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Notes and Slides

Ramiro’s Challenges

1. Why hold on to the idea that infants represent objects?

2. How is core knowledge about objects rediscovered during development?

Sorry, haven’t made any progress with this.

1

reason 1

Kellman & Spelke (1983, p. figure 13 (part))

Kellman & Spelke (1983, p. figure 13 (part))

‘there is always some sort of featural information available that could be used to distinguish events according to the numerosity of the involved objects: all perceptible numerical differences have corresponding featural differences’

Hildebrandt, Lonnemann, & Glauer (2020, p. 4)

Why was this kind of finding so convincing?

Distinction 1: logical possibility of an explanation vs test of competing hypotheses

Spelke and others presumably do not regard themselves as making it logically impossible to explain their findings in terms of representing features. They do, though, regard themselves as finding results incompatible with the previous theories. (See figure §2.7 for an illustration. Could also compare Tollman on cognitive maps.)

2

[preliminary step]

✓

Postulating object indexes presupposes, and so cannot explain, object individuation (Hildebrandt et al., 2020)

‘object indexing [cannot] explain how a sensory input that is not yet structured into objects is processed in a way that enables object individuation’ (Glauer & Hildebrandt, 2021, p. 3845)

How to Represent Objects

1. There is a set of principles which can be used to implicitly define a* notion of object.

Not necessarily the same notion of object that you or I have. (Why think of it as a notion of *object* at all? There might be a range of considerations that support this. One is that it resembles another notion that is uncontroversially a notion of object. Another is that it plays, for the system in question, the role that)

2. Starting with information about the arrangement and movements of surfaces in space, we attempt to:

specify the locations and boundaries of objects in such a way as to make all the priniciples true; and

specify cross-temporal identity relations in such a way as to make all the priniciples true.

Spelke’s Principles of Object Perception can be used to specify a model of physical objects.

(The principles are not actually true, but it is not incoherent to suppose that they are. And the way the relevant aspects of the world would be if they were true is the model.)

There is a system of object indexes and the Principles characterise how the system operates.

The model is how relevant aspects of the world would have to be in order for the system of object indexes to be perfect. (It captures how things are from the point of view of the system.)

If we want to understand the world *from the point of view* of an individual or a system (that is, if we want to understand how relevant aspects of the world would have to be for the system to be optimal), then we need to identify a model specified by the principles that describe how that individual or system operates.[^cf-glauer-ontology] [^cf-glauer-ontology]: Is this (Steve’s) notion of models and points of view compatible with Ramiro and Frauke’s notion of *ontology*: ‘‘inner workings’ centrally involve how the environment is structured by young children—which we will call their ontology. Generally, a cognitive system’s ontology concerns how the cognitive system structures its environment.’ (Glauer & Hildebrandt, 2021, p. 3827)? One difference seems to be that sharing ontologies is explained in terms of using ‘the concepts involved [...] according to the rules’ whereas the notion of a system’s model can be explained without invoking concepts at all. Sharing an ontology also involves being able to make distinctions (Glauer & Hildebrandt, 2021, p. 3834).

‘Individuation of [...] objects requires a concept of identity.’

(Hildebrandt, Glauer, & Kachel, 2022, p. 162)

might skip this

‘3-year-old children [...] have severe problems understanding the identity relation that the key that opens the snake’s cage is the same as the key that opens the lion’s cage. The ability to understand this identity relationship develops as children become able to understand false belief.’ (Perner, Mauer, & Hildenbrand, 2011, p. 476).

But why think the adult system is already present in infants?

Because of the method of signature limits.

it’s not just about object indexes

objects may also be represented motorically

implication

inconsistent triad

1. ‘there is always some sort of featural information available that could be used to distinguish events according to the numerosity of the involved objects: all perceptible numerical differences have corresponding featural differences’ (Hildebrandt et al., 2020, p. 4)

2. ‘If we are to distinguish object individuation from feature processing, we need to find tasks in which spatiotemporal identity criteria are used independently of features. An experimental paradigm [...] would thus have to exclude the possibility that the tasks are solved based on feature processing alone.’ (Hildebrandt et al., 2020, p. 7)

3. There is a broadly perceptual system which represents objects.