If all that exists is observable from a third person perspective, then do representations really exist?
We don't, after all, observe them as we do things in nature. Instead, we correlate reports given to us by human subjects with physical processes observed going on inside and/or outside of the body of the one reporting experiences. Absent such reports, the keenest observations of the correlating processes ("correlating" here relates to processes going inside and outside the human body) would not seem to be able to uncover representation or the like.
That is, one who had zero knowledge of biology but Herculean knowledge (in the Dworkian sense of the word) of the physics of non-living things would be unable to recognize representation as such, nor would that person be able to recognize any other operation that we associate with the first-person perspective (e.g., perception, being reminded of x by y, etc.). It would just look like a confusing mess. OR the Herculean scientist might be reminded of his or her own experience and say, "Hey, that reminds me of something that happened to ME..." Absent such a reflection, however, he or she would never discover that what is being looked at is a physical event correlating with reports of perception of a representation as such.
We never observe representation apart from its being either reported by someone else to us or as being available in our own reflection. And if we can never discover representation in nature apart from these first person ("Hey, that reminds me of something that happened to ME...") and second person ("Let me tell you what I experienced when you turned that lever/ let me tell you what lever I turned when you reported that experience") modes of access, then cognitive science cannot be entirely reduced to a natural science: it will always have a "social science" component.
Oh yeah: the answer to the initial question is "no"; but since representations do exist, the antecedent ("all that exists is observable from a third person perspective") is false.
We don't, after all, observe them as we do things in nature. Instead, we correlate reports given to us by human subjects with physical processes observed going on inside and/or outside of the body of the one reporting experiences. Absent such reports, the keenest observations of the correlating processes ("correlating" here relates to processes going inside and outside the human body) would not seem to be able to uncover representation or the like.
That is, one who had zero knowledge of biology but Herculean knowledge (in the Dworkian sense of the word) of the physics of non-living things would be unable to recognize representation as such, nor would that person be able to recognize any other operation that we associate with the first-person perspective (e.g., perception, being reminded of x by y, etc.). It would just look like a confusing mess. OR the Herculean scientist might be reminded of his or her own experience and say, "Hey, that reminds me of something that happened to ME..." Absent such a reflection, however, he or she would never discover that what is being looked at is a physical event correlating with reports of perception of a representation as such.
We never observe representation apart from its being either reported by someone else to us or as being available in our own reflection. And if we can never discover representation in nature apart from these first person ("Hey, that reminds me of something that happened to ME...") and second person ("Let me tell you what I experienced when you turned that lever/ let me tell you what lever I turned when you reported that experience") modes of access, then cognitive science cannot be entirely reduced to a natural science: it will always have a "social science" component.
Oh yeah: the answer to the initial question is "no"; but since representations do exist, the antecedent ("all that exists is observable from a third person perspective") is false.
Comments