Schema-Centred Unity and Process-Centred Pluralism of the Predictive Mind

Abstract

Proponents of the predictive processing (PP) framework often claim that one of the framework’s significant virtues is its unificatory power. What is supposedly unified are predictive processes in the mind, and these are explained in virtue of a common prediction error-minimisation (PEM) schema. In this paper, I argue against the claim that PP currently converges towards a unified explanation of cognitive processes. Although the notion of PEM systematically relates a set of posits such as ‘efficiency’ and ‘hierarchical coding’ into a unified conceptual schema, neither the frameworks’ algorithmic specifications nor its hypotheses about their implementations in the brain are clearly unified. I propose a novel way to understand the fruitfulness of the research program in light of a set of research heuristics that are partly shared with those common to Bayesian reverse engineering. An interesting consequence of this proposal is that pluralism is at least as important as unification to promote the positive development of the predictive mind.

Scientists Invent New Hypotheses, Do Brains?

“…The short answer is that this seems a big concession to make with respect to PP's aspiration to explain action, perception, and “everything in between.” The longer answer is threefold. First, as Poth (2022) convincingly argues, a mere resemblance of basic concepts (e.g., “hypothesis” or “prediction”) and parallel activity (e.g., the minimization of prediction errors) do not suffice to qualify as a process‐centered unification. Cognitive‐level hypotheses invoked by some Bayesian models differ in nature from neurobiological architecture‐inspired hypotheses, despite the similarity in terms.…”

“…Accordingly, PP is taken as a general theoretical framework that can be used to derive formal, quantitative models that yield testable predictions about all different neurocognitive phenomena. If, however, the PP framework should be interpreted less ambitiously, possibly as being a useful toolbox that encompasses a common conceptual framework and a useful set of general algorithms (Colombo & Wright, 2018; Litwin & Miłkowski, 2020b; Poth 2022), then our argument only states an open question—one that proponents of PP do not yet claim to address. In Section 5, we reply to an objection concerning this more modest unificatory ambition, and thereby indirectly defend the first premise.…”