Dissertation
In defense of exploitable information
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Autumn 2019
DOI: 10.17077/etd.005248
Abstract
This dissertation considers the core concept of cognitive science, ‘Information’. The use of intentional terms like ‘belief’ or ‘desire’ in the mainstream literature of cognitive science depends on the idea that ‘information’ is the essential organizing concept for understanding how living systems work. A fundamental underlying thought of Darwinian evolution is that cognition and biology are ‘continuous’ in that there are principled ways of capturing the similarity of information processing across species, or among conspecifics. By studying the information processing of simple cognitive systems (e.g., the bug-catching system of frogs, the bacterial chemotactic system, etc.), I try to theorize those principled ways so as to give a theory of mental representation that can be used for understanding the human mind.
The main topic of dissertation is the naturalization of intentionality. By intentionality, I mean a state of mind where the state is about some worldly-affairs, such as objects or events. By naturalization, I mean the project of explaining how a mental state gets its meaning in the terms that we already understand, specifically terms of biology and cognitive sciences. In the dissertation, I focus on attempts to naturalize the intentionality of simple representational systems, such as the chemotactic system of bacteria.
I defend the theory advanced by Nicholas Shea that determines content by the idea of (Shannon- inspired) exploitable information. Roughly put, exploitable information refers to a probabilistic correlation between two things, where the reason that the correlation exists can be explained by some ecological aspects pertaining to the evolutionary history of the representational system under consideration. For example, chemotaxis is the multi-level componential activity, where the input (e.g., receptors’ binding to chemical ligands)-output (e.g., flagellar motor rotation) mapping is explained by the transitions between representations (i.e., chemotactic states). Given the theory, to explain chemotaxis is to find the relevant evolutionary ecological background conditions that maximize the information transmission between input and output devices. In the dissertation, I argue that we must determine contents of sub-personal representations by the notion of exploitable information.
I also argue that this theory metaphysically justifies the use of representations in biology and cognitive sciences. In order to apply a theory derived from the analyses of simple systems to the case of full-blown mental representations, we must show that, for instance, the chemotactic system is a genuine representational system despite the fact that chemotaxis is not conscious, inferential, and/or conceptual. Moreover, chemotaxis may not be considered a genuinely representational phenomenon if the use of representations in microbiology metaphysically depends on the research interests of microbiologists. In the dissertation, I argue that the notion of exploitable information allows for capturing one single correct description of the representational processing for chemotaxis that is not in the eyes of the beholder.
In chapter one, I explain that simple representational systems can serve as the theoretical basis for the bottom-up approach to full-blown mental representations, such as beliefs and desires. In chapter two, I clarify the scope and limitation of natural-selection-based teleosemantics. Chapters three and four discuss the cutting-edge natural-selection-based teleosemantic theories developed by Nicholas Shea and Karen Neander respectively. In chapter five, I argue that Neander’s version has a problem while Shea’s version does not fall prey to that problem.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- In defense of exploitable information
- Creators
- Hyungrae Noh
- Contributors
- Carrie Figdor (Advisor)Richard Fumerton (Committee Member)Gregory Landini (Committee Member)Gualtiero Piccinini (Committee Member)David G Stern (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Philosophy
- Date degree season
- Autumn 2019
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.005248
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xv, 166 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2019 Hyungrae Noh
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- color illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-153)
- Public Abstract (ETD)
Philosophers generally agree that the capacity to represent things in the world is the mark of the mental. For instance, the fact that I can have a desire to eat pecan pie implies the fact that I am a mental being. To explain human behavior by referring to contents of mental states, such as ‘pecan pie’, is to take semantic properties of mind into psychological explanations. Cognitive scientists refer to contents of states of simple systems (e.g. the bug-catching system of frogs or the chemotactic system of bacteria) to explain animal behavior (i.e. ethological explanations). For instance, microbiologists take the chemotactic swimming of bacteria as the behavioral outcome of processing chemotactic states about ambient chemical concentration so as to decide whether to swim towards chemical attractants or away from chemical repellents. A philosophical question arises: given the similarity between psychological explanations and ethological explanations, for example, does a bacterium has a mind? Cognitive scientists, however, do not have an answer because cognitive science simply takes the existence of semantic properties for granted. The content question has been largely left to philosophy.
In this dissertation, I defend the view that simple organisms do have mind in that there is no metaphysical difference between the existence of semantic properties of the mind of simple organisms and that of human beings.
- Academic Unit
- Philosophy
- Record Identifier
- 9983779899202771
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