Metaphysics with ChatGPT: An excursion into order using LLM

In order to receive information from the environment we are equipped with sense organs e.g. eye, ear, nose. Each sense organ is part of a sensory system which receives sensory inputs and transmits sensory information to the brain. A particular problem for psychologists is to explain the process by which the physical energy received by sense organs forms the basis of perceptual experience. Sensory inputs are somehow converted into perceptions of desks and computers, flowers and buildings, cars and planes; into sights, sounds, smells, taste and touch experiences. A major theoretical issue on which psychologists are divided is the extent to which perception relies directly on the information present in the stimulus. Some argue that perceptual processes are not direct, but depend on the perceiver's expectations and previous knowledge as well as the information available in the stimulus itself. This controversy is discussed with respect to Gibson (1966) who has proposed a direct theory of perception which is a 'bottom-up' theory, and Gregory (1970) who has proposed aconstructivist (indirect) theory of perception which is a 'top-down' theory. Psychologists distinguish between two types of processes in perception: bottom-upprocessing and top-down processing. Bottom-up processing is also known as data-driven processing, because perception begins with the stimulus itself. Processing is carried out in one direction from the retina to the visual cortex, with each successive stage in the visual pathway carrying out ever more complex analysis of the input. Top-down processing refers to the use of contextual information in pattern recognition. For example, understanding difficult handwriting is easier when reading complete sentences than when reading single and isolated words. This is because the meaning of the surrounding words provide a context to aid understanding.

PLoS computational biology, 2009

According to the integrated information theory, the quantity of consciousness is the amount of integrated information generated by a complex of elements, and the quality of experience is specified by the informational relationships it generates. This paper outlines a framework for characterizing the informational relationships generated by such systems. Qualia space (Q) is a space having an axis for each possible state (activity pattern) of a complex. Within Q, each submechanism specifies a point corresponding to a repertoire of system states. Arrows between repertoires in Q define informational relationships. Together, these arrows specify a quale—a shape that completely and univocally characterizes the quality of a conscious experience. Phi— the height of this shape—is the quantity of consciousness associated with the experience. Entanglement measures how irreducible informational relationships are to their component relationships, specifying concepts and modes. Several corollaries follow from these premises. The quale is determined by both the mechanism and state of the system. Thus, two different systems having identical activity patterns may generate different qualia. Conversely, the same quale may be generated by two systems that differ in both activity and connectivity. Both active and inactive elements specify a quale, but elements that are inactivated do not. Also, the activation of an element affects experience by changing the shape of the quale. The subdivision of experience into modalities and submodalities corresponds to subshapes in Q. In principle, different aspects of experience may be classified as different shapes in Q, and the similarity between experiences reduces to similarities between shapes. Finally, specific qualities, such as the ‘‘redness’’ of red, while generated by a local mechanism, cannot be reduced to it, but require considering the entire quale. Ultimately, the present framework may offer a principled way for translating qualitative properties of experience into mathematics.

2000

Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2010

Two traditions have had a great impact on the theoretical and experimental research of perception. One tradition is statistical, stretching from Fechner's enunciation of psychophysics in 1860 to the modern view of perception as statistical decision making. The other tradition is phenomenological, from Brentano's “empirical standpoint” of 1874 to the Gestalt movement and the modern work on perceptual organization. Each tradition has at its core a distinctive assumption about the indivisible constituents of perception: the just-noticeable differences of sensation in the tradition of Fechner vs. the phenomenological Gestalts in the tradition of Brentano. But some key results from the two traditions can be explained and connected using an approach that is neither statistical nor phenomenological. This approach rests on a basic property of any information exchange: a principle of measurement formulated in 1946 by Gabor as a part of his quantal theory of information. Here the indivisible components are units (quanta) of information that remain invariant under changes of precision of measurement. This approach helped to understand how sensory measurements are implemented by single neural cells. But recent analyses suggest that this approach has the power to explain larger-scale characteristics of sensory systems.

1998

Preface. List of Contributors. Historical Perspective. Control systems with a priori intentions register environmental disturbances a posteriori (W.A. Hershberger). William James, chaos theory, and conscious experience (A.R. Bailey). Systems theories: their origins, foundations, and development (A. Laszlo, S. Krippner). Systems-theoretical Models of Perception. Neural networks and perception (I.E. Dror, C.S. Schreiner). Broad mindedness and perceptual flexibility: lessons from dynamic ecosystems (W.A. Johnston et al.). Sensory capture and the projection of conscious perception (T.M. Cowan et al.). Systems-theoretical Models of Perception and Action. Perceiving one's own action--and what it leads to (B. Hommel). Intentionality, perception, and autocatalytic closure: a potential means of repaying psychology's conceptual debt (J.Scott Jordan). What do event-related brain potentials tell us about the organization of action: cognitive-psychological and biological approaches (B. K...

Frontiers in psychology, 2024

Perception & Psychophysics, 2006

2010

Students of perception have long puzzled over a range of cases in which perception seems to tell us distinct, and in some sense conflicting, things about the world. In the cases at issue, the perceptual system is capable of responding to a single stimulus—say, as manifested in the ways in which subjects sort that stimulus—in different ways. This paper is about these puzzling cases, and about how they should be characterized and accounted for within a general theory of perception.

The world around us is full of uncertainty that must be resolved for survival. Thus, a fundamental question 8 in perception science is to explain how humans estimate physical quantities from multiple sensory cues . 9 Recent studies have shown that human observers make certain sensory judgments that are optimal from 10 a statistical perspective. This conclusion is particularly well supported when a single quantity can be 11 estimated from multiple sensory cues [2]. A highly successful model of sensory cue combination was 12 proposed where the final fused estimate is a positively weighted average of the component cue estimates.

2010

of the considerations of examples from psychophysics that are discussed here first came to my attention while I was a visiting scholar at the Center for Adaptive Systems at Boston University in 1993. I would also like to thank Anthony Jack for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article, and for directing me to Donald Laming's books.

Biological Cybernetics, 1989

An algorithm which can be realized by synergetic systems and which was introduced by one of us (Haken 1987) for the recognition of patterns is extended so that the perception of ambiguous patterns can be modelled. In this approach so-called attention parameters are subjected to a damping mechanism mimicking the effect of saturation of attention. In this way oscillations of perception arise quite naturally. Our approach takes also ambiguous patterns with bias into account which leads to different periods of the attention paid to the one or the other interpretation of the pattern. Our results are in good agreement with previous psycho-physical studies by other authors. Finally we show how hysteresis of perception can be modelled.

In terms of Cognitive Sciences, it is important to understand that cognitive phenomenons and perceptional differentials. Realistically speaking, a number of humans prefer to trust their five senses to perceive the world. Yet, is it possible to perceive the reality genuinely that simple? Maybe, one or two century before, general thought about perception could see everything at that easy but in this century, with respectable foundings of scientific research, we know that there is a lot of cognitive phenomena which affects our perceiving ability. The same that applies to our consciousness as well. A great deal of research about consciousness describes a lot of terms about conscious and unconscious states which we encounter in our daily life and their influences on perception. The topic is whether Consciousness or Perception or just their relations between them, every each one involves their own questions. For discussing them in every aspect, understanding the academic studies about them may be a great starting point. In this article, We will try to clarify these two big clusters as much as we can, based on some of that studies. This edition can be defined as an article review edition. The writings within has a goal that making more clear a few studies that have been written about those subjects and also has a goal that stays strictly dependent on those studies which we made a review all along the process. Yet, it has no specific purposes like adding a new hypothesis or some studies on them.

2021

Any cognitive experiment involves two subjects. One is the mind of the person being tested, the other is the information involved in the test. While each influences the other, these two need to be analyzed separately for a full understanding of the cognitive processes to emerge. This is because information on its own displays properties which may be confused with the workings of a mind. The work presented here looks at information as an independent entity. Without any involvement of the mind, information forms patterns and regularities which manifest themselves during cognitive experiments. Information can arrange itself within a multidimensional space and depending on the number of dimensions exhibit different characteristics. It is shown here that information analysis allows for the reproduction of some elementary cognitive processes like short-and long-term memory, chunking, long term memory categories, the formation of convictions, decision-making processes and mechanisms responsible for the formation of understanding. It is therefore argued here that some cognitive experiments do not relate to the workings of a subject's mind but instead relate to the properties of information itself.

If we want to learn something about the reality we meet, we should know something about the way we capture it or how the meeting with reality is constructed. This work, however, doesn’t just look at a neuroanatomical, cognitive–psychological description of receptors and mechanisms of sensory reception, but also offers deeper thoughts about the conditions and mainly about the consequences of higher cognitive processes tied to perception. The text thus walks a line between general and cognitive psychology and philosophical epistemology while trying to map not only the origins of percepts, what influences them, but mainly where and how our perception convictions originate and the total concept of reality we live in. The obvious intention of this exploration is not only to present a package of basic facts and theories, but also to encourage the reader to think about and to problematize the perception processes and consequences.