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Towards a very Idea ofRepresentation

Review of Vacariu et al.'s Toward avery idea of representation

..."the debates in Cognitive Science

focus on the problem ofrepresentation. Unfortunately, thesedebates regard eitherrepresentational format(as in thecomputationalism-connectionismdebate), or the problem ofrepresentational content(as inrepresentationalism-antirepresentationalism debate), but

they are not concerning with thenature of representation. Thus onequestion legitimaly arises: how canbeyond of these debates? Ourbelieve is that what completely

misses in Cognitive Science is an


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aspects of symbolicrepresentations..."(291)

"The general theory ofrepresentation releases by Mundy isbased on structured andunstructured representations. The

unstructured representations aredifferent to the structuredrepresentations in the sense that theelements of setA are mapped toelements ofB by a functionfwich isunderstood to represents thenumerical relations of the elementsofA, but the numerical and physicalrelations are not explicitly specified

(Mundy 1986). We believe that thisconcept can capture the aspects ofconnectionst representations wichcan not be isolated, each computingunit being involved in representing

several things.


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In the case of dynamical systems

theory maybe it is improper to talkeffectively about the notion ofrepresentation. But we can identifysome structures that are preservedthrough the continuous changing

within the state space."(Vacariu etal. 2001, 291).

I will propose a content as thecontent of the very idea ofrepresentation and I will comparethe previous three idea with myidea.

For Edelman, representation is notsimilar with something fromenvironment, but it presentsimilarities between cognitive orconscious contents/informations.


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"A representation is a certain storedinformation wich stands-in for

something, its function being that ofcarrying specific information.However, the bear existence of acorrelation between a certain innerstate and some bodily or outer

parameters is not enough toestablish the representational statusof that inner state, more importantbeing the nature and the complexityof correlation"((Clark 1997)cf.Vacariu et al.2001).

I think that, there must be first orderconscious states. Even if perception

is not independent of previousexperience. At least temporally, firstorder conscious informations mustto exist.Re-presentation is,therefore, astoredconscious

information. That is why, in this


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conception, representational flowcannot be first order conscious

informations flow. The consciousfirst order flow is the fundamentalmatter of cognition.

Representational capacity->Store

capacity&Recall capacity

R(c)->S(c)&RC(c)

By the help of store capacity andrecall capacity we can representsome of the previous consciouscontents/informations both of firstorder and 1+x order.

There are people that concentratetheir atention on the study of humanvisual system, because they hadsupposed that cognitive process

advance in the folowing way:


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vision, perception, idea(cognition)

orIdea->perception->vision

However, I think that the first orderconscious material of cognition

come from all sensorial system, notonly from visual system.

On the other hand, is the idea ofatom, or that of quanta, just a simplerepresentation?

Humans arrived at this ideas afterhundreds and sometime thounsands

of years of recalls, new experimentsand free processing. And, now willbe reduced all this ideas to the veryidea ofrepresentation?


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It is clear that, in the actualscientific cognition we does not start

only with pure perception, but alsowith the fundamental theories andideas wich we gained until now. Wedo not start again from 0.

The idea ofre-presentation is acompose idea:it suggest a subjective temporal

parameter(present:time)and a recurrsive phenomenon.

Maybe, in some point of theinterval of cosmic evolution manyevents are repeated without of our

cognition about them.

It can be suitable for non-cognitivephysical events.Now, given this two characteristics

of


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the very idea of representation wefind that:

this idea is not covered by the ideaof a structual or formalequivalence.

what this idea suggest is notprimarly a similarity, as said

Edelman.this idea does not involve the

objective aspect of mentalrepresentations(Book 1999),though I agreed that cognitivstates or flow had somethingojective.

this idea does not imply somethingcognitive.

this idea does not imply specially acomplex correlation, asconsidered Clark.

All the very idea of representation

contain is the temporal-repetition


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of something wich is identic non-temporally. The present from re-

presentation is only a guidingreference/mark of time of (change).

The same physical type cause, inthe same contextual conditions,

will always give rise to the sametype of efects.

Representational(thing)do notimply Mental(thing)orR(x)do not->M(x)

Is all the human ideas

representational? No.Argument: we can form newindividual notions or ideas. Thisideas do not result by abstractionof the general features or

characteristics from a temporally


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previous set-category of notions orfirst order conscious contents. For

exemple, when an designerimagine a new race car, he create anew=non-representationalindividual idea. Of course, he usesomething from its previous

experience as material, but the newidea or image, as a whole, is not are-presentation. Much more, he canimagine a car that does notasemble with any previous car.

On the other hand, appear a newposibility:we can have similar first order

conscious mental contents.

Thus, it seems that a re-presentation can occur even at thelevel of first order conscious flow.

But, this representation is not of


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the same individual stimulus, butonly of the same type of stimulus.

Only memory can give a re-presentation of the same individualconscious content.

Identity is an idea wich involveindistighuisability.On the other hand, identity can beabsolute or relative.The idea of representation involveonly a relative identity, becausesuggest a temporal difference.That is why the idea ofrepresentation involve a temporal

non-identity.

From a physical point ofconsideration what is identic inunivers is some forms.


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For exemple, there are hidrogenatoms but they are not composed

by the same physical particles, butonly by the same type of physicalparticles.That is, some physical processesand some physical structures may

have a general-form identity.

A re-presentation is something thatcan occur both at physical abiogenlevel and at the cognitive level ofunivers, but my fundamental ideais:

there can be no an absolute re-

presentation of an instant of time.

There are people(maybeStefanescu*) wich consider thatthe study of visual system is the


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most important to understandingmental representations.

I think that, at least first ordervisual representations cannot exist,because:

the absolute first order visualconscious contents are not re-presentations. Brain'srepresentations have as acondition of posibility arecognition of an identic contentor the power to store and recallconscious contents.

if we cut the connection between

first order conscious contents andstored contents we can no detectthe identity between their type;that is, a first order visualconscious content/information

can be a re-presentation only


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relative to some storedinformation.

On the one hand, if the samebrain's areas are used in creativeimagination, however, thisimagination is not pure

representational, on the other hand,this imagination is not first ordervision.

In addition, there can be non-visualre-presentations.The conditions of the posibility ofthe cognitive re-presentations are:

the capacity of having actual

conscious contents.the capacity of store conscious

contents.the capacity of recall the stored or

coded conscious contents.


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Now, I return to the first ideasselected by Vacariu et al. to see if

they fit the very idea therepresentation.

Swoyer's idea mean an isomorphismbetween something physical and

something cognitive.

First, we see that this idea is toonarrow, because the very idea ofrepresentation not involve onlycognition.

Seccond, a correlation betweenphysical and cognitive give a real

structure image not re-presentation.Where is it the fundamentaltemporal dimension ofrepresentation. Even in the cognitivedomain we have re-presentations

that are unsuitable with the Swoyer's


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idea. When we recall an old idea were-present a stored content and here

we do not have an isomorphiccorrelation between physical andcognitive. What is in directcorrelation with physical is onlysensorial systems, but the proper

place of cognitive representations isat relation between presentconscious contents and the previousconscious contents; that is, withoutha comparation between present andpast conscious contents it isimposibile a recognition of therepetition of the identic. When wereconize a specific shade of colour,

what kind of identity we find? Astructural isomorphism? We identifya present perception with a stored orcoded previous perception, but notstructuraly.


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Mundy's idea is based on structuredand unstructured representation. The

structured representation I treatedabove. In the case of unstructuredrepresentations we have a functionbetween unspecified physicalrelations and unspecified

numerical(cognitive) relations.Fundamentally, we again have afunctional relation betweensomething physical and somethingcognitive. If the first orderconscious contents have truthlysomething in common with theirstimulus, than, because theapparition of this common involve a

minimal time and therefore atemporal difference, this contentsare, at least in some limits, re-presentations(e.g., of the sameform). But, we can recall an abstract

idea, that is there are re-presentation


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that involve the repetition of a 1+xorder conscious content. Therefore

this idea is also too narrow.

Finally, we should to consider theidea of cognitive preservedstructures. Is this idea

equiintensional with the very idea ofre-presentation?

When we recall a film that we sawwith certain years before, likeTerminator II, he have second orderconscious contents about the samestimulus.However, on the one hand, certain

images we had forget, that issuccesion of images is incomplete,on the other hand, our images areincomplete both structurally andqualitativelly. That is, some

contents that are about the same


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stimulus and at least one is a re-presentation, but they are non-

identical contents, both structurallyand qualitativelly.

That is, there are possible partial orincomplete re-presentations.

Notes

*Stefanescu Adina is a postgraduatewich received a maximumqualificative for its licence workbeing coordinated by a proffesor ofphilosophy of mind, but its workwas a synthesis of approaches of the

visual representations and visualsystem from the point of view ofcognitive neuroscience (cf. itsproffesor Paul Kun).

References


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Mundy, B.:1986, On the GeneralTheory of MeaningfulRepresentatio,Synthese67, 391-437.

Swoyer, C.: 1991, StructuralRepresentations and SurrogativeReasoning,Synthese87, 449-508.

Vacariu G., Dalia T., Vacariu M.:2001, Toward A very Idea ofRepresentation, Synthese, 129, 275-295.

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