Saturday, November 10, 2007

Perception as Unconscious Inference; Shades and Forms of the Same

Perception involves unconscious inference. But unconscious inference in perception takes various forms. Gary Hatfield has apparently spent much of his professional career studying the nature of perceptual inference. See here. Shouldn't people in the law of evidence -- people who profess to care about perception and about reports based on perception -- pay attention to Hatfield's work?

Much of Hatfield's work focuses on vision.

Do You Believe in Sociobiology and Law? - Chapter 5

29 London Review of Books No. 22 (15 Nov. 2007) has further responses to Jerry Fodor's jab at ultra-Darwinism. The attempted rebuttals are of diverse kinds. See Letters at id. The rebutters (people) include Jerry Coyne, Philip Kitcher, Daniel Dennett (of course), Steven Rose, Colin Tudge, and Kit Evans (on an architectural point -- spandrels v. pendentives).

I assume -- I hope -- Fodor will respond. We have the makings of an interesting debate here (but perhaps Fodor will replace references to spandrels with references to pendentives?).