Most experts assume that perception estimates true properties of an objective world. They justify this assumption with an argument from evolution: Natural selection rewards true perceptions. I propose instead that if true perceptions crop u…the Rear-Mirror: Romantic Aesthetics, Culture, and Science Seen from Today. Festschrift for Frederick Burwick on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. W. Pape (WVT, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier: Trier) (Studien zur Englischen Roma…
Steven Pinker
scientist · 2 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Pinker appears in these readings primarily through his evolutionary arguments about perception, which the course texts invoke critically—particularly when counterarguments like Donald Hoffman's "Interface Theory of Perception" suggest that natural selection actually eliminates true perception rather than rewarding it. His framing of evolution as a justification for realism about perception becomes a foil for understanding how AI and cybernetic systems might operate under radically different perceptual constraints than those shaped by Darwinian fitness. The citation structure suggests the course is using Pinker's adaptationist logic as a baseline assumption to then deconstruct in thinking about machine vision and artificial cognition.
Mentioned in 1 reading
Appears alongside
People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.
Louis Narens 2Alva Noë 1D. Heyer 1Dale Purves 1Donald D. Hoffman 1Evan Thompson 1Frederick Burwick 1J.K. Regan 1K.A. Jameson 1Martin A. Nowak 1Michele Mosca 1Natalia L. Komarova 1P. Kaye 1R. B. Lotto 1Rainer Mausfeld 1Raymond Laflamme 1Stephen E. Palmer 1Steve Lehar 1Vilayanur S. Ramachandran 1W. Pape 1Brian Marion 1Brian Skyrms 1Carol Skrenes 1Chetan Prakash 1Duncan Luce 1Geoff Iverson 1John Serences 1Jon Merzel 1Joyce Wu 1Justin Mark 1