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2015.04.007"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2015.04.007</a><br>
You can download it <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810015000847?via%3Dihub">here</a>
(free access).<br>
<br>
***<br>
If you're super interested in the topic and want to be extremely
well-prepared, you can check this out, too:<br>
<font size="2">- Smortchkova, J. (2022). Face perception and mind
misreading. <i>Topoi</i>, 41(4), 685-694. (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11245-022-09823-z">access
here</a>)<br>
- Smortchkova, J. (2020). Does empirical evidence support
perceptual mindreading? <i>Thought: A Journal of Philosophy</i>,
9(4), 298-306. (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345941160_Does_empirical_evidence_support_perceptual_mindreading">access
here</a>)<br>
- Varga, S. (2018). Toward a Perceptual Account of Mindreading.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 100(2), 380–401. (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://libkey.io/libraries/2327/articles/233785982/full-text-file?utm_source=api_1269">UniWien
access here</a>)</font><br>
***<br>
<br>
As usual you’re welcome to join our session online (<a
href="https://univienna.zoom.us/j/65514918078?pwd=cVZTd2Ivb09uSUFVNTZORWFIOTA4UT09">Zoom
link</a>) or in person, at <b>NIG</b> (room <b>3B</b>, third
floor). <br>
We’re starting at <b>6:30 CET</b>. The next meeting is on <b>Tuesday</b>,
<b>June 5</b>, 2023.<br>
Newcomers are absolutely welcome*. Please join us!<br>
<br>
*Previous knowledge is not necessary to participate, but if you
have a wish to briefly orient yourself in the debate, this is a
good intro text: <br>
Fenici, M. (2017). Rebuilding the Landscape of Psychological
Understanding After the Mindreading War. Phenomenology and Mind,
12, Article 12. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.13128/Phe_Mi-21113">https://doi.org/10.13128/Phe_Mi-21113</a><br>
</p>
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<p>II. (a) Resources from Bailey on games:<br>
<font size="2"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Hey! Here’s some of the stuff on games.
<br>
<br>
The first book I had in mind was
<br>
<br>
Suits, Bernard. The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. New
York: Broadview Press, 2005.
<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be in any of the university
libraries (!), although a lot of responses to it are. Suits
provides a definition of games as the taking up of artificial
ends, which are only pursued for the sake of play. His big
(philosophical) move is to argue that that’s basically what life
is. As you can see from the title, it’s somewhat oriented
towards a popular audience. That shouldn’t deter you, though,
if you’re interested: the underlying arguments are (to me
anyway) still quite good.
<br>
<br>
This analysis has been extended to <b class="moz-txt-star"><span
class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>actual<span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b>
games in recent years by C Thi Nguyen. Most of Nguyen’s work
goes more towards aesthetics than practical reason: he’s
interested in what the constitutive features of games as an art
form are. His answer is basically Suits’: they crystallize
agency.
<br>
<br>
For Nguyen, see
<br>
<br>
Nguyen, C. Thi. “Games and the Art of Agency.” The Philosophical
Review 128, no. 4 (2019): 423–62. <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-7697863">https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-7697863</a>
<br>
<br>
Nguyen, C. Thi. Games : Agency as Art. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press, 2020.
<br>
<br>
There’s a passage on “stupid games” in the book —- games played
where the whole point is to fail — that I really like. I think
it’s in the first chapter.
<br>
<br>
Best
<br>
Bailey
</font><br>
</p>
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<p>II. (b) Resources from Moritz on schizophrenia (as promised to
Flavia) & (<i>vanilla</i>) intro to Predictive Processing:<br>
<br>
<font size="2">Here is the schizophrenia paper, which is actually
more generally about psychosis but discusses schizophrenia:
<br>
and I was wrong, there is actually still research going on and
people are publishing about it even in clinical settings:
<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811918305007">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811918305007</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-advances/article/innovations-in-the-psychopathology-of-schizophrenia-a-primer-for-busy-clinicians/7FB62E9ACFE88AE026AB3899587E39E0">https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-advances/article/innovations-in-the-psychopathology-of-schizophrenia-a-primer-for-busy-clinicians/7FB62E9ACFE88AE026AB3899587E39E0</a>
<br>
<br>
And second is PP for philosophers which is a great summary and
probably fits the reading club!
<br>
<br>
Best,
<br>
Moritz<br>
<br>
</font>[Moritz sent two attachments, you can find them below: <br>
"Vanilla PP for Philosophers" & "The Predictive Coding Account
of Psychosis" papers]<font size="2"><br>
</font></p>
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</p>
<p>II. (c) A lovely follow-up question from Jonas about Predictive
Coding:<br>
</p>
<p><font size="2">[...] for the second half of the session [I] just
pondered the following question which then never felt NOT either
out of place or too uninformed to ask:<br>
For me, predictive coding can't really actually explain new
things that "standard" approaches, which assume input x with
following computation of and reaction to x, can't. I understand
it only on a computational level of neuronal mechanisms, eg,</font></p>
<p><font size="2">classical: There's a set of {input that happens
and input that doesn't happen}. The "cognition" then goes on to
process (input that happens) and outputs accordingly.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="2">predictive coding: There's a set of {input that is
predicted to happen and input that is not}. The "cognition" then
goes on to process the (input that was not predicted to happen).<br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Therefore, both concepts work on very similar
informational bases, although kind of inverted with respect to
each other.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">"Cognition" here not referring to some
philosophical, eg, sandwich, model, but to computations
following informational output from direct sensory "perception"
(as in: hair cells get depolarized by mechanical forces etc - no
interpretation here yet). Therefore, predictive coding does
nothing more (and nothing less) then to invert the mechanisms of
brain cells firing in a more efficient way, if you will, because
it allows for quicker processing (most relevant computations
happen BEFORE an event) as well as for more efficiency (don't
process the 100 things that are always similar, but the 3 that
are new in every situation). But it does not have explanatory
reach to other issues, like explaining mind reading in terms
that "classical" approaches couldn't. For me this is two
different layers of analysis.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Why is that? It's obvious, even in standard
approaches, that after the sensory Input, a whole lot of
computations kick in. What may be termed "mind reading", either
by explicitly theorizing or by implicitly simulating as basis
would also be based on these computations, and those theories
make (to my knowledge) very little assumptions as to the
biomechanical reasons that could lead to the phenomenon of
"understanding other minds". The perception of explicitly
theorizing may arise both in "reaction" approaches as well as in
"prediction" ones, no? We don't know how that perceptional
quality arises anyway. (and of course simulationist approaches
do offer the sharing of neuronal representations as basis for
understanding - but this could just as much signal *prediction*
of how one should feel / how the other feels)</font></p>
<p><font size="2">This goes also for Andreas' example with the
"looking ahead of the moving phone" - to me that was not really
relating to predictive coding vs classical approaches, but
rather could be explained in both terms. In predictive coding
it's clear: You don't actually follow the phone, but rather it's
predicted trajectory, and react, should it diverge. But also in
classical approaches, you would get the input of the phone
moving in a circular motion, leading you to infer that it stays
on this trajectory; and this would - even in this reactionist
approach - constitute an explicit prediction that would then
have to be tested. In my mind, automatic computations based on
previously experienced events that formed patterns based on
regular occurence obviously impact computations in both cases
(reactionist and predictive) - things as "simple" as walking
prove that, without having to compute muscle movements for every
step explicitly, it follows an automatized and very
self-regulating pattern of muscles movements. Same case for
catching the ball that was mentioned. Therefore, I would argue
that classical approaches would never say: There is no
prediction (on an automatic, maybe even probabilistic, basis, in
some cases) - obviously there is! They may just (implicitly)
differentiate between prediction as (1) abstract concept and as
(2) possible neuronal computation mechanism. Therefore, for me,
the difference to predictive coding could only become visible on
the neuronal layer: In the case of the phone, is it the
staying-on-trajectory that triggers most neuronal spikes, or is
it the diverging?<br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="2">And of course, predictive coding also introduces
this concept of model generation and then probabilistically
testing and updating these models against and with "real input";
But is that concept so irreconcilable with standard approaches?
Here you may get input x, then "theorize" or "cognitize"
different possible options as to what it may mean and what may
be best, and then execute the "logically superior" alternative.
Maybe the difference here lies in more deterministic classical
assumptions vs probabilistic ones in predictive coding?<br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="2">[...] in short,<b> for me predictive coding is not
really a novel theory to explain cognitive phenomena, but
rather a novel theory to allow for more efficient computation
on the layer of neuronal firing on all hierarchies of the
brain. </b><br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Nonetheless, yesterday we talked a lot about also
what it could explain and what it couldn't. I really would be
curious - am I just not too well read in the literature (I am
not), or may there be a point to this perceived fallacious
intermingling of concepts (computational layer - reaction vs
prediction, VERSUS conceptual layer - understanding others, read
minds, simulation, ..., whereas both layers do not have
explanatory influences on each other, because it is
neurochemical VERSUS abstract concepts, whereas the latter may
or may not directly relate to actual mechanical brain function?)<br>
<br>
I guess it might have been nice to ask this yesterday, but it
just started to grow in my head mid-way and it wasn't fleshed
out enough to ask sensibly.<br>
So, erm, here is this wall of text now, because I'm CURIOUS<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Jonas </font><br>
</p>
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</p>
<p>II. (d) A paper from Flavia:</p>
<p><font size="2">Hello all!<br>
<br>
This interested me:<br>
<br>
Di Paolo, E., Thompson, E., & Beer, R. (2022). Laying down a
forking path: Tensions between enaction and the free energy
principle. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 3.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2022.9187">https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2022.9187</a><br>
<br>
It’s quite a recent paper. Maybe the rest of you would like to
check it out too. Its not SocCog oriented, but related to some
overlaying questions of yesterday.<br>
<br>
Lovely weekend everyone!<br>
F.</font><br>
<br>
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<p></p>
<p>II: (e) A meme from Felix [in the attachment]<br>
(Yes, we are making social cognition memes now! It makes me so
happy)<br>
<br>
Many, many thanks for all the resources and comments.<br>
I'm looking forward to seeing you next week. Everybody is very
welcome to join.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Martyna<br>
</p>
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