Korbak, Tomasz (2019) Unsupervised learning and the natural origins of content. [Preprint]

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Abstract

In this paper I evaluate the prospects and limitations of radical enactivism as recently developed by Hutto and Myin (henceforth, “H&M”) (2017). According to radical enactivism, cognition does not essentially involve content and admits explanations on a semantic level only as far as it is scaffolded with social and linguistic practices. Numerous authors argued this view to be indefensible because H&M’s objections against semantic accounts of basic minds are flawed and they fail to provide a positive research program for cognitive science. I investigate these concerns focusing on H&M’s criticism of predictive processing account of cognition (dubbed Bootstrap Hell argument) and their own account of the emergence of content (the Natural Origins of Content). My claim is that H&M fail in both of these fronts, which cast a shadow of doubt on whether radical enactivism is a philosophically and empirically interesting approach at all.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Korbak, Tomasz 0000-0002-6258-2013
Keywords:	Hard Problem of Content, radical enactivism, predictive processing, language models
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Neuroscience > Cognitive Neuroscience Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations General Issues > Explanation Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning
Depositing User:	Mr. Tomasz Korbak
Date Deposited:	25 Apr 2019 04:51
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2019 04:51
Item ID:	15928
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Neuroscience > Cognitive Neuroscience Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations General Issues > Explanation Specific Sciences > Artificial Intelligence > Machine Learning
Date:	2019
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15928

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• Unsupervised learning and the natural origins of content. (deposited 25 Apr 2019 04:51) [Currently Displayed]
  • Unsupervised learning and the natural origins of content. (deposited 15 Sep 2019 02:15)

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