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    It is more parsimonious to assume that chimpanzees can un... — Carmelics
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    Home/Skepticism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    It is more parsimonious to assume that chimpanzees can understand what others can and cannot see (mindreading) rather than assuming chimpanzees have learned a different behavioral rule for every relevant situation involving a competitor's line of gaze.

    Consciousness & MindSkepticism
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Chimpanzees use information about what a competitor has visual access to in order to decide whether to go for a reward.
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    • 2.Positing a single capacity for understanding others' visual access requires fewer assumptions than positing that chimpanzees have learned a distinct behavioral rule for each relevant situation involving a competitor's line of gaze.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Parsimony in hypothesis selection requires that the simpler hypothesis actually have equal or greater predictive power, not merely fewer posited entities.
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    • 2.Behavioral rule-learning accounts, formalized by Heyes and others, predict chimpanzee gaze-following data at least as well as mindreading accounts without invoking unobservable mental state attribution.
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    • 3.When two hypotheses have equivalent empirical adequacy, invoking Occam's razor to favor the mentalistic one inverts the principle, since 'mindreading' posits additional unobservable intentional states.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.The 'single capacity' framing of mindreading smuggles in theoretical unity that has not been independently established for chimpanzee cognition.
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    • 2.Dennett's heterophenomenological critique establishes that inferring a unified intentional system from behavioral flexibility conflates the intentional stance with genuine mental state possession.
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    • 3.A genuinely parsimonious account must not assume the cognitive architecture whose existence is precisely what is at issue in the debate over animal mindreading.
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    Topics

    SkepticismConsciousness & Mind

    Key Terms

    Behavioral rule(as used in animal cognition and philosophy of mind)
    A learned pattern or habit that an animal follows in response to certain situations (in this case, how a chimpanzee acts when it sees another animal's eyes pointing in a particular direction).
    Parsimonious(as used in philosophy of science and logic)
    Simple and avoiding unnecessary complexity; preferring the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions or extra moving parts.
    Parsimony / Occam's Razor(as used in philosophy of science and epistemology)
    A principle that says when you have two competing explanations for something, you should choose the simpler one that makes fewer assumptions.
    mindreading(Philosophy of mind; simulation theory)
    The cognitive capacity to represent others' mental states

    Connections

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    Perception1 linked

    Related

    A genuinely parsimonious account must not assume the cognitive architecture whos...Behavioral rule-learning accounts, formalized by Heyes and others, predict chimp...Chimpanzees use information about what a competitor has visual access to in orde...Dennett's heterophenomenological critique establishes that inferring a unified i...

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: cognition-animal
    View source passageHide passage
    These different notions of simplicity are not only conceptually distinct, they are often mutually incompatible or conflicting. Nowhere has this become more evident than in the chimpanzee theory of mind debate. The last few years have witnessed a huge controversy over the experimental results in this research area. A number of studies have shown that chimpanzees can use information regarding what a competitor has visual access to in order to decide whether or not to go for a reward (Hare et al. 2
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    +4 moreShow less
    Parsimony in hypothesis selection requires that the simpler hypothesis actually ...Positing a single capacity for understanding others' visual access requires fewe...The 'single capacity' framing of mindreading smuggles in theoretical unity that ...When two hypotheses have equivalent empirical adequacy, invoking Occam's razor t...

    Similar

    Positing a single capacity for understanding others' visual access req...93%It is more parsimonious to assume that chimpanzees are behavior reader...91%In a gaze-following task, chimpanzees could use an experimenter's abov...82%Children's poorer performance in the gaze-following task is evidence t...82%
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit