How Would the World Look if It Looked as if It were Encoded as an Intertwined Set of Probability Density Distributions?

Michael Madary

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00419

Abstract

How Would the World Look if It Looked as if It were Encoded as an Intertwined Set of Probability Density Distributions?

Highlights

One emerging theme in the philosophical literature is that perception involves implicit anticipation of the way appearances change (Noë, 2004; Siegel, 2006; Madary, 2012)
We can plainly observe the changing appearances of static properties and we are surprised when appearances do not change as they should. This point raises the tricky question of the relationship between personal level surprise, on one hand, and the sub-personal prediction error, known as “surprisal,” on the other (MS5)
Personal level surprise is an experience with which we are all familiar, and sub-personal surprisal is a key component of the approach that Clark is exploring

Summary

Introduction

One emerging theme in the philosophical literature is that perception involves implicit anticipation of the way appearances change (Noë, 2004; Siegel, 2006; Madary, 2012). A straightforward way to handle this task is to represent properties by implicitly anticipating how appearances of those properties will change as we move. It would be natural, following Clark and others, to account for perceptual anticipations in a probabilistic manner.

Results

Conclusion