Berger and Mylopoulos (2019) critique recent scepticism about unconscious perception, focusing on experimental work from Peters and Lau, and theoretical work of my own. Central to their wide-ranging discussion is the claim that unconscious perception occupies a default status within both experimental and folk psychology. Here, I argue to the contrary that a conscious-perception-only model should be our default. Along the way, I offer my own analysis of Peters and Lau's study, assess the folk psychological status of unconscious perception, discuss (...) vision-for-action, and confront an important dilemma which Berger and Mylopoulos raise for the sceptic concerning the existence of unconscious mentality in general. (shrink)

D2.1 (PL models and assignments) i. A PL model is a pair M = 〈DM, ·M〉 such that (a) DM is a non-empty set, and (b) ·M maps each A ∈ Con to AM ∈ DM, and each B ∈ Prdn to BM  (DM)n. ii. GM = {g| g: Var  DM} is the set of M-assignments. For any g ∈ GM, u ∈ Var, d ∈ DM, g[u/d] := (g\{u, g(u)})  {u, d} is the u-to-d alternative to (...) g. (shrink)

Feeling out of place because he is the only elephant who sings, Little Elephant sets off a journey to find a home where he belongs.

If there is an inherent connection between love and generosity, between love and creativeness, as this book argues there is, then how can love itself be selfish, destructive and tyrannical? Concerned with questions about love in its different forms, this book seeks and discusses the views of writers--Plato, Proust, Sartre, Freud, D. H. Lawrence, Erich Fromm, C. S. Lewis, Kierkegaard, Simone Weil and Kahlil Gibran--who have suggested distinctive solutions to the problems which love poses in the face of its obstacles. (...) The enquiry which the book undertakes emcompasses both the conceptual and existential experience of love. (shrink)

Boehm reasons that human morality began when several heads of households formed a coalition to limit the despotic bullying of an alpha male. The logic is clear and the argument is persuasive. The premises require that: dominant individuals behave like chimpanzees, bullying their subordinates, early humans somehow developed one-male units from a chimpanzee like society and, the power of a despot is limited by group consensus and political activities. Not all alpha males behave like chimpanzees; most primate societies show little (...) evidence of bullying. One-male units are formed by some monkeys but there is little evidence of such tendencies in chimpanzees and bonobos. Hamadryas males do not compete with familiar males for females or possessions regardless of their dominance relationships, but this inhibition is not based on group consensus or coalitions repressing alpha males. Boehm's argument is, nonetheless, possible and plausible but cannot be empirically tested. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Homeostats for the 21st Century? Simulating Ashby Simulating the Brain” by Stefano Franchi. Upshot: It is a mistake to characterise Ashby’s view of life (from the 1950s) as passive, abstractly modelled in part by the homeostat; one should distinguish the stasis of homeostasis from the activity of the (model) organism. Likewise mistaken is the accusation of contingency; one should distinguish the purposeless mechanism from the purposeful (model) organism. There is no basic conflict between Ashby’s (...) view and later developments in a similar tradition; technical advances are not the same as foundational gaps. (shrink)