How “weak” mindreaders inherited the earth

Abstract

That is true for humans, but it is equally true for animals, who must survive real-world challenges in environments in which errors lead to extinction. Brain evolution is not separate from the ability to observe and know the real world. On the contrary, when we are given truthful feedback about the world, humans and other animals become quite reality-based. There is no contradiction between constructivism and realism.How "weak" mindreaders inherited the earth Abstract: Carruthers argues that an integrated faculty of metarepresentation evolved for mindreading and was later exapted for metacognition. A more consistent application of his approach would regard metarepresentation in mindreading with the same skeptical rigor, concluding that the "faculty" may have been entirely exapted. Given this result, the usefulness of Carruthers' line-drawing exercise is called into question.Carruthers' recent work on metacognition in the target article (and in Carruthers 2008b) can be seen as an extended exercise in "debunking" metarepresentational interpretations of the results of experiments performed on nonhuman animals. The debunking approach operates by distinguishing "weak" metacognition, which depends only on first-order mechanisms, from "genuine" metacognition, which deploys metarepresentations. Shaun Gallagher (2001; 2004; with similar proposals explored by Hutto 2004; 2008) has been on a similar debunking mission with respect to metarepresentation in human mindreading abilities. Gallagher's position stands in an area of conceptual space unmapped by Carruthers' four models, which all presuppose that an integrated, metarepresentational faculty is the key to mindreading. Gallagher argues that most of our mindreading abilities can be reduced to a weakly integrated swarm of firstorder mechanisms, including face recognition and an ability to quickly map a facial expression to the appropriate emotional response, a perceptual bias towards organic versus inorganic movement, an automated capacity for imitation and proprioceptive sense of others' movements (through the mirror neuron system), an ability to track the gaze of others, and a bias towards triadic gaze (I-you-target). Notably, autistic individuals have deficiencies throughout the swarm.Someone pushing a "metarepresentation was wholly exapted" proposal might argue as follows: Interpretative propositional attitude ascription is a very recent development, likely an exaptation derived from linguistic abilities and general-purpose conceptlearning resources. Primate ancestors in social competition almost never needed to think about others not within perceptual range; in the absence of language which could be used to raise questions and consider plans concerning spatially or temporally absent individuals, there would have been little opportunity to demonstrate third-person mindreading prowess. After developing languages with metarepresentational resources, our ancestors' endowment with the swarm would have left them well placed to acquire metarepresentational mindreading and m...

Moving Ourselves, Moving Others: Motion and Emotion in Intersubjectivity, Consciousness, and Language

“…The thought that primary intersubjectivity is the full explanation, for example, the basis for Carruthers (2009b) criticism. He focuses on what Buckner et al (2009) happily call "a weakly integrated swarm of first-order [sensory-motor] mechanisms," i.e. those aspects that constitute primary intersubjectivity, and he claims that "Appealing just to sensorymotor skills (as Gallagher does) is plainly inadequate to account for the flexibility of the ways in which adults and infants can interact with others" (p. 167).…”

Scanning the Lifeworld

“…Although Honneth emphasizes the importance of joint attention and emotional attachment as an essential aspect of this development, he leaves aside the full complement of what Buckner et al (2009) have called the "swarm" of interactive capacities found in primary intersubjectivity. Interaction theory, integrating the rich set of capacities of primary and secondary intersubjectivity (as well as narrative competency), presents a fuller picture of what constitutes intersubjective interaction than that acknowledged by Habermas or yet by Honneth.…”

Getting interaction theory (IT) together

“…But some proponents of ToM approaches have started to take an interest in phenomenology, and some have acknowledged that phenomenologists correctly describe aspects of our lived experience (e.g. Buckner, Shriver, Crowley & Allen 2009;Gallese 2005). However, the general reaction is still to dismiss such phenomenological insights as irrelevant for explaining social understanding, because the essential processes are deemed to be a purely sub-personal affair that is independent of lived experience (e.g.…”