The Interface Theory of Perception

[C C]

Erwin Schrödinger: "The world is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is convenient to regard it as existing objectively on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence. Its becoming manifest is conditional on very special goings-on in very special parts of this very world, namely on certain events that happen in a brain." --What is Life? Mind and Matter ... Cambridge University Press, 1959, page-1

The Interface Theory of Perception: The Future of the Science of the Mind?
https://featuredcontent.psychonomic.org/...-the-mind/

EXCERPT: If you believe in evolution, you must then believe that the world we perceive is not the world we actually inhabit. Not even close. The objects we see or hear or touch do not exist independently of the mind that constructs them. Our perception is nothing more than a useful fiction. This is the core of Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash’s Interface Theory of Perception [...] The idea is far from new. Indeed, philosophers have entertained it for centuries. But Hoffman and colleagues give the theory some empirical teeth and force us to take it seriously, along with its mind-blowing implications.

The empirical teeth come in the form of evolutionary game simulations and genetic algorithms to model natural selection. Scenarios were set up in which the probability of the evolution of different perceptual strategies could be assessed. [...] The result of many such simulations under a range of scenarios is strikingly consistent: fitness wins every time and truth goes extinct. In fact, truth never gets on the evolutionary game board.

This should be no surprise. How could evolution favor veridical perception if the truth doesn’t help make babies? It can’t unless it does so accidentally (i.e., it’s a spandrel), which is highly unlikely given the complexity of our perceptual systems, or unless truth and fitness are monotonically related. Hoffman and colleagues offer arguments for why truth and fitness are generally unlikely to be monotonically related, for example, the need for homeostasis in biological systems. I can offer, in addition, a simple example. It is quite difficult to invoke “truth” to explain species-specific sexual attraction (humans are attracted to humans, baboons to baboons), whereas fitness considerations readily explain why beauty is in the eye of the (species) beholder.

Hoffman et al. call their model the Interface Theory of Perception (ITP) and illustrate it intuitively using a graphical user interface analogy. The desktop display of your computer shows a set of icons representing files, folders, operations (such as trash/delete), and apps. You don’t take that interface literally. You understand that your latest manuscript isn’t literally a little rectangle sitting in a clutter of other little rectangles in the upper left corner of your display. Rather that little rectangle is just a convenient icon that represents your manuscript. Similarly you understand that if you drag that little rectangle to the trashcan in frustration, the rectangle isn’t literally in the trashcan. Rather, the desktop is a convenient means to interface with the underlying reality of your computer.

It’s useful because it hides the truth and presents instead a set of user-friendly shortcuts for writing papers, sending messages, and manipulating photos. Notice too how notions of causality play out in the interface. The cursor, the little rectangle, and the trashcan icons themselves have no causal power. It’s not the movement of the rectangle icon to the trashcan icon that causes the file to disappear; it’s the underlying electric currents and switches that actually have causal power. We understand this because sometimes something goes wrong with our GUI and a successful move of an icon from one place to another results in no actual effect (e.g., the drive doesn’t eject). Perception, Hoffmann et al. argue, is precisely the same: what we experience is nothing more than a set of species-specific icons, user-friendly shortcuts for staying alive and reproducing. Similarly, there is no causal power inherent to the objects we perceive. It appears that a tennis racquet can cause a ball to move, but that is nothing more than a juxtaposition of icons in our interface. The real causal powers are hidden from us, according to ITP... (MORE)


Consciousness and the Interface Theory of Perception by Donald D. Hoffman, Ph.D.
http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/Chapter17Hoffman.pdf

EXCERPT: Questioning fundamental and widely believed assumptions is no easy task. Such assumptions are widely held for good reason, and it is natural and healthy that new proposals, such as are offered here, should be met with skepticism. In this last section, I canvas a few objections and offer responses.

Your interface theory of perception is clearly false. It says that physical objects are just icons of a species-specific interface, and, thus, are not real. But if a bus hurtles down a road at high speed, would you step in front of it? If you did, you would find out that it is not just an icon, it is real, and your theory is nonsense.

The interface theory of perception does indeed assert that physical objects are simply icons of a species-specific perceptual interface. Still, I would not step in front of the bus for the same reason I wouldn’t carelessly drag a file icon on my desktop to the trashcan. Why? I don’t take the icon literally, but I do take it seriously. The color, shape, and position of the icon are not literally true descriptions of the file. Indeed, color and shape are even the wrong language to attempt a true description. But the interface is designed to guide useful behaviors, and those behaviors have consequences even if the interface does not literally resemble the truth. Natural selection shaped our perceptions, in part, to keep us alive long enough to reproduce. We had better take our perceptions seriously. If you see a tiger, keep away. If you see a cliff, don’t step over. Natural selection ensures that we must take our perceptions seriously. But it is a logical error to conclude that we must, therefore, take our perceptions literally.

As discussed before, the interface theory of perception fits well with QBist interpretations of quantum theory, which say that we should not take quantum states literally as descriptions of an objective reality independent of the observer. Thus, the interface theory is not falsified by current physics but instead fits well with and even offers evolutionary explanations for puzzling aspects of quantum physics. The objection uses the world real. This word is used with two very different meanings. In the objection, it is used to mean that something exists even if it is not observed. So, the bus is argued to be real in the sense that it would exist even if no one observed it. But there is another sense of real, as when I say I have a real headache. The headache would not exist if no one (e.g., me) observed it. But if you claimed on those grounds that my headache wasn’t real, I would be cross with you. So the interface theory says that physical objects such as a bus are real in the headache sense of real. But it denies that they are real in the sense of existing whether or not they are observed.

OTHER OBJECTIONS AND RESPONSES IN SPOILER (plus predictions)

Doesn’t the interface theory say that the moon is only there when you look? That’s clearly absurd.

Yes, the interface theory says that the moon is only there when I look. However, the interface theory does not deny that, when I see the moon, something exists whether I observe it or not. But that something is not the moon, and it is probably not anything in space and time. Space, time,and the moon are just the best that I, as a humble member of the species H. sapiens, can come up with. There is a reality that exists independent of my perceptions; the interface theory does not endorse metaphysical solipsism. But it is an elementary mistake to assume that what exists in any way resembles what I perceive. The moon is my perceptual experience. When you see the moon, you have your own perceptual experience that is distinct from (not numerically identical to) my perceptual experience. So when we both look up at “the moon” there are actually two moons, one of your experience and one of mine. There is something that exists that triggers each of us to create an experience of the moon, but that something, in all probability, does not resemble the moon.

Actually, the interface theory is nothing new. Physicists have been telling us for decades that objects are mostly empty space. That desk looks solid, but it is really just particles whizzing through empty space at high speeds. Indeed,physicists have been telling us this for some time. But the claim of the interface theory is different, and more radical. It says that the particles themselves, and the empty space through which they travel, are not the objective reality. They are still part of the interface. Suppose I admit that the icon on my desktop is not the reality of the file, but then I whip out a magnifying glass, look closely at the icon, and conclude that the pixels I see are the reality. I’ve made a fundamental mistake. The pixels are still part of the desktop interface and they don’t resemble the real file any more than the icon does. The same is true of the particles whizzing through empty space.

The interface theory of perception means science is not possible. If our senses don’t deliver the truth, then how can science possibly proceed?

The interface theory poses no problem to science. It simply says that one particular theory is incorrect, viz., the theory that objective reality consists in part of space, time, and physical objects. Discarding false theories is genuine scientific progress. Now that we know not to take our perceptions at face value, we can be more sophisticated in their interpretation. We now understand that our perceptions are shaped by natural selection to inform us about fitness, not truth. We can still construct theories about the nature of objective reality and about how that reality relates to our perceptions. We can then make empirical predictions that can be tested. The methodology of science is not called into question by the interface theory.

You use evolutionary game theory to conclude that our perceptions do not report the truth. But how about our logic and mathematics? Does evolution also shape them to be incorrect? And if so, isn’t this a defeater for your whole program? You use the logic and mathematics of evolution to conclude that logic and mathematics are unreliable.

I agree that if evolutionary games show that natural selection favors incorrect logic and mathematics, then I have a real problem. It would be self-refuting. This is clearly an important research area. I think, however, that it will turn out that the same evolutionary games which demonstrate that natural selection does not favor true perceptions will also demonstrate that natural selection favors true logic and mathematics. Suppose, for instance, that the objective world contains two resources and that the fitness payoff of these resources, for a specific organism, depends on the sum of the resource quantities. Then an organism whose perceptual system performs the sum correctly will be better able to reap the fitness benefits of those resources than one that does not. More generally, if the fitness payoffs are some function _f_ of structures in the objective world, then selection pressures will shape organisms to correctly compute _f_. There are a couple provisos. First, the selection pressures will only shape organisms to correctly compute the portions of _f_ that are, in fact, relevant to fitness. If, for instance, the payoff function rewards only one element of the range of _f_ and gives no rewards for any other elements of its range, then an organism that only correctly computes the pullback of that single element will be able to reap all the fitness rewards. However, as the behavioral repertoire of the organism increases and other elements of the range of fare rewarded for different behaviors, then the organism will need to correctly compute the pullbacks of these elements as well. Thus, the selection pressures are toward truth, even if, in practice, they don’t get all the way there. A second proviso is that it is not clear that selection pressures will uniquely determine the range of a function. It appears that, as long as all the pullbacks are computed correctly, they can be randomly assigned (even incorrectly) to different elements of the range, and the organism can still reap all the fitness benefits. Thus, it might turn out that selection pressures are toward the truth, but only up to automorphisms of the range of functions. Now I have been speaking of logic and math as they apply in the normal functioning of our perceptual processing, not as they are used in our deliberate reasoning. It is quite possible that our deliberate reasoning has evolved not as a guide to truth but simply to serve some other useful function. Dan Sperber and his colleagues, for instance, argue that reasoning evolved to allow us to devise and evaluate arguments designed to persuade others about what we want. The goal of our reasoning is successful argument, not truth. And this, they suggest, is one reason for the notorious confirmation bias in human reasoning.The ideas discussed here have implications for long-standing debates about whether evolution is compatible with the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable. Plantinga, for instance, argues that evolution and naturalism together make it improbable or inscrutable whether our cognitive faculties are reliable; this, he says, is a defeater for all our beliefs, including beliefs in evolution and naturalism.

But the ideas discussed here suggest that the question must be refined if we are to make real progress. Asking whether evolution is likely to produce reliable cognitive faculties is too broad a question. Perhaps evolution produces untrue perceptions but reliable logic and mathematics. We shall have to look at each aspect of human cognition separately and ask, using tools such as evolutionary games and genetic algorithms, what natural selection is likely to do with that aspect. When you dismissed the integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness, you dismissed the measure Φ of integrated information, which may turn out to be useful in the study of consciousness. This is a serious mistake. I did not dismiss IIT tout court. I dismissed Tononi’s claim of identity between consciousness and Φ. That claim is false, as is established by the scrambling theorem. But I am certainly open to the possibility that Φ will turn out to be a useful measure in the study of consciousness. If so, it can be applied within the formalism of conscious agents. The Markovian kernels within that formalism are amenable to IIT analyses such as effective information and Φ.Your interface theory of perception and conscious-agent theory of consciousness make no predictions and are thus not genuine scientific theories. Here are some predictions. No physical object has real values of dynamical physical properties (such as position, momentum, spin) when it is not observed. If we find definitive evidence otherwise, my theories would be in ruins. The experimental evidence so far is that quantum objects violate Bell’s inequalities, which is often interpreted as a refutation of local realism; such an interpretation is exactly what is predicted by the interface theory of perception. However, other interpretations such as Bohm’s, which keeps realism at the expense of locality, and Everett’s, which keeps realism at the expense of counterfactual definiteness, are not ruled out.

Another prediction: No physical object has any causal powers. I call this doctrine epiphysicalism: Consciousness creates physical objects and their properties, but physical objects themselves have no causal powers. This is the converse of epiphenomenalism, which claims that physical objects,such as brains,create conscious experiences, but conscious experiences themselves have no causal powers. If any physical object were shown to have causal powers, my theories would be in ruins.

Another prediction: Every perceptual capacity can be represented by the conscious-agent formalism. If there were some perceptual capacity whose formal statement could not be represented within the formalism of conscious agents, then the conscious-agent formalism would be falsified. This claim about conscious agents and perceptual capacities is analogous to the claim that is made about Turing machines and effective procedures. The Church-Turing thesis states that every algorithm can be instantiated by some Turing machine. Were someone to produce an algorithm that could not be so instantiated, then the Church-Turing thesis would be falsified, and Turing machines would be an inadequate representation of algorithms. Similarly, the Conscious-Agent thesis states that every perceptual capacity can be instantiated by some conscious agent. Were someone to produce a perceptual capacity that could not be so instantiated, then the Conscious-Agent thesis would be falsified. The Conscious-Agent thesis is effectively the claim that conscious agents are an adequate formalism to represent all conscious perceptual experiences.

-2013-

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/dqDP34a-epI

[Magical Realist]

Truly a profound and evocative thought that we see and move around in a universe of 3D icons that we are connected with in some deep and hidden way. I grasp the mug of coffee in my hand and take a sip. The iconic brew of warm energizing liquid flows into my iconic body. We think we know what happened. But it's all mysterious goings on in a video game landscape as it were. Where does the coffee end and I begin? The interfacing of external experience with internal being. Illusory separateness collapsing into primal transforming oneness.