[SydPhil] MQ Philosophy Talk: Tuesday, Oct 2, Daniel Burnston, Moot Court

[Karola Stotz]

*Causal and Semantic Relationships between Cognitive and Sensorimotor
States*



Daniel Burnston



Date: Oct 2

Time: 13:00-14:00

Venue: Moot Court, W3A (6 First Walk)

All welcome



*Abstract*:

Several popular theses posit causal relationships between cognitive and
sensorimotor states.  The cognitive penetration thesis holds that the
content of perceptual states is influenced, in specific ways, by one’s
background beliefs.  Modern interpretations of the causal theory of action
suggest that actions begin with a process of propositional practical
reasoning, which culminates in a discrete intention.  The content of the
intention must then be “propagated” to the motor representations that
actually implement the action.



These views posit “content preserving causal processes” that begin with
cognitive states and culminate in sensorimotor ones, where the content of
the sensorimotor state comes to closely “match” the content of the
cognitive one.  I argue that perception and cognition should be
distinguished in terms of their representational format – cognitive states
have a lexically structured content, whereas perceptual and motor states
embody dimensions that represent the structure of their referents.  I then
draw on data from cognitive linguistics to argue that, while there are
causal relationships between cognitive and sensorimotor states, content
“matching” is an implausible view of the semantic relationships between
them.  The actual semantic relationships are too diffuse, probabilistic,
and associationist to support cognitive penetration and the causal theory.
Finally, I apply these arguments to perceptual expertise and skill
learning.



Contact: Karola Stotz (karola.stotz at mq.edu.au)

Dan will be at MQ all day that day, so please contact me if there is
interest to meet him.


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-- 
Karola Stotz
Senior Lecturer, TWCF Fellow
Philosophy Department
Macquarie University
karola.stotz at mq.edu.au
https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/VWPFCgZowLHk7Kj7hNslL4?domain=karolastotz.com

[image: Macquarie University] <http://mq.edu.au/>

Honorary Associate
Unit for History and Philosophy of Science
University of Sydney
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