TY - JOUR
T1 - Information, Cognition, and Objectivity
AU - Fresco, Nir
N1 - Funding Information:
Deep thanks go to all those who have contributed to this article through lively discussions and invaluable comments on earlier versions. They include Fred Adams, Joseph Agassi, Jack Birner, Patrick Butlin, Matteo Colombo, Joe Dewhurst, Lotem Elber-Dorozko, Tomer Fekete, Ram Gal, Eva Jablonka, Arnon Levy, Olimpia Lombardi, Tom McClelland, Michaelis Michael, Garrett Mindt, Jonathan Najenson, Philip Pettit, Diane Proudfoo, Oron Shagrir, Phillip Staines and Marty Wolf. Thanks are also due to several anonymous reviewers and anyone else whom I may have inadvertently omitted. The participants in the Edelstein colloquium at the Hebrew University in 2015, the Klagenfurt Written Word Symposium, and at the NCH Mind and Brain Conference in London are gratefully acknowledged. This research was partly supported by a research grant from the Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption as well as stipendiary fellowships from both Sidney M. Edelstein Centre for History and Philosophy
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
PY - 2021/7/1
Y1 - 2021/7/1
N2 - The idea that the brain is an information processing system raises some challenging questions about whether information exists independently of brains. Answering these questions is relevant for clarifying the theoretical foundations of the sciences of mind and brain, but also for appropriately interpreting and evaluating the evidence about how brains—and other biological systems—work. This article claims that (1) informational descriptions in the sciences of mind and brain can be genuinely explanatory, despite assuming a mind-dependent notion of information; and (2) that either Popperian objectivity or response-dependence in normal receivers is sufficient for grounding the explanatory role that information often plays in these sciences. Hierarchical predictive processing, which has become a central theoretical framework for neurocognitive research, is used as a case study for supporting these two claims.
AB - The idea that the brain is an information processing system raises some challenging questions about whether information exists independently of brains. Answering these questions is relevant for clarifying the theoretical foundations of the sciences of mind and brain, but also for appropriately interpreting and evaluating the evidence about how brains—and other biological systems—work. This article claims that (1) informational descriptions in the sciences of mind and brain can be genuinely explanatory, despite assuming a mind-dependent notion of information; and (2) that either Popperian objectivity or response-dependence in normal receivers is sufficient for grounding the explanatory role that information often plays in these sciences. Hierarchical predictive processing, which has become a central theoretical framework for neurocognitive research, is used as a case study for supporting these two claims.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126740005&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Article
SN - 0003-0481
VL - 58
SP - 251
EP - 268
JO - American Philosophical Quarterly
JF - American Philosophical Quarterly
IS - 3
ER -